saturday
slowly, deliberately, indie sliced through the soft white insides of her forearm, floating, spiraling down into a black hole of self-pity and misery. it wasn’t about death, it was about making the flesh feel as bad as the heart did. the initial shock and her sadness and guilt had long subsided and receded into the deep caverns of her mind, but a sense of overwhelming depression lingered in the last dying embers. the drops of blood coursed down her wrist in rivulets and she smiled, thinking of the pretty pattern they made. indie thoroughly enjoyed being miserable and depressed, often intensifying her emotions on purpose in order to revel fully in them. true, she wasn’t quite that upset over face when she really thought about it, but she wasn’t going to give up a chance to feel miserable. her finger traced over the dark carmine drops, drawing curlicues on her arm. a door banged and a thumping of feet sounded down the hall. zero stuck her head in the kitchen doorway and froze.
“what the fuck?” she cried in surprise, bounding across the room to inspect the damage indie had inflicted on herself. indie dropped the knife, and the realization of what she was doing fully hit her.
“oh...shit.” her calm response seemed almost comical as indie grinned crazily at zero. zero presumed that indie was still under the effects of the various tranqs lisp had fed her that morning, afternoon, and the night before. putting her out of her misery, lisp had put it. she wasn’t too far from the truth. as zero bandaged her arm, she lectured at indie for letting herself care about an asshole like face, but wasn’t too surprised when indie said that she didn’t care all that much about face anyway. zero was familiar with indie’s love for hate and inflicting pain on herself. indie was suddenly struck by the oddity of zero’s presence. it was well into the night, and lisp had left with valium earlier in the evening.
“what’re you doing here?” indie asked bluntly, interrupting zero’s spiel.
“oh, well, i couldn’t take it, so i left. wonder if lisp’ll let me stay?” zero asked hopefully. indie nodded.
“she’ll let you stay. she doesn’t live here much anyway, and her ‘rents have paid for the place. as long as you keep the place decent and chip in for utilities and food, i don’t think she really cares.” indie sat at the counter while zero cleaned the knife. the idea of going to a band gig was brought up. zero and indie chatted animatedly about it, making plans for it, the suicide bout promptly and conveniently forgotten for the moment. indie noticed that zero was tired; she looked as if she hadn’t slept too much. indie decided to put zero in the second bedroom upstairs. indie supposed it might be a little tighter in the small, three bedroom house, but it didn’t really matter as long as indie had her little space in the basement. indie brought her upstairs, and fitted her out with everything she needed. zero asked if there was anything to eat, but she already knew the answer. stupid question, there was never anything to eat at lisp’s. zero volunteered herself to go to the convenience store to get some artificial food to tide her over for the night. indie had already grown somewhat accustomed to the constant hunger, but gave zero some money for coffee and milk and some fake cheese. zero had just stepped out the door when the phone rang. indie picked up.
“hello?”
“‘ello! pablo’s house o’ tacos, may i ‘elp you?” a voice with a bad imitation of a mexican accent answered. indie’s face brightened.
“neo!” she exclaimed. indie was always cheered by the thought of him. “where are you?” she asked.
“well, i’m back home. working west for my uncle wasn’t exactly what i’d thought it be, so i came back.” they talked of meaningless things, a conversation of two people meeting again after a long separation. neo promised to visit in the near future and hung up; the girl was demanding his attention. indie sighed as she returned the phone to its hook. she tested her wrist gingerly, finding it none the worse for wear. despite having slept the day away, indie felt tired. she suddenly wanted to get away from everything. even trent wasn’t as comforting as he had once been. zero returned, accompanied by acid, mohawk and skater, whom she had found haunting the mini mall as usual. indie withdrew from their company after an hour of socializing, staring at the television which blared out music and random images, dragging their lives away on nicotine and drowning any life left in barley, hops and ethanol. indie hadn’t spent as much time on her work as she would have liked; calculus was threatening itself as a failure. staring at derivatives, a numbness much like a trance overtook her body.
