Black Lotus

4 - The Human Analysis

June 1, 2016 | Wednesday

My head was pounding, my throat felt scratchy, and last but not least, my brown orbs were bloodshot red. Last night I got no sleep whatsoever due to the fact that I have mild insomnia and I hadn't remembered to refill my prescription. So my night consisted of tossing and turning until three or four in the morning.

The week was halfway over but the thought of going to school still bothered me. Graduation was well on the way here and so was summer. This year I was granted the opportunity to intern at Ethereal Magazine as a writer. Ethereal had to be my favorite magazine ever since I was a child. They covered a lot of topics and issues in the black community and I appreciated that a lot. A few months ago in February, Saminah Trinity, the CEO and founder even personally requested that there be an article on Ocean since he was a community activist.

"Oasis," my mother burst into my room, "you're going to be late for school come on!"

"I'm coming," my voice croaked while in attempt to drag myself out of bed.

"Wait, hon you look sick. Maybe you should stay home. Lemme take your temperature. I'll go get the thermometer."

So I got back into my bed. And my mother soon took my temperature, which was 101.4 degrees. I was burning up. She said she'd call the school in advance and tell them that I would be absent. Once again I would be at home all alone. But as always, that wouldn't be a bad thing.

Ocean came into my room to fix his tie since my bedroom mirror was the biggest one in the house. Today he was scheduled to meet up at the mayor's office due to that huge outburst at the mayor's ball the other day.

"So I guess I won't be driving you to school today," Ocean stated as he fixed his shirt collar.

"No. I'm sick. My temperature is over 100 degrees," I huffed.

"So Mom's getting you a baby sitter I suppose?"

"I'm too old for that, I'm 17 years old."

"Too bad," my father peeked his head through the door, "Zhané is coming here to watch you."

I internally sighed. Zhané was our neighbor who lived across the street. I never understood why Mom and Dad saw her as responsible; she was 19 and just as reckless as Grand Central Station during rush hour. The words "responsibility" and "Zhané" had absolutely no correlation. Every time she watched me something bad happened. But the real reason that she wanted to be around me was to get to Ocean. And knowing that Ocean was very protective over me, she tried her best to remain in my good graces. However, she wasn't the type for Ocean. Ocean was too revolutionary and outspoken for her. He wanted an Erykah Badu or Assata Shakur, not a Cardi B or Nicki Minaj. Her attempts to be fake conscious and woke didn't faze Ocean one bit.

After everyone left the house I turned on the television and watched reruns of Living Single, waiting for Zhané to arrive. Finally, I heard the doorbell ring so I put on my slippers and went to meet her at the front.

Rubbing my eyes, I swung open the door. Zhané stood there. If we're going to be honest I really wanted to slam the door in her face and go back to bed. As soon as she came in she started to talk my head off about all kinds of topics that I didn't care about. In example, what she was going to wear tomorrow, her celebrity crushes, and why she wanted Hillary Clinton as our next president (ew).