Random Prose


I just had to keep breathing. Inhale, exhale, one way in and out the other. That’s how it always was with me. In moments of distress, I always relied on doing whatever I knew how to do best at the time. Mostly that was breathing. So that’s what I did, and I did it well, considering I’m here telling you all of this. Some days, regardless of the story, I think you just have to be proud that you’re there to simply tell it. And that is why, my friend, I’m here.

When looking back at your life, regardless of how old you may be, there is always that point that defines the “before” and the “after”. If you’re seven, it might be before and after you learned how to ride a bike. If you’re seventy, it may be before and after you got married, if you’re lucky enough to remember back that far in the first place. Either way, you always have certain memories, scents, music, people, clothing attached to that period of your life. No one will ever be able to take that away from you. I haven’t decided yet if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but either way, what I had was mine and I was going to have to learn how to live with it, even though it appeared as though I had been doing that all along. But I digress.
It was sophomore year at Rosebury High. I guess in retrospect, sophomore year is probably the most uneventful year of any high schooler’s life. It’s not freshman year, so you don’t really have to worry about getting your ass kicked anymore unless you’re a real tool, your friends are already established, you don’t have to worry about college just yet, and to top it all off, you don’t even get to go to the prom until next year. Now that I think about it, maybe such a seemingly blah year was more carefree and relaxing than uneventful. Such a pity I didn’t see it like that at the time.

Biology was so weak. It’s 9 a.m. and I’m supposed to cut a pig apart. We aren’t allowed to drink coffee because the alleged faculty and staff feel the caffeine will make us too rambunctious to handle, kind of like the way mad cow disease would affect livestock. So in order to fight the machine, I smuggled black iced coffee into school in a Pepsi bottle. Now, there’s caffeine in Pepsi, just as much if not more than in coffee, but we can drink that. I heard a rumor yesterday that Paris Hilton was coming to the school to do some kind of motivational speech. Did I raise an eyebrow? Nah.

Coffee was the only colored drink I allowed myself to consume. I dated this guy who would only drink clear liquid and he had the whitest teeth I had ever seen. We broke up, it was kind of mutual, but for some reason I still had a bad taste in my mouth. To seek vengeance, I was determined to get my teeth to be whiter than his; I know, I’m a real hard-ass. I used those rancid tasting whitening strips, and aside from coffee, only drank clear liquids. I could have given up coffee, and I can be one of those conniving wenches that gets her jollys from revenge, but you have to draw the line somewhere, and I wasn’t giving up coffee. His smile wasn’t even that nice, but the white from the teeth was brilliant, blinding, and just blatantly irritating. Mine just had to be better.