So I am sitting at the school right now. A bunch of people are on the roof but I am sitting here with Gus and Danielle and Jess, watching Aaron and Brendan play footsie with the soccer ball. I thought more people would be here, but this is just fine. More later for sure :)

Well this sucks. That’s really all I have to say right now, and I’m sure that naturally it could be worse, but to be honest the next crappy situation I can think of off the top of my head would involve cannibals and people breaking into my house.

Right now I suffer from severe insomnia for the second night in a row due to vicious blisters from my previously beloved sunshine. The burn runs from my ankles up the backs of my legs, then from my lower back to my neck. And let me tell you, it freaking effing Sucks. I’ve been aloe-ing with the blue crap Doc suggested and as of fifteen minutes ago have discovered that walking is best left to those without swollen red skin hideously inflaming the backs of their knees.

I almost wish I could fall asleep and just zonk out. Seriously. The rain outside my cracked window and the soothing acoustic that is Jack Johnson are a pleasant lullaby amidst the sounds that quilt my little room. But I’ve got goosebumps all along my back and legs that are bizarrely offset by swamping heat.

And my mom signed us all up for grunt work at the Theatre tomorrow, which I would normally enjoy, but in my present state will find exquisite torture on so many levels.

Yepo. This Sucks.

 Brendan: “Oh, it’s all hypothetical.” Nix sarcasm. He had warned, done all he could to try to help. No one’d listened.

 Teachers: all over the place, they’d tried to do a pre-escape. Thinking themselves a brilliant team, or brilliant individuals. Instead of waiting ’til the official end, they battered themselves against what was to come until they fell to the ground. Bruised corpses flung by waves against the boat they’d tried to vacate.

 Mom: talking to Michelle while I get dressed. Might as well have been me talking to my own child. I would have said the same words. But it seems weird she’s giving up.

 ”Michelle Leigh Merrill, I love you. I want you to promise me, if you ever get back to normal, that you will never stop going to school. It’s going to be important you’re learning.”

 Michelle cries, shakes her head. Huge sobs, alligator tears. She won’t leave her mother.

 I get ready while she does this. One part of me clinically stuffs dad’s thick, long socks onto my feet, yanking them up constantly as they droop. Another part of me is shattering slowly, soundlessly.

 My heart.

 I grab literally everything I can think might be useful. I hear Mark and Nickolas exchanging goodbyes behind me. Their voices are dry and reedy. Bloodless and removed. Then it’s Nick and my dad, see ya and take care, kid. I hear Nick sit down heavily to my left, Mark and Karen having just moved farther away. To tell each other goodbye, or something. Or maybe to be each other’s rock.

 Nick’s already wearing a dark cap, but I hard him black gloves from the bureau drawer. They don’t fit him. He hands them back wordlessly, and I give him a different pair. Our eyes meet once. In his I see deep scars rending, the long-ago wounds there tearing at the tissue. Welling. Bleeding out into long streams of tears that begin to pour down his face. Silently.

 In the background I hear Michelle, telling Mom; “It’ll be silly, ‘Michelle Merrill, MD.’” Mom laughs. Brokenly, although she makes it sound horribly normal. “You can take breaks,” she insists. “You don’t have to go all the time, full-time. But you can never stop learning. Never stop reading. Always keep raking in new knowledge.” Her voice cracks.

 I pause in the act of wrapping a long scarf around my neck and turn to my father, who sits on the edgs of his chair like a corn stalk man. Fragile and quiet and pale and not quite all there right now.

 I jar his complacency.
 ”Do you have a knife?”
 He blinks a few times. Stirs. “Sure I do, Kimmie.” He hands me his expensive excellent switchblade from his shorts pocket. I wrap it to the inside of my ankle using a length of tight, sheer orangey fabric. It goes under the layers of socks. Idon’t know what it’s going to be like Out There, but I don’t want to be a threat until someone else announces themselves as one. The attention will be on them, not me. I won’t be a target. Protecting my sister and hopefully Nickolas will be coming all too important. But to do that adequately, I need a knife.

 And my father won’t need one, where he’s at.
 He turns to me, opens his arms for our farewell.
 It’s literally like every other nightly routine. I hug him. He folds his long arms around me. But instead of “goodnight, Pea” it’s goodbye. He pecks my cheek and we move apart. For the final time.

 Somehow the regularity of it snaps off one more grieving chunk of my soul. Soemhow my eyes are dry as bone and my body stays calm. Cooperative. Optimal for survival.

 I turn back to the bureau. I rack my brains once more. What I take with us now will keep us alive.

 I hear people scampering like mad sheep around us. I keep raiding the bureau. Another scarf in my hair. One more pair of tall woolen socks. I wish Nick would help– or Michelle.

 But I refuse to take my sister away from our mother, who is stroking her golden hair and talking to her sweetly, soothingly in her low, calm strong voice.

 It’s almost time to leave. The heightening tension makes my veins scream. I should say goodbye to my mother. As I thikn about doing this, what remains of my child’s heart, my caredfor-love, detaches and falls away. With it fall my tears. I have a sister and a Nickolas to keep alive. I move, a little turn, toward my mother. There’s a blank black space in my chest where I should cry. But there’s no pain. There’s only vacancy.

 You know the worst part. It’s most people fully believe they will be able to live.

I’ve come to the conclusion that dream interpretation is shaky at best. It was interesting when I found actual relatable material that could potentially make sense. But when I dream about weird shit and the site full of definitions doesn’t make any sense, I feel a little sketched out. Dreams are weird.

Dreamcatching

It’s like, my subconscious telling me what I’m really thinking, really feeling. Because I don’t know, or have too much control, during waking hours. When I’m sleeping,

my mind’s power over my thoughts practically evaporates, and I’m left defenseless. (Well, except for the turquoise dreamcatcher that I’ve kept since I was three.)

Anyway, we’re leaving, so see ya. Thank goodness my subconscious is functioning properly now.

If you try to live someone else’s life… won’t you lose what you love about your own?

So here I sit, typing from my phone in the dark. Josh is here, so that’s sweet, but essentially I’m lazing here wasting my phone battery as we wait for the return of power.

I can smell the change coming. With the sweeping push of battle-garbed clouds comes life-altering differences that are very nearly palpable. And the question is raised: do I take my existence into my own hands, or do I let fate or God or whatever’s in control do the work? I’ve begged the answer of the God I consistently refer to with all of my problems and questions, and I think He says to wait, then do it. Pause and think, then take action.

I might be wrong, or projecting, or effusing wishful thinking.

Or I could be right. I feel sure that I’m not meant to sit here impassive. It would be as wasteful as me with my phone battery if I was.

The porch/verandah/thing
The Chair on the Right

My first taste this morning was of pineapple pastry. My dad shoved it in my mouth just a minute ago.

We’re up to watch the sunrise. Dad & Michelle just went to get Nick up. I would say “good luck with that” but generally I’m hard to wake up, too, and I sat up after one call this morning.

I had a dream last night, one that I want to think about & get out of my system before the day officially starts.

I was playing soccer. But I was also shopping for a necklace with Lacey. There were weird pink candy things, too. I’d bought