A Brand New Goth Girl

[14]

That didn’t make any sense though. Unless there was an electrical short in this strange flashlight, and I was getting a weird spark against my skin every so often. But I’d been teased with someone’s shock pen many years ago. I knew what that felt like. This was more like an invisible balloon of air that I couldn’t touch but which pressed against me through the flashlight. That made absolutely no sense though. The internal parts of the flashlight didn’t have any mechanism for inflation. But then I had just looked in the battery case and around to discover the internal instructions rather than taking it apart to really see what there was. If I opened it up all the way though, I had no faith in my technical skill to put it back together properly even if it was a standard flashlight, let alone something that could twist and erase people and realities.

I didn’t want it in my pocket, but I feared something might happen if I let it get away from me. Stuffing it in a bag also felt like a bad idea. Beatrice had options though, ranging from satchels to purses and more. There had to be something at least vaguely inconspicuous I could use to keep this thing from pulsating right against my thigh. Quietly getting up from the chair triggered Rosa’s attention and concern to focus on me.

I offered up the explanation that I was just popping over to my room to tend to vague ‘things’. Rosa knew that I had a stack of her clothes set aside and she hesitantly asked if she could go with me. There was no way I could say no. This was a positive sign of her efforts at something resembling confidence. I had to indulge it. Norah remarked that she had to grab something out of her room as well while Rhea clearly wanted to play one of those imposter-type card games before bedtime.

Rosa squeezed the blanket against her side and gathered up enough so it would remain free of the floor. When we arrived in my bedroom, she paused in the doorway and then slowly slipped aside to let Norah through. All the clothes I retrieved from her room were together and sorted. She cautiously approached them like they were sleeping vipers to be handled with care.

The colorful stack of panties especially caught her attention. I just grabbed a random handful, but they still followed a theme, lacy adornment and minimalist interpretations of baby animals through pastel colors. She slid some nearby clothes on top of them but there weren’t enough to completely obscure the bras. Those mainly shimmered with soft satiny tones with some scattered, bright cartoony outliers. Rosa soon slumped sideways against my pillow like a discarded doll awkwardly dropped.

I casually made my way over to the closet and probed around the area of Beatrice‘s clarinet until I found an empty, black satchel just barely big enough to fit the flashlight and have a reusable water bottle poking out the top as a distraction. Not a particularly clever method of disguise, but it was the best I could come up with which allowed me some distance from what I hoped wasn’t a radioactive femininity dispenser. I didn’t want a glowing chest.

Once I had it positioned comfortably away, I felt a yawn ripple through me and fight its way out. Quickly covering my mouth managed to stifle the sound but Norah noticed, commenting, “Exhausting day.”

Yeah. And I still hadn’t tracked down the inspiration I’d gone in pursuit of with my original walk. Not that the assignment was top of my list of priorities with all the other circumstances and the assurance tomorrow would not have classes. However, the days of disruption and rescheduling were gone. Webcams were required and the student union, with its massive computer lab, was augmented by extra computer satellite spaces on each end of the campus with ours adjoining the undergraduate admissions office. Not even a full reshuffling of reality was going to fully cancel classes anymore.

Rosa had drawn her arms and legs up close to her body in a twisted fetal position. Faint snores seeped out of her as her head still awkwardly dipped against the pillow. Norah sighed as she used a small watering can on her plants and occasionally glanced over at the sleeping Rosa. She didn’t ask me any questions about the satchel.

I approached Rosalie‘s side and considered the best method of rousing her. If I wanted to attempt that at all. She actually looked quite peaceful, despite a position that was sure to leave her uncomfortable when she woke up. Instead of tapping her on the shoulder, I shifted her protective blanket to provide her with more coverage. The sound of her snores stopped for a second, as though she were responding to such a meager touch, before settling back into the same soft, even noise. Before I dropped the blanket across her body though, I look down and felt hit by a tingling strike. It wasn’t from the barely hidden light dangling off me.

Rosalie was art before me. Something about her tangled position, along with the cacophony of colors on the mattress, stirred frantic inspiration within me. I could see the idea in my head fully realized. This particular project had a broad theme dealing with fragmentation and chaos. Collage elements were encouraged. I’d been struggling with it so much and browsing photographs of storms.

My initial concept was to split between a rainy setting full of lightning, fog, and a frantic deluge across some desert landscape on one side of the art and then use the other for a clear, bright day. A rainbow between would be the bridge but none of my original sketches or prototypes were doing it for me, so I went outside. Outside, it was bright, sunny, and completely unhelpful for providing a real-world presentation of what I was trying to get. I kept walking and walked my way right into Beatrice’s life. But now Rosa had provided me with an answer.

Cautiously, I focused on the delicate inspiration laid out before me, like watching a feeding a hummingbird or the cautious flutter of a flower-settling butterfly. In an instant, I knew that it might all be gone and I’d be left with nothing. Sidling towards my desk while keeping my eyes on Rosalie, I actually managed to blindly snag an empty sketchbook and a pencil. Holding my breath, I loomed over her as I studied the lines of her form.

Scratching out the broad sense of her was easy. She had the position of Yang with the loose, dark tangle of Yin. My knowledge of the symbols was limited, but I internalized that thought as good shit to plop down in front of my instructor as some deep, potential meaning. Otherwise, I included the clashing elements of my bedspread. The subdued, dark tones suffused the nearby sheets against the pure, snowy pillows. I dramatized the pile of extra clothes from Rosa‘s dorm as like a patchwork monster trying to wrap around her and draw her into its depths. Even though she didn’t know it, Rosalie managed to pose for me just long enough to capture all the crucial details I needed.

As soon as I set my pencil down and cracked my wrist with less noise than usual, she took a long breath and gingerly stretched out her legs. Her eyes fluttered open in surprise as she saw me standing nearby and above her. Clear, weighty disappointment asserted itself on her shoulders.

“Oh. I was hoping it would just be a dream,” she elaborated. She looked as though she wanted to settle back and try again with breaking this unrelenting dream state, but she couldn’t get comfortable. Rhea peered through the doorway with a modest box in her arms. It was the game she had alluded to earlier. We were at the minimum of five required players. I was eager to at least try it.

Rosalie appeared wary, especially with the concerning title sprawled across the front. She clearly didn’t want to be Hitler, but Rhea’s earnest pout made her crumble. Back to the common area.

We gathered around the large table with the stack of plushies to the side commandeered by Kasey for Rosa’s comfort. She sat, surrounded, but resisted the urge to directly snuggle and squeeze them.

Rhea laid out all the main components and endeavored to succinctly explain the rules. Two factions and their capabilities. I did my best to not show too much relief when I drew for the good guy faction. To my surprise, Rosalie presented a strong poker face. I really shouldn’t have been surprised considering Derrick seemed like a seasoned college quarterback from all I heard about him before. Now, she had the added benefit of appearing quite unassuming. I’d have to be careful.

An added wrinkle set by Rhea required us to provide two truthful statements and a lie after certain game actions. It wasn’t every single turn but every so often, to properly complete that turn, we would have to reveal something about ourselves. Rhea relayed that we used to play this variation a lot and hoped it would strengthen our bonds even while the main part of the game, she jokingly commented, destroyed friendships. She evaded questions about how this counted as part of the game and what the prize there might be for victory. Since I got the leadership role by election, it soon fell on me to come up with something clever.

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My efforts came down to proclaiming that I had a brother who competed in equestrian events in the Olympics, I was allergic to many antibiotics before the age of three, and my uncle first taught me photography. The expressions of my roommates forebodingly hinted that Rosalie was probably going to be the only person in this group I might manage to fool. But at least there was the potential complication of me and Beatrice diverging on certain, personal answers.

After a single round, I felt decently confident that Rhea wasn’t Hitler even though we had suffered some setbacks. The next session of sharing involved Norah spilling her secrets. She unfurled, “First, I had a beautiful snake plant named Atticus Hiss who I gave an elaborate funeral ceremony when he expired. I was 12 years old. Second, the fastest I’ve ever read is getting through Frank Herbert’s Dune in a single day. And, lastly, I have a collection of colorful domino masks.”

And, that was all she said. We recorded our picks for the lie on individual scraps of paper. Rosalie put a lot of focus and effort into her choices, scrutinizing each of us before quietly marking her paper. With the next round, we pulled even with our opponents and considered possible targets for assassination. My suspicion was landing on Rosa, but I just couldn’t bring myself to vote to kill her. I also had to consider Norah and Kasey. They were quite low key and that effort of flying under the radar also made me suspicious. Could literally be any one of them. That was kind of fun.

Rhea rattled off her three with a flawless pronunciation of French to cite her favorite play, detailed a behind-the-scenes theater makeup tip, and finished by declaring, “And I’m bisexual.” It looked like Rosalie and I were the only ones surprised by this last note. Considering her brightly detailed rainbow top, it shouldn’t have struck me as so surprising. At the same time, it could’ve also been false. I held my tongue and sighed as I logged my pick.

The game concluded faster than I expected as I joined others, though without confidence, in electing to assassinate Norah. And she was revealed as Hitler. Just in time too, as we were spiraling close to our lose condition. Kasey and Rosa finished things off with their truths and lies.

Kasey’s snippets included revealing she’s created over a hundred barrels of beer despite still not being able to drink it, only has one ovary, and learned how to hypnotize people with a massage. Rosa straightened and let her protective blanket slip as she cleared her throat and carefully annunciated hers, “I love swimming more than I do football, I once raised $1000 for charity with a beatboxing performance, and I’m gay.”

A dense, ringing silence followed her words. As she started to shift and fumble to come up with some clarification or addition, I noticed that color was leaving her cheeks as though her spirit also wished to flee. I smiled and clapped for her while writing down my guess. The others followed my lead. Since Norah was the closest to Rosalie, she was in charge of making sure a warm hug was immediately received. Once again, I fervently hoped that I hadn’t misread the situation.

After all, what could’ve been meant by the admissions varied. Perhaps Rosalie liked girls as Derrick and that remained even after things were turned upside down. Or vice versa, as I suspected, and she was attracted to men before and that had new ramifications for her now. Or that alignment had mirrored itself due to my benefactor’s influence and she meant that she was a lesbian now. Similar complexity shadowed the possibilities of what Rhea stated for herself, but I doubted it.

None of us had to wait long before the truths and lies were assessed. Everyone but Rosalie caught my fib that I both had a brother and they competed in Olympic equestrian events rather than my sisters in archery. Norah revealed that Atticus was still alive even though she planned to give him the affordable equivalent of a state funeral for his long-lived service to oxygen. I mistakenly suspected it was the domino mask one. Kasey actually had three ovaries.

She dismissed my look of concern and assured me, “My gynecologist is monitoring it and it hasn’t caused me any trouble yet. I know it’ll probably have to come out eventually…and maybe one of the others depending on a lot of stuff. So, I may have just one someday… But not yet.” The part about massage hypnosis was also interesting along with the beer creation, her family’s business.

She, along with Rhea, revealed they had thrown in these details to verify some things, especially that I turned into Beatrice rather than being her all this time. To their recollection, Rhea had several evening chats with Beatrice about how she felt toward men and women and Kasey brought up her medical issues to Beatrice a few times as well.

I couldn’t help but pout and grumble about that disadvantage. I set any qualms aside to listen to Rosalie. She took several long breaths before revealing that her lie had been about the charity event with the actual details of raising $10,000 from cycling. The way the others counted the results confused me, but they awarded the victory to me and Rosalie by a tie. Our prize was choosing a slice of variety cheesecake to split. The others split another slice amongst themselves.

Rosa ate tentatively. We didn’t press her on the details of her truths. Eventually, while inspecting a piece of the chocolate cheesecake in front of her, she began, “It’s always been a thing. And I have always kept to myself. Started when I was really young and I tried to brush it off as close friendship, and then brotherhood and all sorts of other things. But it wasn’t like love just being expressed no matter how someone looked. It was… it is… an intense physical feeling. I tried to fall for this one girl, Julie, who had the biggest crush on me a couple years ago… tried to ignore the physical. I just couldn’t do it. I am gay. I am so friggin gay and I was… in Hell and Heaven every day of practice.” She motioned to elaborate on the positioning, the butts, and the immense amount of contact. Despite how grim her words were, something about it all snapped inside of her head. She broke out in a swarm of exhausted giggles I could relate to.

When that calmed down, she shook her head and continued, “Now, I can express what I had to hide, but it still feels like I’m wearing a disguise. I wanted to be me physically and emotionally. I can still only get half of it.” She drooped with her next breath and dove into the remainder of the cheesecake.

I wanted to offer her something, kindle some reveal or truth that might again lift her spirits. But all I had was renewed throbbing from my satchel as the light clearly wasn’t happy with our separation. I excused myself and hustled back to my room. The door didn’t have a locking mechanism, probably for the best, but I narrowed the opening enough that someone would have to push it open if they wanted to come in, giving me a little time.

The light didn’t have an unusual appearance, nor did it show any sparks as though there were exposed electrical components or a short. Pushing aside a few things on my main table, I set the flashlight down and started to open it up the same way as when I examined it in the bathroom. However, this time the front disconnected from the tube encasing the light. Scrambling, I managed to catch the bulb and the enclosure before they fell on the carpet.

The section of the bulb that connected to the electrical input was generic and similar to teardowns I’d seen in books. However, the segment tucked in behind the light included extra parts. The central component was a board secured around some notches. Adhered to that board was some basic circuitry… And a shimmering chunk of crystal. It was a sharp, ethereal tone of blue that radiated a faint but unmistakable illumination even amidst the overhead lamp light. I handled it delicately, not wanting to break anything.

The crystal was about the size of a dime. Peering closely, I could just barely see something wafting off the surface. It reminded me of windblown sand or golden dry ice. The color practically sparkled. I was too close though, as some of the shimmer floated towards my eyes. I blinked and moved it away, but it didn’t seem to affect me.

Shaking my head with confusion and uncertainty, I quickly worked to reassemble the flashlight without somehow making things worse. Fortunately, all the pieces slotted back together and it operated exactly the same. I could investigate more later. For now, I had to get back to Rosie.

We’d been friends since the first week of college. She was always so warm and welcoming. As Taylor, I chickened out so many times asking her out on a date. It was weird how she responded to what happened to the dorm and campus. I couldn’t understand it, reflecting. It was as though she had been transformed as well, but she was the same girl as she had always been. The little accident was also concerning, but I was trying not to dwell on that. Hopefully, I could use the light to fix problems like that.

Returning the flashlight to my satchel, I made my way back.