Prom

Haze

Amy wandered towards town, swaying gently. She didn't notice the color of the sky. All she could smell was a high sweet stinging tinge of metal. Her throat was dry. A car whizzed pass and the wind rocked her. There was a trailing honk, and she realized she was walking in the road. The car's break lights lit up red and it slowed and Amy felt anticipation in her chest and adrenaline tense up her thighs but then the car sped up again and drove off down the dark grey road. Nobody else was in sight.

She kept walking, picking up one foot and putting it heavily in front of the other, almost tripping. She felt uncoordinated and wanted a drink so badly. She heard the noise of a car behind her and stopped walking, turned around. It was a blue Honda Civic. The driver was hard to make out in the dingy light of the morning but Amy didn't care. Drivers had blood, it was how they operated. She stood in the middle of the road and waited for the car to come to her. She spread her arms and smiled, but as she watched the car made a wide arc around her and kept driving. She felt a dull disappointment. Her teeth twinged. She turned to follow the shrinking tail lights.

She took turns at random and passed yellowing lawns covered with drifting garbage and abandoned tricycles. Once she drew up near a fenced-in yard and heard the high, urgent yapping of a small dog. She could see it through a gap in the slats. A little terrier, white with black spots, that came up to around her calf. She kneeled down to look at it. It trembled but would not back down. It barked. It was the first living thing Amy had seen since she had started walking. But it was so fragile, like something made of pipe cleaners and felt. There would be no blood in it at all. It disgusted her and she looked around to find a rock big enough to bash its head in but there was nothing. She kept walking.

Her headache had gotten stronger and she was lost in that when small spots began to appear on the sidewalk. At first she thought she was imagining things but then she realized it was rain. It was cold and it felt like ice when it got into her eyes. But then some touched her lips and she licked them and realized it tasted fresh. She stopped walking and looked around.

She felt very confused now. What was she doing here? She remembered walking, but couldn't remember why. She had been in the guidance counsellor's office, and he had asked her some questions. Something about a boy in her class, and about cards. And then she had left. But why? She remembered her teeth had hurt, too, and she had been very thirsty, but all she felt now was a pounding in her head and a growing sense of anxiety in her stomach.

She knew she had to go back to school. She had gotten herself way off into suburban no-man's-land, and she took a more direct route back. She passed by a medical complex and watched a tired nurse push a slumped old woman in a wheelchair along an exposed walkway on the building's side. A plump plastic bag with a needle running into the woman's withered upper arm slapped against a metal pole fastened to the wheelchair. A sense of sickness penetrated Amy's headache. She knew something was wrong with her. How long would it be before she would be there too? But her eyes caught for a moment on the bandaged patch on the woman's arm where the needle went in and she felt something like desire that she quickly pushed down within herself.

When she made it back to school it was already fourth period. Fourth period was French class with Madame Perri. She was a compact woman with a regularly proportioned, serious face like a 50s propaganda poster. She always wore long sleeves but sometimes when she moved her right arm high on the chalkboard to write you could see the head of an ugly, mounded line of scarring running from her wrist to somewhere on her arm.

Amy came into the room still panting. Nineteen student heads shifted from their textbooks to look at her, their disinterest barely dented. Amy felt like a specimen. Her head had gotten worse and she could feel the rain dripping from her hair onto the floor. Madame Perri was still looking straight ahead into the classroom.

In front, she said in her harsh, clipped French. Amy walked in front of her desk and faced her, her back towards her classmates. She knew they all eyes were on her and she wished she were still outside, in the rain. Her stomach twisted. Madame Perri was wearing a crisp white shirt. On the left half of the wall behind her, as always, the French flag sat above the school flag, featuring the Rock Ridge Bluejay. On the right half sat the blackboard. Today it featured a precise and angular diagram of a guillitine. Amy's eyes wandered over the slanted edge of its blade and felt a disturbing thrill down the back of her neck for an instant. 

You're late, Bluejay, said Madame Perri in French. She did not seem angry but there was an unmistakable tone of disapproval in her voice. It was the same way whenever anybody was late, but this time it made Amy feel worthless. She lowered her eyes.

I'm sorry, madame.

Care to tell us why?

Amy couldn't and was embarassed that she couldn't. She shook her head, then winced involuntarily when this made the throbbing worse.

Typical. You'll report here for detention this afternoon. Understood?

Amy felt a twinge of fear at the word "detention" that she couldn't quite explain. In her mind, handcuffs glinted and clicked. But she didn't want to think about it. She nodded to show she understood and turned to find her seat. The other students avoided her eyes, and some were smirking, but she didn't care. She was run down and queasy and it was such a relief to be able to sit down at her desk, second from the left in the back row, and collapse.

A.N. - Just added some new beginning chapters ("Visitation I" through "Development"). Go check them out and let me know what you think!