Neo Chronicles
Episode 14: Escapism
Table of Contents
My name is Lynn Taylor. If I had an alarm clock, it'd probably be going off right now. If I had an alarm clock, I'd probably hit the snooze button. The sun's not even up right now. It's five in the morning, why am I even up?
“HUUURRAAGGH!”
Oh, that's why.
The sound might as well be in the same room. Emily must've had another busy night. No, that's not nice. As much as I try to distance myself from her, she's still my mom—and I'm still her daughter.
So like a good daughter I rise out of bed, put on my slippers, and head to her room. Oh God, she didn't even make it to the toilet. I see her hurling a few feet away from it. I'm the one who's probably going to have to clean that mess up. Typical.
I help her off the hard wood floor, and walk her to the bathroom. Like usual, it stinks. It stinks, it's nasty, the counter tops could use cleaning—all something I'll have to do later on today. Emily, instinctively moves to the toilet bowl and continues chucking up whatever nastiness her body's trying to get rid of. I hold her hair back, and look at myself in the mirror.
I really hate the image looking back. Some pink haired, fourteen year old, white girl in the projects, holding onto the brown hair of her mother who's kneeling over a bowl like a dog. I really hate my life.
Through the heaving and the such, I catch Emily utter some barely discernible babble.
“Thank you, Carolynn.”
You're welcome, mother. Maybe next time this happens, I'll be in a better mood. Who knows, maybe next time, won't even happen. You may wise up and—I don't know—quit this whole alcohol thing. I know it's an addiction and all, but if you'd at least try—put forth an effort?
“Any time, mom.”
She's still my mom—and I'm still her daughter. For better or worse, we're stuck together.
As the hours pass, and the day goes by, I try telling myself that it gets better—and in some ways, it does. Emily made it back to her room to sleep. I pulled out the cleaners. We're too poor to afford those tiny little scrubbing bots, so I had to do it by hand. Looking back, that was probably a good thing, because it got me to thinking about other things—other things like magic.
I did have fun with that weird guy, Jabari. I know Chris and the others did, too. Jabari kept talking like we were going to die at any moment, but looking back on it, I know he wouldn't have let that happen. He had some sort of magic field over us at all times when those so called demons were around. We were all on some high level madness to be doing as well as we did. We could have probably survived a nuke going off in front of us. Never felt that good about anything in my life—and with me tapping into that crazy spirit force thing—just too good. It was too much fun.
Shame he sent us home like he did though. We didn't even help him finish that “saving the world” thing. It's been about a week since—four days or so to be exact—and I don't see demons crawling out of every dark corner. There was that one time when I had that weird dream about being trapped in some big monster's belly with everyone I knew from school, but aside from that—no real end of the world thing actually happened. So either Jabari was lying from the get go, or he put a stop to it.
Either way, that's all over there, and I'm right here, sitting in my desk, in this classroom, in this school trying to listen to this teacher go on about history. Sort of a let down, but I'm content with it. School is kind of interesting to me. Unlike everyone else in the room, I enjoy learning.
Learning's like daydreaming. I can forget about where I'm from. Forget about my mom, forget about my life, all these people around me, and just put a focus on something—anything—else. It's a good thing for me. And with this being history, it's like I can live through someone else's life, figure out what they went through. Like did you know that a lot of the TV shows and movies and things we have airing today aren't so different from what was on nine hundred to a thousand years ago?
They all look new to us, because they were lost for so long, but with the tech we have now and the technopaths that were around back in the day holding onto that information, we managed to keep a lot of things—TV shows included—perfectly preserved during the Dark Age when tech was on the verge of extinction.
It's funny, but every time I get into history stuff, I'm reminded of what happens when Emily goes on her alcoholic binges. She always goes on about how she was in one of her “past lives.” The things she says, “I used to be married to a slave owner, then in the next life I was the slave.” What else? “I never thought I'd see the days cars would fly. If you saw the way people were driving when they weren't in the air, you'd be surprised, too.” She's quite funny when she wants to be.
Oh there I go again—coming back. This is the reality I'm forced to live with when class is over. People wonder why I keep to myself most of the time. They think I don't hear them, but they're not very quiet about it. I guess I do give them something to talk about. Not like much is going on in their little teeny weeny, high school years, but do they have to find and talk about every little thing that's out of the norm to them?
They see me looking at them. The queen bee surrounded by her workers and drones. I could really mess things up for them. It wouldn't be that hard. And it'd just be a small prank. Don't think there'd be anyway for them to pin it on me either.
The whole class steps out into the hallway, and they're still laughing, still poking, still prodding. I'm trying to be civil about it—trying to keep cool. They really don't want me to start having fun with them. I could turn their hair into noodles, maybe have it get soaked in honey and summon some flies to swarm them. I could get really creative.
They still see me looking at them, and they really don't care. They just go on about their business making fun of mine. I smile, knowing that they don't know exactly how messed up their day is going to get. They just need to walk a little closer to that locker right there. Okay, so what's going to come out of it?
“Ey yo, Lynn!”
That's right, just stay right—
“Yo, Lynn!”
Who is—“Chris?”
“I told you, Nexus—know what, neva mind that. We got a situation.”
He had to show up right now, didn't he? Doesn't matter. I can still—“Lynn! Whatchu lookin'—man, fo'get them. They ain't nobody.”
“Darn it, fine. What do you want? Kudos to you being in school, by the way.”
“I don't skip all the time. Now, I know you remember that demon madness from last week. I know you thinkin' that was probably all a dream, didn't really happen, but I know you know that it did. I also know you probably didn't want anything to do with it, but I'm thinkin' we gotta jump on board wit' it. Reason bein'—my dawg, DJ.”
“Darius is still—?”
“Yeah, DJ's still missin'. His mom's been at my mom's tryna figure out exactly what's been the deal. Her an' Jade have been over at the house all weekend. We all went to the cops, they ain't been no help—pretty much everything about it's been weird. Don't know up from down, left from right, nothin'. So I was thinkin'—what's the only thing that makes sense?”
“Nothing makes sense.”
“Exactly! So that means demons. That crooked cop was talkin' like it was the end of the world, and the end of the world probably ain't gonna be some quick, one time big bang kinda thing. It's gonna start small, an' it probably started with DJ.”
“That doesn't make sense, either.”
“Well, it's all I got!”
I can see him getting flustered over this. Like more flustered than usual. I guess he would since he and Darius have been close since forever. He's worried about his friend. And Darius is my friend, too, so I'm kinda worried, too. Maybe what he's saying does have some merit to it. That dream about everyone being eaten did kinda feel more real than dreams usually are. Maybe that did happen, and Darius is somehow still a part of it.
I don't know. The reality of it is that Darius has been missing for a long while, and something does need to be done. I don't know if it has anything to do with demons or Jabari or anything like that, but it's still a thing.
“Alright Nexus, what do you think?”
“I'm thinkin'—and thank you so much—that you, me, Noah, an'—what's his name—Jamal, should leave right now, you do your crazy magic thing to get in touch with that Jabari dude, an' we go save DJ.”
“That's—” Go on Lynn. Say it. Tell him how crazy that sounds. Do what you always do. Be the voice of reason. He needs someone to anchor him back down to reality.
Yeah, reality. The same reality in which your mom goes out looking like a whore only to have her come back looking even less. The same reality that has everyone in the school fault you for being different. The one where the talk of the day involves a joke or two or twenty at your expense. The same reality where you're thought of as less than human just because you're poor and live in the projects. Y'know what? F*** reality, I think I'm tired of it. School's alright, but I need a better escape. All work and no play is really boring. At the very least, Chris knows how to have fun.
“Alright, I'm in, but not now. We're not cutting class to do this. After school, we'll meet up. I think I have Jamal in my next class—no, the one after that, so I'll tell him about it. If you run into Noah before I do, tell him. Once we all meet up, see where everyone stands, and actually come up with a plan. Then we'll go. Even if it turns out to be just you and me, we'll go. That sound alright?”
“Ha ha! Yes. I knew I could count on you.” He gives me a quick hug, which honestly takes me by surprise. Hugging people isn't something he usually does—especially hugging a girl. He still thinks we all have cooties or some oddness. He then runs off—for what or to what, I have no clue.
I look back at the locker to see the queen bee and her drones have left. It's about time for next period to start. For a moment, I start having second thoughts about the whole thing. There's no telling how long looking for Darius will take, and if it does involve demons, then there's a good chance we'll all die.
Oh well. Anything is better than this.
Episode 14: Escapism
Table of Contents
My name is Lynn Taylor. If I had an alarm clock, it'd probably be going off right now. If I had an alarm clock, I'd probably hit the snooze button. The sun's not even up right now. It's five in the morning, why am I even up?
“HUUURRAAGGH!”
Oh, that's why.
The sound might as well be in the same room. Emily must've had another busy night. No, that's not nice. As much as I try to distance myself from her, she's still my mom—and I'm still her daughter.
So like a good daughter I rise out of bed, put on my slippers, and head to her room. Oh God, she didn't even make it to the toilet. I see her hurling a few feet away from it. I'm the one who's probably going to have to clean that mess up. Typical.
I help her off the hard wood floor, and walk her to the bathroom. Like usual, it stinks. It stinks, it's nasty, the counter tops could use cleaning—all something I'll have to do later on today. Emily, instinctively moves to the toilet bowl and continues chucking up whatever nastiness her body's trying to get rid of. I hold her hair back, and look at myself in the mirror.
I really hate the image looking back. Some pink haired, fourteen year old, white girl in the projects, holding onto the brown hair of her mother who's kneeling over a bowl like a dog. I really hate my life.
Through the heaving and the such, I catch Emily utter some barely discernible babble.
“Thank you, Carolynn.”
You're welcome, mother. Maybe next time this happens, I'll be in a better mood. Who knows, maybe next time, won't even happen. You may wise up and—I don't know—quit this whole alcohol thing. I know it's an addiction and all, but if you'd at least try—put forth an effort?
“Any time, mom.”
She's still my mom—and I'm still her daughter. For better or worse, we're stuck together.
As the hours pass, and the day goes by, I try telling myself that it gets better—and in some ways, it does. Emily made it back to her room to sleep. I pulled out the cleaners. We're too poor to afford those tiny little scrubbing bots, so I had to do it by hand. Looking back, that was probably a good thing, because it got me to thinking about other things—other things like magic.
I did have fun with that weird guy, Jabari. I know Chris and the others did, too. Jabari kept talking like we were going to die at any moment, but looking back on it, I know he wouldn't have let that happen. He had some sort of magic field over us at all times when those so called demons were around. We were all on some high level madness to be doing as well as we did. We could have probably survived a nuke going off in front of us. Never felt that good about anything in my life—and with me tapping into that crazy spirit force thing—just too good. It was too much fun.
Shame he sent us home like he did though. We didn't even help him finish that “saving the world” thing. It's been about a week since—four days or so to be exact—and I don't see demons crawling out of every dark corner. There was that one time when I had that weird dream about being trapped in some big monster's belly with everyone I knew from school, but aside from that—no real end of the world thing actually happened. So either Jabari was lying from the get go, or he put a stop to it.
Either way, that's all over there, and I'm right here, sitting in my desk, in this classroom, in this school trying to listen to this teacher go on about history. Sort of a let down, but I'm content with it. School is kind of interesting to me. Unlike everyone else in the room, I enjoy learning.
Learning's like daydreaming. I can forget about where I'm from. Forget about my mom, forget about my life, all these people around me, and just put a focus on something—anything—else. It's a good thing for me. And with this being history, it's like I can live through someone else's life, figure out what they went through. Like did you know that a lot of the TV shows and movies and things we have airing today aren't so different from what was on nine hundred to a thousand years ago?
They all look new to us, because they were lost for so long, but with the tech we have now and the technopaths that were around back in the day holding onto that information, we managed to keep a lot of things—TV shows included—perfectly preserved during the Dark Age when tech was on the verge of extinction.
It's funny, but every time I get into history stuff, I'm reminded of what happens when Emily goes on her alcoholic binges. She always goes on about how she was in one of her “past lives.” The things she says, “I used to be married to a slave owner, then in the next life I was the slave.” What else? “I never thought I'd see the days cars would fly. If you saw the way people were driving when they weren't in the air, you'd be surprised, too.” She's quite funny when she wants to be.
Oh there I go again—coming back. This is the reality I'm forced to live with when class is over. People wonder why I keep to myself most of the time. They think I don't hear them, but they're not very quiet about it. I guess I do give them something to talk about. Not like much is going on in their little teeny weeny, high school years, but do they have to find and talk about every little thing that's out of the norm to them?
They see me looking at them. The queen bee surrounded by her workers and drones. I could really mess things up for them. It wouldn't be that hard. And it'd just be a small prank. Don't think there'd be anyway for them to pin it on me either.
The whole class steps out into the hallway, and they're still laughing, still poking, still prodding. I'm trying to be civil about it—trying to keep cool. They really don't want me to start having fun with them. I could turn their hair into noodles, maybe have it get soaked in honey and summon some flies to swarm them. I could get really creative.
They still see me looking at them, and they really don't care. They just go on about their business making fun of mine. I smile, knowing that they don't know exactly how messed up their day is going to get. They just need to walk a little closer to that locker right there. Okay, so what's going to come out of it?
“Ey yo, Lynn!”
That's right, just stay right—
“Yo, Lynn!”
Who is—“Chris?”
“I told you, Nexus—know what, neva mind that. We got a situation.”
He had to show up right now, didn't he? Doesn't matter. I can still—“Lynn! Whatchu lookin'—man, fo'get them. They ain't nobody.”
“Darn it, fine. What do you want? Kudos to you being in school, by the way.”
“I don't skip all the time. Now, I know you remember that demon madness from last week. I know you thinkin' that was probably all a dream, didn't really happen, but I know you know that it did. I also know you probably didn't want anything to do with it, but I'm thinkin' we gotta jump on board wit' it. Reason bein'—my dawg, DJ.”
“Darius is still—?”
“Yeah, DJ's still missin'. His mom's been at my mom's tryna figure out exactly what's been the deal. Her an' Jade have been over at the house all weekend. We all went to the cops, they ain't been no help—pretty much everything about it's been weird. Don't know up from down, left from right, nothin'. So I was thinkin'—what's the only thing that makes sense?”
“Nothing makes sense.”
“Exactly! So that means demons. That crooked cop was talkin' like it was the end of the world, and the end of the world probably ain't gonna be some quick, one time big bang kinda thing. It's gonna start small, an' it probably started with DJ.”
“That doesn't make sense, either.”
“Well, it's all I got!”
I can see him getting flustered over this. Like more flustered than usual. I guess he would since he and Darius have been close since forever. He's worried about his friend. And Darius is my friend, too, so I'm kinda worried, too. Maybe what he's saying does have some merit to it. That dream about everyone being eaten did kinda feel more real than dreams usually are. Maybe that did happen, and Darius is somehow still a part of it.
I don't know. The reality of it is that Darius has been missing for a long while, and something does need to be done. I don't know if it has anything to do with demons or Jabari or anything like that, but it's still a thing.
“Alright Nexus, what do you think?”
“I'm thinkin'—and thank you so much—that you, me, Noah, an'—what's his name—Jamal, should leave right now, you do your crazy magic thing to get in touch with that Jabari dude, an' we go save DJ.”
“That's—” Go on Lynn. Say it. Tell him how crazy that sounds. Do what you always do. Be the voice of reason. He needs someone to anchor him back down to reality.
Yeah, reality. The same reality in which your mom goes out looking like a whore only to have her come back looking even less. The same reality that has everyone in the school fault you for being different. The one where the talk of the day involves a joke or two or twenty at your expense. The same reality where you're thought of as less than human just because you're poor and live in the projects. Y'know what? F*** reality, I think I'm tired of it. School's alright, but I need a better escape. All work and no play is really boring. At the very least, Chris knows how to have fun.
“Alright, I'm in, but not now. We're not cutting class to do this. After school, we'll meet up. I think I have Jamal in my next class—no, the one after that, so I'll tell him about it. If you run into Noah before I do, tell him. Once we all meet up, see where everyone stands, and actually come up with a plan. Then we'll go. Even if it turns out to be just you and me, we'll go. That sound alright?”
“Ha ha! Yes. I knew I could count on you.” He gives me a quick hug, which honestly takes me by surprise. Hugging people isn't something he usually does—especially hugging a girl. He still thinks we all have cooties or some oddness. He then runs off—for what or to what, I have no clue.
I look back at the locker to see the queen bee and her drones have left. It's about time for next period to start. For a moment, I start having second thoughts about the whole thing. There's no telling how long looking for Darius will take, and if it does involve demons, then there's a good chance we'll all die.
Oh well. Anything is better than this.
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