Tales of Nothing

Sunday

For Celestia, the weekend always disappeared before she even realized that it had begun. The people in her class always rejoiced on Fridays; "Wooo, finally the weekend!", "I can finally sleep in!", "No more school!". Celestia always rolled her eyes at these outcries. You'll be back on Monday, you dimwit is what she thought to herself. Why must the week be divided into week and weekend, good and bad? It all seemed pointless to her. In fact, to Celestia the days were endless. One day ended, another began, that day ended, then wow, surprise surprise, another day began.

On this particular day, Celestia had done:
• Nothing
To be specific, she woke up at 4:00 AM, after having another nightmare. She lay awake for approximately 2 hours and 7 minutes until she couldn't possibly bare another second of staring at the bleak ceiling above her.

She walked down the hallway to her vibrant kitchen.

"I'm brightening up the kitchen, darls. Hopefully, it'll lift your spirits, make you happier, yanno?" her mum had told her months earlier, to which Celestia replied with "Mmkay, sure."

Celestia slipped a piece of bread into their fluorescent orange toaster and fumbled sleepily for a plate. For a moment Celestia felt as though she wasn't in her kitchen, she was nowhere. Her mother had told her that this was down to tiredness or daydreaming, but Celestia was quite unsure. It was happening a lot lately and usually didn't end very we-
Smash!
The plate shattered on the tiles. Celestia sighed, knowing what was coming next.

"CELESTIA FLORENCE CARMICHAEL, DID YOU JUST BREAK ONE OF MY PRISTINE SNOWY WHITE CERAMIC PLATES™?"

"Uh-huh," called Celestia in a who-cares-whatever kind of tone. "They were just from Kmart anyway," she added under her breath.

"What did you just say?"

Celestia's mother, Joy, walked into the kitchen in her blue, loose-fitting dressing gown and her hair tangled in a bun at the back of her head. Unlike Celestia, Joy had honey blonde hair which hung halfway down her back in smooth waves. Her petite mouth was nearly always coloured a bright scarlet and skin was smooth as a dinner plate. Celestia, however, had dark hair which came down to her waist, but as she barely took care of it, it was very knotty and scraggly. Her skin was acne-ridden and her lips were usually chapped and red. The only thing the pair had in common was their bottle green eyes.

"I said, THEY WERE ONLY FROM KMART ANYWAY!" Celestia roared. Just something about her mother's whiny voice, her manufactured beauty and her plastic personality made Celestia burn with fury.

"How DARE you!" screamed Celestia's mother, the scream having been perfected during her acting career on the soap opera TV show, Love at a Price. Joy happened to play a character named Darlene Dixon, who throughout the course of the show had gone through her fair share of nasty divorces, car crashes and mysterious people suddenly appearing at her home claiming to be her long-lost sibling. This had caused the real-life Joy to be quite dramatic and act as though she was always in this TV show of her's. It had also caused her to be quite rich.

"Oh my goodness Mum, relax! Just go and buy some more with your everlasting salary!"
Celestia never understood why her mother bought generic, chain store, plain white dinner plates. Or why she bought most of their cleaning supplies from the dollar store.

Joy spluttered and stared at Celestia with her overly-shadowed eyes, sweat clumping up some of her foundation and going so red that putting on blush that morning was completely pointless.

"Go to your room."

Later...

I know that I suck. I'm worthless. Why am I even writing this down? I'm such a waste. I disappoint everyone. I'm so replaceable. Even my dad doesn't care. I'm so disgusting that my own father doesn't care if I am dead or alive.

That little voice in her head was raring away, all the things that it'd said over the past six months were being etched in her cheap 50c notebook from the supermarket, which she'd gotten a week earlier after deciding that she was going to do something about her depression. And what a fantastic help that has been. It had just cleared more space in her mind for that little voice in her head to think of more faults in her existence. The strange thing is that the voice was always her; a really, spiteful version of herself. Whenever she tried to tell it to shut the heck up, it would fire back:

Are you really arguing with yourself? Pathetic. Your existence is such a sad, sad waste.

That ball of unwarranted guilt in her stomach curled even tighter. Why must she always feel like this? Why? Why couldn't she just be normal like every other person her age? How come everyone else seemed to be able to feel bright and happy and get over their insecurities and fears? WHY WAS SHE SO DIFFERENT TO EVERYONE ELSE?