Blonde Ivory

Chapter One: Shiloh Levitsky

Shiloh Levitsky (Lead Singer of Blonde Ivory)

Have you ever wished for your dreams to come true? I am not allowed to dream. My father, Grigoriy Levitsky, a tough Russian lawyer who has no time for funny business especially dreams, highly reprimands those who have their heads in the clouds.

Or in this case, people who dream.

I like to humor myself about the possibility of me dreaming as a child. I do not remember dreaming of anything, but I am sure I had dreams. How could I not? I did not have the self control that I do now. I imagine they were horrifying, just like the ones I have now.

Perhaps of me falling from a small building and hitting the ground; going swimming in the Pacific Ocean and getting eaten alive by a shark, or getting into a car crash and falling into a coma that I never awake from.

Even now, at eighteen-years-old, I try not to dream. My father must think it has become a self-taught skill by now. I always end up dreaming though. Just last night I dreamt that I was strapped down on a wooden table, slowly having my skin cut off, and anytime the pain got too much and I felt the urge to scream, my knees would get smashed in with a meat pulverizer.

To say that I absolutely do not want my dreams to come true would be an understatement.

When I was little, around five or six, my dad used to make us eat breakfast in silence. He would read the newspaper, hardly touching his freshly-made pancakes or bacon. None of us would be allowed to speak until he finished reading. It felt like years that we had to wait for him to set the paper down and look back and forth between my fraternal twin sister and me.

"Did you have any dreams last night, bushka?" He would ask us both in a timid tone. We both learned in time what the correct answer was.

"No, Papa." I was a fast learner. I had to be. If not, I would have ended up like my sister when she slipped up  the first and only time.

She would explain a dream she had. I would note that her dreams were a lot more whimsical and not at all horrifying. He would stare at her with unfeeling, cold eyes. My mother would watch him as he watched my sister.

The scene still plays in slow motion in my mind. I remember every detail. I remember where each dust particle floated delicately in the air; my father's breaths speeding up; my mother's breath hitching in her throat. I remember the refrigerator clicking on and off with the nuisance of a buzzing noise. I also remember the fork falling out of my left hand as I looked between my mother and father. 

Things like that were hard for a kid like me to forget.

That is what Kasey, our drummer, finds incredibly annoying yet interesting about me. I have an excellent memory. I remember the small details that so many people easily overlook. I think it is much more of a flaw. There are so many things I wish I could forget.

Like my dreams.

"She is lying,  Aren't you, Sodom? Just pulling his leg, right, baby?" My sister was not as understanding of my mother's warning tone. She shook her head and reexplained her dream, going into vivid detail this time.

Before she could finish her in-depth explanation of it, my father snapped up from his seat and walked to the hall closet where he kept his leather belts. I try not to remember the cries of my confused sister as she was being beaten with the belt. 

It is hard to forget her blood-red cheeks and the tears streaming down her face. It is also hard to forget her begs for him to stop or for mom to stop him. It is even harder for me to forget my mother shaking her head with a sullen expression as she downed the rest of her breakfast.

My father is different now. He does not ask anymore. Thankfully. Nearly a year ago, I accidentally had a dream, a dream that didn't scar me mentally and awake in a puddle of sweat, and I was scared to death that my father would ask about it. 

He did not.

If you know my name, then you know that I have given countless stories of this dream and it seems as though I am doing it once more. I am Shiloh Anne Levitksy, lead singer of the band Blonde Ivory and this is the story everybody finds so interesting.

The dream I had those many months ago? My band and I would be playing a show in Madison Square Garden. Sometimes I wish it had been just a simple dream; that nothing would have come of it; that I could go on living a normal life in San Francisco, going to a normal high school, graduating in a year, and going to college to follow in my father's footsteps.

Not that being a lawyer is my dream job by any means. I just know that my father would not have paid for my tuition or let me live 'under his roof' if I was going to school to be anything other than a lawyer. My mom too. She was going to beauty school a long time ago, after she had us, but my dad wanted her to be a lawyer too so she dropped out and went to 'real school'.

Now both my parents are lawyers and super unbiased about it.

However, this was not just any dream. This dream came true. I would honestly call it more of a premonition. In fact, far more happened than just Madison Square Garden. We went on tour with the worldwide famous band Firelight Moon, and Blonde Ivory is currently creating our very first album. We have thousands, even millions of fans all over the world.

It is kind of weird what dreaming can do. At least, when it is not about my lungs filling up with water and then feeling as though they are going to explode-- and then waking up to the gift of vomit in my hair.