Ain’t Slept in Weeks
A response to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Winter 2011.
My life was modeled after Jane Austen and Beethoven, at least, that was what I presented or told to anyone who wanted to inquiry. Really, I sustained myself on Lewis Carroll and Portishead. Part of the reason may have been my mother, and the other might have been because I was perpetually enrolled in all-girl boarding schools. The only time I had freedom was during summer when mother had to let me back in her house. Perhaps, I should use freedom lightly as mother always had me running from appointment to appointment: violin lessons, etiquette lessons, dress fittings, and pageants. She always had me in pageants. Seems to be that since her looks had faded that she’d push me into living her dreams for her. She said that they were my dreams, but they weren’t. No, my dreams were far more vivid.
It was August and I had just paraded around stage in a much too revealing bikini to be judged like cattle. That was when I had enough. No more talent portion, no more evening wear portion, and certainly no poise or bikini portion. I didn’t even bother to strip off the ridiculous bikini when I put on my powder blue dress with the horrendous sparkles and ran out of the convention center. There was no plan; I was simply hoping that someone would give me a ride away from this horror show. I waited near a stop light and threw out my thumb. A VW van pulled over and the scraggly bearded man in front asked me if I wanted to go to the other side of nirvana. At that point, I would much rather be in Newark than here. The side door slid open and a blonde girl in a tie dye poncho opened the door and I hopped inside.
The van smelled of herbs and some kind of oil. Everything looked like a black velvet painting. The blond girl looked at me her pupils wide as saucers and asked if I ever rolled. Sure, as a young girl I rolled down hills with my girlfriends. She giggled and shook her head. Not that kind of rolling, and held out her palm. In it was a tiny oblong item with a red casing. This will open you to a whole new world, she told me. Like Through the Looking Glass? Yeah, but hurry we are much too late, she smiled. I swallowed the pill and felt a pit in my stomach.
The trees so vividly green. They were melting. Leaves dripping licorice. Sky burning, red, orange, yellow. Someone turned the contrast up way too high. The is a flood of chicken noodle soup. Mother wouldn’t like that. Not. At. All. A turtle is flipped on its back. It can’t get back to the road. The bearded man is pulling the wings of faeries. Their screams sound like out of tune mandolins. I try to grab the tuft of the colossus beard. Much too flimsy.
I fall.
Deeper.
