Knucklebones, Cheekbones, Brokenheartbones

Wham.

Stars burst, checkerboarding across my vision. For a couple seconds, I can't hear the music or the roaring crowd, don't see the big green field or the stage. I forget that Jackie Ghost and the Busters are wailing their best song just twenty yards away, which is impossible since I've been dying to see them live since I was thirteen. For a second, I even forget that just eight seconds ago I was kissing Lola Ramirez, which is impossible since I've been dying to taste her chapstick-flavored lips since I was fourteen. I forget that three seconds ago I heard Lola's boyfriend Dustin make a small dry sound of shock, this little puff of grief escaping out of him like steam.

I forget. There's just me and the white sparks behind my eyelids.

Heat blossoms on my cheek like a firework - pretty colors and a dizzying moment of wonder before the loud pop of pain crashes over me. I zigzag backwards a few steps. Strangers' hands reach out to steady me, fingers reach gently toward my cheek, curl back again before they touch skin, and I can hear sympathetic hisses from between wincing teeth.

The stars melt and drip out of my eyes, mixing and burning with the bright coppery blood that's leaking down my face. My eyebrows frown but my mouth smiles, wide and stupid, bright and crazy.

I can hear Lola screaming at her boyfriend, her weird cello voice saying she can't believe he'd hit a girl, saying she can't believe she ever wanted to be his. He's surrounded by a tightening noose of people, strangers united in righteousness. He looks suddenly winded and small. He's not made to deal with confrontation. In the rocketship mess of my brain, I feel a little stab of pity, seeing him stand there, skinny chest and fear in a vintage tee.

My cheek throbs and there's a moment of vengeful Batman pleasure that snarls along with the muttering crowd. But there's a little of my blood on his wimpy knuckles, and he's standing puppy-huddled like he's under a helicopter search light, and he's radiating heartbreak and confusion the way you can tell some people are drunk even when they're just sitting quietly, and Lola is holding my hand, and I try to get my zipping kaleidoscope thoughts to line up into words.

They get away from me, though. They just sizzle and sway around my body, lodging somewhere in the small of my back, or in the sole of my foot.

I don't know what I would have said anyway. Sorry I stole your girlfriend sort of by accident? Sorry my face got in the way of your desperate hopeless rage? Sorry everyone thinks you're a jerk now? Sorry I'm actually the jerk but no one will think so because you hit me and that makes me a hero, kind of? Sorry Lola will kiss the cut on my cheek to make it better?

I really am sorry. All of me except the palm I'm sharing with Lola. That part's electric lemon happy.

He's shrinking like an octopus, withdrawing into a secret hole in the universe. But I can feel him, I know he's going to run from the crowd, about to try to outdistance Lola's scorn. I know because I'm  him. Seeing Lola with Dustin and James and Heather  and Luke and all the others, I was tired and wounded and vicious and weak, like him.

His eyes flick around, as harsh and afraid as gunshots, looking for a gap in the closing mob. They meet mine for just the skin of a second, and I'm so sorry that my whole body shakes like a struck wineglass, high and singing and sad. There's nothing much in his eyes besides an animal fear. He's got that air of cat sorrow - a furtive, flinching shame and anger.

And then he's diving away, and the crowd starts to smear after him, and a noise happens at my mouth.

"Stop."

Heads turn. Eyes stick me with needle stares. Lola's hand tightens on mine.

There's a long moment of nothing.

And then we all remember that we're at a concert, drinking expensive cheap beer, our feet getting sore, our voices getting hoarse from singing along to our favorite songs. Needles recede.

Just like that, everyone forgets the time that one guy punched that girl.

Except me, the lightning lemon feeling spreading up my arm and into my ribcage and down my spine and into my brain.

Except Lola, soft and tempting and dangerous beautiful.

Except Dustin, brokenheartboned and bloody-knuckled.

The Joke

What's black and white and red all over?

Your face after I punched it because you kissed Suzy Flanders behind the bleachers at the Homecoming Game. You thought I wouldn't be there because I don't like sports, but you forgot all about my big sister in the marching band. Ba-da-le-da ba-da-da-da-da dum dum went the drumline. Pow! went my fist, all comic-book loud and vibrant, straight into your formerly-perfect nose. I bruised my knuckles, but as the blood dripped over your lips I knew it was worth it. You became nothing more than a punchline, and my broken heart hurt a little bit less.

Palette

Red. White. Black.

These are Snow White's colors. Even idiots know that.

But what if on the day the Evil Queen was getting ready to put her devilish plan in motion, the only apple that her minions could find was a Granny Smith? And despite her yelling and threatening and then actually turning people into mice, she was stuck with a green apple?

People with black hair do not look good next to that shade of green. Snow White would look washed out and sickly.

She would have to be blonde, and probably tan as well.

The palette would be spring instead of winter. Snow White collapsing on the beach while the dwarves are off at their beach volleyball game.

It would throw everything off. The story would be ruined. Tiny, raven-haired children would be denied their only role model. The fairy tale world would collapse.

Next time, the Evil Queen should plan ahead, make sure she can get a Red Delicious. She knows the importance of color.

Red Delicious

Darcie talked big. She loved attention, loved surprising people, loved riling up the haters.

She was shaped like an apple. Perfectly round, with little skinny legs and soft skinny arms. A pretty face perched on top of a happy-pumpkin-body. The kind of body you expect to see wrapped in a cheesy holiday-themed vest, teaching kindergartners. The kind of body you expect to see pushing the beverage cart down the aisle on one of the cheaper airlines.

But Darcie started fights in bars, laughing pink-cheeked and reckless at the mayhem. Darcie made jaded men blush. Darcie won Amateur Night competitions at the local strip club, Jugs. Darcie was shaped like an apple, all right - the apple that started all sin.

Die Young

Clarice looked at the next question on the career test:

27) Imagine you lived in a glass house. What sort of landscape would you prefer to see outside your windows?

     A) Streets

     B) Fields

     C) Skyscrapers

     D) Castles

     E) Sea

     F) Sky

What the hell kind of a question is that? First of all, streets and skyscrapers and castles aren't exactly landscapes. They are built upon land--by definition, not part of the land. Sea and sky aren't really land, either. Is this a trick question? Are you supposed to say "fields" because it's the only actual type of landscape in the list?

And what do landscapes have to do with potential careers anyway? If she selects B, does that mean she'd make a good farmer? If she selects C, should she become a Wall Street tycoon? Hell no. Clarice hopes the test isn't that transparent, but she wouldn't be surprised. For all their big talk, adults are fucking dumb.

Where's "dirt" on this list?

     G) Dirt

That's what she'd select if she could. All Clarice wants to do is graduate from high school, move to a big city and end her life in some glamorous way, like a heroin overdose or slit wrists. She doesn't want to have a career at all. She doesn't want to grow old and tired and pathetic.

She selects C, since cities are the best place to die young. 

So it begins....

He liked to climb tall buildings.

Ascending slowly, flight by flight, each step an effort, his lungs burning, thighs straining against the exertion, forcing himself to stop at each landing to catch his breath. He liked the struggle, the slow plod upwards towards the summit. The climb allowed him to forget his small life, how insignificant he was to everyone around him.

When he got to the top, he would stand there, wheezy and full of phlegm, gazing out on whatever landscape there was. Streets, fields, skyscrapers, castle, sea, sky, it didn’t matter. It was the height he craved, the perspective. At the top, everything made sense. 

He wasn’t the man he normally was, translucent with silence and doubt.

He was Alexander, weeping because there were no more worlds to conquer.