Resurrection, Myth
12:00

I thumbed at the globe at the back of the room. Tijuana... Arabia... Mexico... Peru... it was getting boring. A week ago, just being in this room would have made me feel smart. It's not like I've read all of the books here... I just felt full up on information. I didn't need to learn anything more for a while. My head was starting to hurt.

Yeah, you're a prodigy alright. Nothing you can give to the guy who knows everything.

Laugh it up. You know what's great about having school every weekday? You get to go home every evening. Knowledge in excess is as useless as a cup overflowing with water, or hot chocolate in my case. Trying to remove the cookie has left a wet, brown mess on my pants that I do not take credit for. Looking through the window, I longed to run among the tattered red and orange leaves. There was nothing I loved more than the autumn wind, and the hours were burning low. This old hag had stolen something precious to me: my time and freedom. The window was open, but it wasn't big enough to squeeze through and get home. As I removed my shades to peek a little brighter, it dawned on me: that those faux sages on the radio were wrong. Black isn't the absence of light; it blocks light, and it's real. Opaque and transparent aren't the same thing. The dark lens of my sunglasses and the clarity of the window were as damning of evidence as anyone would ever need. I thought about the way I'd been seen back at school... in the last few weeks. heads were turning, but in a good way. I just wasn't used to it yet. Here, people didn't look happy to see me, they looked thirsty. They weren't admiring me, they were sizing me up. The old man across the room was licking his lips thoughtlessly and fumbling in his wallet for pictures of his grand-kids, and ten to one, he was looking for an invigorating conversation. The hopeless bastard.
Maybe I was unable to handle that attention was because I was already so used to getting it, even if it was usually negative. I was accustomed to being seen for my disabilities and impairments – for the disfiguring that marked my face and legs, and made me feel like less of a person than everyone else. But those things have faded now, and I'm managing just fine – it looks like what people are noticing about me these days is how healthy I look – imagine that cruel irony. I had to empty my emotional tank to make room for a different kind of experience, instead of coasting on how I'd already been seen and treated before. Running on toxic fumes. Like Ron said, even when I did get attention, I just burned it off immediately; I couldn't shut up to save my life. I tried too hard to make an impression, for better or worse. Love me, hate me, don't forget me. Maybe it was the fetal alcohol syndrome talking. Maybe it was just me, scared to lose what I was afraid I'd never have: friends.

Bend me, break me, any way you need me...

In the distance, Crystal left the bathroom in a white robe. She tossed her entire black getup in the trash. I thought she'd mistaken it for the laundry bin, but she tossed her towel in it shortly after, so she knew. The damn thing was stained black from the dye out of her hair. That coat must have cost a thousand dollars, and she wasn't even going to give it away? She was out of her gourd!! I rescued the clothes and checked the labels. All polyester, except the black dog's fur scarf. That was real. Okay, maybe it cost a couple hundred dollars, but still. I kept the scarf and gave the rest to Kal to put in a charity bin. The other old ladies quickly snatched the clothes up first, taking their pick between the jacket, shirt, skirt and leggings. Now that was generosity.

Why'd you keep the scarf?

It's not like I'd buy one for myself, I'm just not gonna waste it. It's warm, and this place is cold. Way too cold for an old folks' home, don't you think? What's the first thing your grandparents do when they come over in Autumn?

Complain about the temperature!

Exactly. They've got it set for Crystal and her higher blood pressure, or whatever. Or her energy... metabolism... thing.

One of those things.

My theories, I realized, were just as sloppy as the way I carried myself. Vampirism, electromagnetism, addiction... I don't know any more than the next person. I didn't even bother to test my hypothesis, I just tangled a bunch of questions together in a big knot. All I knew was that darkness felt like rest, and that the light was hurting my eyes. That nicotine made me dizzy and anxious. That eating plants made me feel good, and everything else made me sick. I can't extend my personal experience over everyone else like an umbrella... I have to feel the rain.

Woof.

Beans, that faithful dog. Remember him?

I do.

How did he die again?

Too stupid to live.

That beautiful mutt. Man's best friend, ten times over.

He was a good boy.

The Captive Ate It
I don't remember what time it was, I was busy.

I scoped my surroundings for any unlocked exits. All of the doors and windows were shut tight, and needed a key to open. They probably weren't even the same key. As I paced carefully around from room to room, attendants were hanging up roses.

In the middle of October.

So?

They're just gonna wilt and die.

Another of Crystal's personal interior-decorating decisions?

She seems to think the whole space has to conform to whatever she wants.

I wanted to keep detecting... detectiving?

Investigating.

...but I was like, really hungry. And I started to feel weak, and...

I walked to the kitchen. Looking inside the fridge, I found nothing but old dry bacon & onion pizza and stale bread. I didn't care. As long as I went back to chewing lettuce next week, I could eat whatever I wanted in an emergency. I put the pizza in the microwave on a paper plate for a minute with a paper cup full of water next to it. A trick I saw on TV. Within 45 seconds, it was just barely edible.

The voice of darkness inside me was holding the reigns the whole time, until I wolfed that whole slice down. Normally he'd be trying to ward me off, but I think this was his cheat day. Then I felt my eyes again. I looked around... Crystal was an unchecked monster, and she'd fully taken over a retirement home within weeks of her arrival. It was a sad sight to see. All of the other gargoyles were stiff as rocks, unable or unwilling to fight her off. I knew I had to do something... but what? If I was going to get myself balanced again, I'd need to escape this palace of thorns. I walked forward and my gut wrenched. Oh no, oh no, oh no. The pizza. It was already trying to come back up – the meat must have been spoiled. I doubled over, and crawled my way back to the fridge. Kal just watched as I dragged myself on my knees and clung to the fridge handle, cracking it open just barely enough for my hand to slip through. I grabbed a Pepper Spritz, and without even looking he kneed the fridge door and closed it on my hand. It stung, but the soft rubber lining took most of the hit. That asshole. I pretended to have trouble choosing what to drink, when in reality I'd already decided to take some wine from their side shelf. I opened the can as silently as I could and coughed at the same time to cover the sound – a horrible, nauseous cough. It was real. I juiced the can with Red Grapevine Select, and took it out of the fridge with my palm over the top so Kal couldn't see the red moat in the rim. The sugar was abhorrent, and so was the meat... I thought I was about to fuel up for some brave heroics, like last winter at the mall, but something was just... wrong. My body couldn't take this kind of treatment anymore. I ran to the bathroom and heaved as hard as I could, trying to puke. Some of the pop came up, but nothing else. Fuck. Shit. Some of it got on my shirt. This is stupid. I tried again, putting a finger at the back of my throat. After two tries, one pepper fell out into the water. The caffeine from the drink must have sent it through my lower digestive system prematurely. Diuretics, or whatever. I wiped my mouth and blew my nose and tried to get what did come up out of my throat. I was starting to get a headache. This was actually the worst possible plan I could've come up with.
I wobbled out of the bathroom, dizzy and half-attent, when Crystal passed by. I couldn't see through the towel on her hair before, but it was white again. She'd rinsed out what must have been temporary hair dye and re-dyed with a color even brighter than her natural one, creating the effect of white, gray and black streaks. Instead of tending to my sickness, like she usually did in the past (I shuddered to remember a time when she seemed to care), she looked at me and laughed. Like it was the funniest thing she'd seen all day.
She laughed. "You look like shit, bro."
I looked up at her, dazed. "What?"
"You. Look. Like. Hammered. Shit."
"Grandma... why you gotta be such an asshole?"
"I ain't nobody's grandma no more, chief. Get lost. You've got a bed, don't you? Get a trash can and go hole up. Actually, here you go." She handed me her mug, filled with hot black liquid. "It's coffee. It'll help you pass whatever you ate."
I felt that familiar nurturing I got from sympathetic adults, and decided it was safe. I downed the coffee in two gulps, but some kind of thick, stringy mass was at the bottom. It took more than a couple of bites to swallow, and tasted bitter. Was it some kind of flower tea bud?
"OH my GOOODD", she bellowed out laughing. "I CAN'T beLIEVE you ATE THAT!!" She kept going for a bit, and I shrugged.
I was confused. "Why, what was it?"

She wiped a single tear from her eye. "That was my dip you just ate."
"Your what?"
"My chewing tobacco, you loser. You just ate my spit-up chew."
Shock hit me and my face dropped. She laughed even harder. My stomach felt like it was trying to escape from my body – it had enough for one day. I frowned and almost started to cry.
"That was mean", I grumbled.
"Yeah, well I had to have this conversation but you don't see me complaining. At least it was worth it, though, right?! RIGHT, BUDDY?!"
She jabbed me in the shoulder, 'playfully'. I looked at her in disbelief. She wasn't dressed like a skater, or a model... she was wearing casual clothes, urban. All white and light-grey, spider-themed, again. Where the heck did she shop? Her skin was tighter, and looked young. She must have a skincare routine led by NASA's mission control, cause she looked out of this world. I was actually kind of jealous, for some reason. You could tell she was an adult, but sixty? More like fifty, at a glance.
"Take a picture, it'll last longer," she jabbed. "I've gotta get to school, so eat a dick, stranger!"
I was still nauseous. "Eat a wHAT?"
"A DIIIIIIIIIICK" she shouted at me, as she left the building. Kal locked the doors behind her.
"So she goes to school now?! And -I- have to stay here?!"
Kal stared straight ahead dimly. "She's enrolling in Community College. Trying to go back and learn some new things. At her age, it's admirable."
"And you know all of this why exactly?"
"Because I listen. You could learn a thing or two from that woman."
"Hold that thought." My ass was on fire. I was about to lose cabin pressure in the engine room, if you know what I mean.

I don't see how anyone could.

I sat in the bathroom for another fifteen minutes, in jettison mode. I felt raw when it was all over. Jesus christ, did I ever fuck up. Now that nicotine feeling was coming back. It occurred to me, mid-shit, that I may have witnessed Crystal's third and final form. She had been training for this... the skater getup was to get back in touch with her youth. The model stuff was so she could revitalize and feel like she looked nice. Now she was becoming her true self – a sorority bitch. She'd been swapping personas, and now she was swapping her life with mine. That was the real reason she'd decided to keep me around... for studying. Like a bug under a magnifying glass.

I felt so doomed.