"To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven."
-Joseph Priestley
Chapter I: Kaleidoscope
From the constraint, white box emerged an explosion of intermeshing pastels. The beautifully colored satin was sashayed to the melodious rhythm of background radio melting into the crowded city noises of outside. From the open door of the boutique, a soft breeze was teasing the fabric of the soirée dress and the long, majestic, strawberry blonde mane of the young woman wearing it.
The seamstress, an old, short woman of strong ties to her heritage waddled her way to the youthful lady bathing in the splendor of her seventeen years, and began the task of measuring the necessary adjustments. There were little to be done. The dress was perfect. As was she. She with the big, blue eyes that hinted at naïve seduction. She with the slender bodice, generous curves, long legs. Sculpted by Apollo, a tribute to the beautiful Aphrodite – she was that masterpiece.
Something I usually only watch through a camera lens, Rinoa thought to herself, masking a soft smile. Usually, she only permitted herself these observations safely behind her Pentax K1000. Mentally, she calculated and analyzed, Aperture at f2.8 … shutter speed – sixty. Wind the film. Focus. Click. Another picture to fade from her mind as the day slowly crawled by or another picture to remain etched in her memory. She was undecided. Sometimes, these frozen frames of reality twisted themselves into her nightmares.
"It's perfect." The girl twirled in front of the mirror, submerged in the flattery of the staff boutique. It's perfect. You're perfect. A match made in Heaven. Rinoa spotted her approving parents sitting on the cream-colored loveseat near the dressing cabins. Middle-aged, sophisticated members of society. The woman was dressed in a lovely branded outfit with her hand in the lap of her Tristan & America-sporting husband.
"It is perfect, princess." The father smiled a bank-manager smile.
Her own father, who had been watching amongst the other racks of textiles, elegantly imposed, "Alexius Silversteed's design, this year's collection. It's a very unique model, has a very nice drape. May I inquire as to the occasion?"
"Her uncle's wedding. She'll be delivering a wonderful speech at the reception hall, hmm, sweetums?" The mother piped up. Her tone hinted to important family lineage. It was as if she were speaking more to her daughter than to James Caraway. "Everyone's very much looking forward to it." Rinoa saw Corealie's eyebrow arch in carefully hidden disdain.
Her cousin, bitterly cynical, smiled – almost painfully – turned on her heel and brushed gracefully from the scene and headed for the stairs. Rinoa followed her lead as the seamstress rattled on about necessary adjustments. As they descended the stairs out of earshot, Corealie turned to Rinoa and mimicked viciously, "Everyone's very much looking forward to it …"
Rinoa shook her head and clicked her tongue, "That's not funny. If envy truly is a deadly sin, I don't understand how come you haven't dropped dead yet." This comment was accompanied by an insuppressible smile that her cousin duly reprimanded.
"If it's not funny, wipe that pearly-white grin from your porcelain face, honey." Corealie's shoes clicked further down the stairs and strode to the welcoming counter, "And I haven't dropped dead yet because clearly, I'm not jealous. Clearly, I'm disgusted. Look!" She motioned to the glass picture windows that looked onto the bustling street, "Look at that goddamn beautiful day that I'm not enjoying! Why? Because princesses from all over the city are buying their Alexius Silversteed designs for their uncle's weddings!"
Her voice had crescendoed dangerously over the course of her monologue and Rinoa hissed quickly, "Shush – they might hear you."
Corealie ignored her cousin's imperative warnings and strung back into her rant, "It is the perfect day for just lying down on the grass and making out. Am I making out? No, clearly, I am not." It was Rinoa's turn to raise an eyebrow, "I am so sick of this family business. I, like, literally … literally have no life anymore."
This earned a slight frown from the younger girl. A life. A factor she had considered and weighed many times. A life. A term belonging to a world of which she had no part of, a term belonging to a fairy tale she read to herself every night accompanied with those 'frozen frames of reality' that she hated and loved. "What is a life?" She asked warily, suddenly grave.
"Honey, you need to get out more often." Corealie's hand patted her gently on the shoulder, "Have you even gone further than holding hands with a boy?" A playful tease meant to yield some form of annoyance, of aggressiveness.
"Shut up!" Rinoa yelped, hurt but without the power to resist a smile or mask the embarrassment that colored her face, "You're so mean! So mean!" The laughter couldn't be suppressed and she hated herself for it, "Maybe I have, but what business is that of yours?" A touch of defiance, finally some backbone, perhaps.
Corealie shook her head, suddenly growing quietly serious, "Sometimes I really worry about you, you know?"
Rinoa rolled her eyes and leaned on the counter, "I really worry about you, all the time."
Corealie Caraway examined her baby cousin from the corner of her eye. The soft raven hair falling to her shoulders, the deep cocoa eyes that always seemed to be drifting off a little closer to the sky than to the reality down below. She had always been quite short, not fat, not skinny. Attractive, yes, but the kind of girl you saw in children's picture books, not the ones airbrushed on the glossy magazine pages.
She, herself, had been plagued with 'ordinary'. Impressive had never quite been an attribute of hers but she was confident and blessed with a fearful amount of attitude unlike her cousin who would shy herself away and cocoon herself behind a wall of still frames. To Rinoa, exposure meant pressing on a shutter-release button. To Rinoa, all a darkroom was used for was developing pictures – not exactly teenage mentality. And sometimes, sometimes, Corealie was sure that there was a precarious ache for something else stirring.
Sometimes. Rinoa didn't even have to hide behind a camera for it to be seen.
THE THICK FILM of opaque smoke suspended itself in the air, sifting slowly along with the few air currents. His poorly lighted basement was crowded with people he knew well or not at all and the lack of oxygen was beginning to numb his mind. Squall propped his feet onto the coffee table and held the cold bottle of beer to his forehead, "Can someone open some goddamn windows?" He called to a ponytail-sporting boy wearing a cowboy hat sitting on a lazy boy with a pretty girl in his lap.
His own auburn hair was chaotic, falling across his ice-cold eyes. He was renowned for his wolfish grins, his appealing indifference and his deep voice that sent tremors down girls' spines. Squall was a big man on campus amongst a clique of teenage boys still emerging from their acne and jack-off years, not because he was older, but simply because he had grown up faster. He was like a brick wall in many ways, impermeable, irresponsive, complacent and physically indestructible – years of soccer had made him so with strong legs, arms and hands. His impassive robustness had an undeniable charm that entitled him to be a prodigious, golden boy.
Taking a drag from his cigarette, his focus darted about the insufferable heat, "Irvine, open a fucking window." Squall barked again, this time wielding a tone of complete command. He was looking for people who were busy making an ass of themselves just so he'd have an excuse to beat the living shit out of them. All the noise was giving him a splitting headache and he was convinced that someone was screwing in his room – which wasn't all that pleasant of a thought.
Irvine had finally let the soft afternoon breeze in. Within the sunrays finally being allowed in, Squall could see the fog of cigarette smoke and dust flirting around. It smelled of Hell down here. Shit, his parents would notice In a vain attempt to encourage the rest of the crowd, he pressed his cigarette butt out into the full ashtray.
The pumped-up bass from the sound system was pounding in his eardrums to the point where he wanted to put his fist through the stereo. Before he had time to encourage himself further, however, Ashley's hands were on him. She installed herself in his lap and smirked, her venom eyes shining roguishly and her light caramel hair falling forwards onto his face just so he could smell her shampoo. Fuck, if someone sees this – and some asshole is bound to – the entire bloody school knows by Monday.
"What's up, baby?" Squall asked, not really giving much but asking out of courtesy. He brought the bottle to his lips but she gently weaned him off and took a swig of the cold drink herself.
"Mmm … nothing, why are you sitting here all by your lonesome?" She pushed the beer back into his hands and dragged her finger across his chest. Ashley was dying for him to at least look at her instead of vacantly staring at the blinds. She was the embodiment of physical perfection, why was he dismissing her like this? Then again, his detachment was the pièce de resistance to his sex appeal.
She hovered close to his lips, her long eyelashes batting provocatively, Pay attention. But he was not listening, "So?"
"So what?" Squall replied thickly, aching to drink his alcohol – if only she'd back away a bit, she was in the way of the beer.
"So why are you here all alone?" She repeated her question in a babying tone that made him want to push her off, "The mighty wolf never rests alone." Ashley enunciated the last words with measured sensuality, lightly scratching the nape of his neck with her crimson nails.
"I'm not resting, Ash, I'm hunting." The wolfish grin.
She smirked, assuming what any girl would, "Hunting for what?" A tone of teasingly alluring enticement nearly made him change his mind about her.
"Fresh meat." But Squall Leonhart did not see any. The same uninteresting faces that he had already torn apart, again and again in his mind. They seemed to be spinning, round and round until he felt his stomach would heave if he was subjected to this any longer. She was leaning in closer and closer, claustrophobia settled in and all he could do was freeze as if waiting for a click.
The steps that I retrace
The sad look on your face
The timing and structure,
"Did you hear? He fucked her."
A day late, a buck short
I'm writing the report
I'm losing and failing
When I move I'm flailing now
"You see, Stanley's character is beautiful in his brutality. Williams portrays the uniqueness of this beast as passionate animal instinct, the epitome of virile power. A Streetcar Named Desire juxtaposes civility with complete lack thereof. In this way, as the representing party of the latter, Stanley Kowalski is appealing." Mr. Garrison was a man of remarkable height and thinness. His voice was nasal, high-pitched but never droned. He delivered his lectures with almost too much emotion, making his students groan at his vivacious speech. His beady eyes flitted across the room and settled for a target, "Rinoa, are you listening?"
NO. Instead she settled for a polite, "Yes, sir."
"Tell me, in your opinion, was Blanche the victim here?" Mr. Garrison poised himself on the corner of his desk and waited, staring at her from over the rim of his reading glasses.
Her book wasn't even opened. Crap. "No." The words left her mouth before she even had time to think it through. If people didn't stop staring at her, she would pass out any moment now. Twenty-seven pairs of eyes were digging into her forehead, expecting some sort of brilliant thinking behind her answer. She, of course, possessed none, "Well …" His eyes. They were on her, they almost had a distinct physical touch like fingertips on her lips. His eyes were on her and now hers were on him as well, "Blanche and Stanley are from two different worlds … when Blanche comes to her sister's house, it's like …" You're talking too much, you never talk this much, what are you trying to do? Keep his attention for a few minutes longer? "Throwing a … dove with clipped wings into a wolf's den." Congratulations on making a fool of yourself AND failing literature 101.
"Go on."
"Oh for the love of God." Rinoa muttered aloud, not quite meaning for everyone to overhear. The class erupted into quiet chuckling and Mr. Garrison gave her a stern glare. Crap. "What I'm … trying to say is that Blanche was just on the wrong territory with the wrong people and sure, fine, I guess she was the victim, never mind." End it now, you sound so stupid.
"Rinoa the philosopher! Well, I'll be damned!" A blonde-haired kid in the back corner of the classroom exclaimed and pounded his fist on the desk, meriting a few laughs from fellow classmates. Her face flushed a palette of reds and she quickly covered it with her hands.
"Zell the pretentious dumbass!" He cried out and the class cackled, "Well, I'll be damned!" Mimicking the pounding on the desk and then stopped curtly, "Shut up, dude." She almost felt grateful to him.
"Excuse me!" Mr. Garrison interrupted austerely, "I won't tolerate such language. Indeed, Rinoa – Blanche was in a world where her competences were absolutely fruitless and her downfall was inevitable. However, one must understand the principles that Blanche's character had begun to decay very much earlier on and …" The bell rang and an upsurge of shuffling and slamming books drowned out any attempts to assign homework by the teacher.
Before disappearing into the doorway, cobalt met copper and Squall could swear he had just caught himself thinking she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Author's Babbles: So I needed to get rid of the fluff. And when I exorcised it from Devil's Playground, it became so immense that it took physical form. You've just read it. And now I've gone and done it again – I've started a new story. I'm so sorry. Though I can promise no plots, no character depth and no point to reading it at all I CAN promise you that I will promise you nothing at all.
Read it at your own risk.
Song lyrics featured in this chapter: "Damn it" by Blink-182