My eyes blinked open the next morning at around 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon. I rubbed them wearily, watching my room come into focus.
The Sex Pistols Poster hanging above my bed stared down at me. I looked around and felt suddenly at ease, gazing into the black nothing-ness of wall that surrounded me and covered by endlessly black sheets.
Though the comfort soon dispersed as I began to realize what I had done. Black everywhere. 5 empty cans of black spray paint sat on my black desk.
It had to be a dream. It had to be something I could get out of. There had to be a trap door out of this reality.
"Good, I'm glad to see you're awake. We better start cracking, gotta get your sis a…" My mum stopped mid-sentence, the bundle of folded laundry she was carrying into my room, dropped to the floor.
"Michael, what the fuck did you do?"
I hid my head under my pillows, smelling the black as if it had a special, soothing aroma, all other colors lacked.
"Michael what the fuck have you done?" she demanded for a second time, her fearful eyes looking around the room.
She looked almost scared of the black-ness, I thought. How the hell could she be scared of it! Just looking at me made me feel stoned, too at ease for my own good.
Though I wasn't at ease then, with my eyes shut, my face smothered between my pillow and sheets, my heart couldn't have been beating faster unless I was being burned alive. All comfort had disappeared.
What the fuck had I done? Was I high or something last night? I knew I wasn't high; I had just been incredibly crazy.
"Michael look at me? What did you do? Why is your room…well…black!" she stormed on, walking to my bedside and taking me by the shoulders.
She shook we pitilessly. By then I was already trembling enough from nerves to need her shaking me out of her own fright as well.
"Mum!"
I finally withdrew by head from the pillows.
She gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
"Michael" she murmured, over and over again, staring at my head.
I looked up into my bangs and was surprised to find my usual mop of auburn hair, a dark, stringy black. I grasped a lock of hair near my ear and brought it into my vision; black.
Throwing my head back against the pillows in frustration, I drew the black comforter up to my eyes so would not be able to the fury blazing in my mum's gaze.
"Michael your hair… what did you do?"
She stepped back from my bed, her glassy, tear prone eyes moving around the room, every black object causing her to cringe.
"Black… Michael… your room …your hair…." She looked at me once more, her eyes welled in tears. Her gaze traveled to my hands, clutching the black comforter, "your nails…Michael…"
She backed up into the hallway, her breath coming in short gasps as she took a final look around my room before dashing down hall, most likely to call my shrink.
The comfort was lost. I felt sick. Not vulnerable, just sick. What had I done, there must have been another way to get rid of that knot, why'd I have to do something so drastic.
I stumbled into the bathroom, turning on the tub and staring at my reflection as I waited for the water to rise.
A scrawny, medium build, 6'1 boy looked back at me, his eyes sullen and dismal. Confusion and angst was etched into his forehead. A thick mop of long black hair hung in front of his brown eyes, obscuring his vision and completely covering his eyebrows. Wild, black, wiry hair.
I shut off the water and stepped in, my footing shaky, my hands trembling as they clutched the sides of the bathtub.
What had I done? I wasn't Goth. I wasn't Goth at all. I was just an unsocial kid who liked black. People wouldn't understand that black just felt better. They would think I was Goth or Emo or one of those other cult groups. But I was just a punk. I just liked black in a bit of an unhealthy way. Looking at me you wouldn't be able to see the comfort I saw in black. It wouldn't show when I walked down the street, that other colors made me feel vulnerable and exposed. The only conclusions people would come to when they saw me were 'suicidal Goth freak.' Maybe the part that frustrated me most was that I hated Goth music. I hated all that emo shit like Good Charlotte and crap. All those posers didn't have shit against bands like Nirvana and Metallica and AC/DC. Music was how I lived, it was meant to be just my music and me. I didn't care bout my rep as long as people knew what music I liked, knew that it was fucking good music and I had good taste. I would die rather then have someone think I liked that other crap.
I slid into the tepid water, watching my hair float around my head in long, black wisps.
For a second, I forgot about what I had done. I only saw the black hair. I only felt the condolence only blackness could give me and for a second it all felt worth it. I remembered why I had done what I had done and was glad I had done it. I remembered my green shoe attack yesterday morning and remembered the feelings I had felt, how utterly exposed I had felt by just the fucking green-ness of my shoes.
Though the good feelings soon faded and I feverishly tucked my hair behind my ears and out of my sight.
My obsession with blackness would only give cowboy and spot and all those other fuckers something to laugh about, it would only help them prove I was a freak, an isolated, self-secluded freak. I dreaded Monday. Facing all those ex-friends of mine, completely transformed from what I had been last time they saw me. Even the feeling of vulnerability for the rest of my life would be better then coming in to school.
Frantically, I began to scrub my hair in the water, willing the dye to come out and leave me with my disgusting brown hair once more. But my efforts resulted in nothing what so ever. My hair remained the splendid black I had transformed it into the night before.
I sighed heavily cursing at it as it fell into my eyes once more.
Hell, why was god doing this to me! I looked down at my nails and began to rub at them too, pouring endless amounts of soup onto the palms of my hands and scrubbing away at the black sharpie on my nails. Slowly but surely the sharpie began to disappear, leaving my them stained and coarse.
I looked down at my pink fingernails and the feeling came back.
"Fuck." I mumbled, as the knot returned and began to tear away at my insides.
The pink was touching me, tainting my hands and contaminating them. I couldn't take my eyes off my nails.
Suddenly with out realizing it I jumped out of the bath, water splashing onto the floor and creating puddles on the white tiles.
I ran feverishly down the hallway, buck naked, passing my sister's open bedroom door. She stared at me as I scampered by, her mouth agape.
"Skittery?"
I ignored her puzzlement and kept running.
I could feel the pink burning my fingers, getting into my blood stream. I knew it wanted to convert my black heart, make my heart pink so that everything else about me would become pink as well. It was heading towards my black heart, I could feel it.
Into my room I ran the blackness of the walls soothing me as a cigarette might, though the knot still remained.
I shuffled, madly, through papers on my desk, throwing down pencils as I went, searching for the black sharpie I had used last night.
Outside my room I heard my sister knocking on my door.
"Skits, what's wrong you're your hair?" she questioned, her 8 year old voice sounding more like a pubescent 12 year boy's might, "Skits?"
"Get the fuck out'a here mica! Leave me the hell alone!" I screamed at her, her small fists still pounding at my bedroom door. "Leave me alone you fucking 8 year old!"
Outside, I heard her whimper as the insult hit her hard and moments later she could be heard wailing down the hall for mommy.
I finally found the sharpie by my guitar where I must have thrown it last night.
Ferociously, I began to color in my stained fingernails, covering every inch of tainted pinkness with sweet blackness.
I looked around my room, at the beautiful mess of darkness I had made. I felt a lump coming into my throat.
Everything was going to be fine, I told my self, there's nothing wrong with me, I'm just a bit OCD. I knew I wasn't OCD; I just liked black. I'm all right. It's not me, it's everybody else, I kept telling my self as I looked around the room.
Once again I fell across my reflection.
"Oh god, my hair," was all I could say.
I muttered it over and over again as I stared at that black haired boy in the mirror. Maybe I could dye it over, find a color similar to my brown and dye it over, no one would ever know. I remembered when Kayla had been thinking of dyeing her hair black.
"The only problem is," she had told me, "its permanent. Its not like blonde or something where you can dye it back. Once you've gone black, there's no turning back." She had then scowled at her rhyme and muttered, "god, I hate rhyming… But I think black wouldn't look to bad on me, what do you think?"
Black looked bad on everybody, especially the olive toned boy I saw in the mirror. 'There's no turning back,' her words seemed to echo in my head.
"Oh god, my hair," I moaned once more, this time with finality.
The tears were starting to come to my eyes. I flung myself onto my black bed and began to sob quietly, muttering over and over again 'my hair.'
Outside my room I heard my mum approach my door and knock on it furiously.
I could hear mica crying, "He called me some bad words, mommy."
I quieted my sobs so that they wouldn't breach the hallway where my mum and mica stood.
"Michael?" my mum howled.
Somewhere inside me I realized mica must be pretty upset if she didn't correct my mum for calling me Michael. Mica had always looked up to me in that weird little kid-ish way and used to always scold mum when she didn't call me Skittery.
I felt a small pang of guilt that I had hurt mica so badly but it soon disappeared and I was left with the pang of dread in my stomach from what I had done.
"Michael!" my mum continued, "just cause your upset from… well…what ever the hell you did last night, which I will discuss with you later, doesn't mean you can talk like that to your sister. Say you're sorry!"
I was silent, my sobs turning into small whimpers.
"Michael, say you're sorry or I'll come in…"
"Just fuck off alright!" I interrupted her, lifting my head out of comforter and turning towards the door so that my voice would be audible.
Silence.
"There is going to be a serious consequence, Michael. I'm warning you, a huge punishment. Now I don't know what the hell happened to you…or your room but I called your physiatrist and scheduled an appointment for… "
"Fuck off and leave me the hell alone!"
I could hear the wailing mica being drawn away from the door and my mum telling her it was all right and I really didn't mean whatever I had said.
I did mean what I had said. I just wanted everyone to leave me the fuck alone.
I was finally able to calm myself down enough to realize I still didn't have any clothes on.
I looked over at my black dresser only to find all the drawers hanging out of the wooden structure and off their hinges. Pieces of black clothing were strewn across the top of the dresser and the floor in front.
When I saw this new feature to my room I actually smiled. I had had enough of those colorful shirts; they only made me feel self-conscious and insecure. I knew if I put on one of those light-colored shirts now I would think the pink devil was after me or some shit like that.
I began to calm down as I selected a silver lettered, black nirvana shirt, black Doc. Martins and a pair of black straight-legs with a red collared boot cut. I didn't mind the red I guess; it was so overpowered by the black, I hardly noticed it when I looked in the mirror at my reflection.
I had to admit, although I did look like a Goth anarchist to the extreme, I didn't look half bad as one.
My black hair kinda hung lifelessly in front of my eyes and made it look even scruffier and more mussed up then before, when it was brown. The black made me look reckless I guess, like I could care less about how I looked but that didn't mean I didn't look good. A true punk.
I was surprised to find I was actually taking a liking to the black and although it would be hell going into school on Monday morning, at least I would feel comfortable in my black cocoon. The black would be there to help me if spot or cowboy or Rita started to over whelm me.
I looked at my self one last time before darting out the open window and down the fire escape; I had decided I would stay over at my cousin's house. Maybe get boozed up or high tonight.
I felt a small smile crack my scowl as I stared into the mirror, finally coming to terms with the reality that the kid looking back at me was, in fact, me looking out at the world, just maybe a little more relaxed then before.
hope you liked the ch'appy! reveiw with plot ideas please!