Here is a sample of a book I am creating, well a series of short stories to be precise (humorous pieces with an underlying, pro-equality in humanity empowering message) about a girl named Hazel, a spirited yet rambunctious lesbian who gets herself into loads of mischief unknowingly being the daredevil college student that she is. On top of that, she seems to have quite the streak of dreadful luck. She's gotten her heart broken repeatedly, is rather jaded, her family always seems to be against her, and has had a fair share of problems with her friends too but has a lot of amazing people in her life, regardless. Hazel is an odd soul though, with an innumerable number of eccentricities, including her oblivious nature and unique perception of the world. These stories tell of the evolution of Hazel as she gets herself into one bizarre situation after another that students from across the world can certainly relate to, and within the comedy of her life, she finds much meaning, and vice versa---as she learns the best way to diminish the stings of life's turbulence is to simply laugh. Sidenote: These stories are on the raunchy side. Very, very authentic and real and brutally frank, no beating around the bush but a bit salty. If you enjoy follow me on Twitter/tweet me: @ladylazarus00. Thank you for your time! All kinds of opinions are welcome. Besides, that is the only way a writer learns!
The Lesbian Amelia Bedelia
#1: Gossipy Bitches and Computer Hackers
They say college is a time to go apeshit nuts and try your hand at as many things as possible. But what they don’t tell you is how catastrophes are elicited at the speed of light. This isn’t high school anymore, folks. You can’t scurry home to a safe haven away from the backbiting, conniving sluts and the pompous Ivy League-bound brown nosers. No ma’am, your shit is chucked on top of your head like manure and you are forced to sort through it all right then and there. You may procrastinate in class, but you sure as hell can’t put off the trivial yet seemingly earth-shattering drama that arises when familiarity breeds contempt. You must plunge on into those frigid waters and you can come out of it in two ways: you can sink or you can swim. It entirely depends on whether or not you can play the hand you are dealt to quell the crisis. Because if you can’t master the strategies, you’re going under, motherfucker.
I was minding my own business slaving away at the semi-haunted, ominous library as the click-clacking of my pen against the table reverberated through the room like the pressing of your ear up to a shell, as the blood surges through your cranium to cloud your mind like a hit from a crack pipe. The room was so much like a dank, sordid dungeon that I half-expected Casper the Ghost to swoop down from the ceiling and collapse onto my head. And what made matters worse was the damn granite statue that lurked around the corner to where I usually planted myself. It was of some stuffy-looking old fart with a furrowed brow and thin lips who presumably made a significant impact at the college. Not to mention, you can see your reflection in the enormous, tinted blue windows which can get increasingly creepy and unsettling as the night wears on given the plummeting status of your appearance.
Suddenly, amid my squinting at the asinine formulas I had to memorize for my Secret Codes core math class (what a bullshit class, it was nothing like the Da Vinci code. Although, to be frank, the only thing I liked about that movie was Audrey Tautou. And the book was alright. Overhyped, but it tickled my fancy.) Well, my phone started to buzz out of the blue so loudly, it appeared as if it were having a seizure as it shimmied dangerously close to the edge of the table.
“Holy fuck,” I said aloud to myself. The grizzled oaf with dark, square hipster glasses who was sitting at the table across from me rose an eyebrow, grimaced and strolled stiffly and rapidly out of the room as if it had just caught on fire. I picked up the phone, not bothering to check the caller ID. And let me tell you, this was very much out of the ordinary for me given that every state in the nation calls me every forty-eight hours or so. I would say some clown in Montana punches in my number at least a few times a week. My friends always tell me to answer so I can tell them to go fuck themselves, assuming they’re telemarketers, but I have no problem disregarding the unsolicited calls. I always tell myself that one of these days I will answer and pretend I’m an 85 year old woman whose extremely hard of hearing and cranky as all hell at the negligent nurses at her shoddy nursing home. One of these days after I have a moment to concoct a dreadfully clever plan, I will answer the damn call and execute my meticulously uproarious plan.
I pressed the “talk” button and thrust the phone up to my right ear.
This better be brief.
“What?” I barked, slightly irate that I had been interrupted from doing absolutely nothing particularly fruitful. I mean, I was working on my math homework. I’d have a better sense of pride and accomplishment if I were clipping my toenails.
“Hazel what are you up to right now?” my roommate, Mabel queries aloofly, in a rather whispery voice. Instantly, my heart plummets down into my bowels, although this feeling is concealed by an overwhelming sense of straight-up befuddlement.
“Oh, I’m just at the library getting shit done at the pace of a crippled snail,” I retort nonchalantly.
Then I hear some chirping in the background and I feel my eyelids vanish into the cushy area behind my eyeballs as my palms become frozen and moist.
“Who are you with? It sounds like a damn posse of chickens,” I squeak before she has a chance to respond.
“Oh it’s just Estelle and Pearl,” she said curtly, with a tinge of alarm in her voice.
“Oh, I see,” I reply, punching in my Twitter URL into my Internet browser, my attention quickly diverting away from this phone call. To put it bluntly, I had the attention span of a maggot. And was probably just as tidy as one too.
“Well I have to talk to you about something, so when you’re done can you come back to the dorm? I’m just in the room,” she said coolly.
I raised an eyebrow and let out a not too subtle, exasperated sigh. I already felt drained and no shit had even gone down yet.
“I’ll come right now, it’s not as if I’m being the least bit productive anyhow,” I shot back earnestly.
“No, you don’t need to do that,” she sputtered, sounding suddenly frazzled and panicked.
“Well it sounds like an emergency so I’ll just skedaddle on over.” I slammed my phone down on the wooden table before she had a chance to object and carelessly shoved my sea of papers that stuck out every which way in my notebook into the other chaotic abyss that was my book bag. It looked as if the Atomic Bomb went off in there. And who even knew what enigmas lurked toward the bottom of the pockets. Frankly, I didn't even want to know. For all I know, a miniature village had been erected within the grim depths. I growled with impatience and frustration like a rabid dog chained up in its cage in the backyard.
A tiny, Albino-looking girl shot a withering stare at me with her piercing, beady eyes and shuffled off to another table far, far away from me as fast as her stumpy little legs could carry her.
After moseying on back to my dorm building, I dumped my load of crap off to the side by Mabel’s closet.
I don’t give a shit that I’m blocking her closet, she’s being quite a pill right now and it’s troubling me.
I leaned up against my desk, yanked a random piece of Juicy Fruit that I found in my back pocket, popped it in my mouth and shifted my gaze toward the two sets of menacing eyes that were boring holes into me. I suddenly felt rather overheated. But I was in luck, since playing it cool was one of my many fortes.
“Yeah what’s going on lassies?” I lightheartedly demanded of my friends. Since my bed was occupied by Estelle, who didn’t exactly take up minimum space in any given vicinity, I plopped my ass down on my desk chair, recklessly tossed my scuffed boots up on my desk that was very well hidden amid yet another chasm that was just teeming with knick knacks, crumpled up scraps of paper, and empty cans of Red Bull. I violently swiped a few cans onto the dirty tiled floor in order to make some more room for my absurdly heavy, chunky combat boots.
Estelle and Mabel exchanged very crestfallen yet simultaneously frantic glances, and began to spew out a handful of thoroughly stammered, incoherent words.
“Hold up,” I remarked catching “Ariel” by Sylvia Plath after tossing it into the air just for shits and giggles, and promptly slamming it down onto my desk. “Where in tarnation is Pearl?”
Mabel looked at me like I had just asked her if she could lend me a hand in dying my hair all of the colors of the rainbow. Granted, that would not be a terribly bizarre inquiry. In fact, it would have been rather appropriate.
“She had to study for a test,” Mabel said dismissively.
“For Christ’s sake, out with it already,” Estelle boomed, her pudgy cheeks turning the color of tomatoes. She followed up this outburst with a tiny smack to Mabel’s right cheek.
“Ouch! Jesus, you go then, if you’re so damn antsy,” Mabel said snippily.
“We hacked into your computer and saw all of your e-mails that you sent to various people bitching and whining about us. You made us sound like fucking, criminal monsters!” Estelle yelped, her eyes narrowing, while throwing her hands up for dramatic effect.
“You made us sound worse than a rapist! Or a pedophile!” Mabel followed up with, appearing as if she was on the verge of tears.
“What about a serial killer?” I inquired, deadpan.
Glancing at their faces, I decided the joke had been lost on them. They stared at me blankly, which quickly transitioned into their eyebrows shooting up toward their scalp, and their lips being so pursed they began to turn a creamy shade of white.
I reckon this means they want answers, not jokes.
I gnashed my teeth together, scratched the tip of my nose, which is always a clear indication that I’m feeling dreadfully uneasy, and chose my next words very cautiously.
“Look, we all know that when people spend too much time together they get on each other’s last nerve, and thus, need time to vent. It’s nothing personal. It’s all good in the hood,” I explained sheepishly.
“How can you downplay it so much? Everything you said to your parents and everyone else could ruin our reputations,” Estelle blubbered, standing up in order to tower over me, to naturally, intimidate and scare the living daylights out of me with her rather sturdy size.
“Whoa there,” I spit back, sticking an old Camel I found in my desk drawer between my teeth, as I rummaged around like a blind raccoon for my lighter, failing to make eye contact with them. “I’m not the one who had such an untamed case of paranoia that I had to break into a computer to snoop like a fucking Sherlock Holmes gone bloody mad!”
“Well at least we’re not a damn gossipy cunt!” Mabel screeched, her eyes tearing up as her face began to look increasingly crimson as if she had been baking in the sun all day. Her hair was also beginning to frizz a bit, making her closely resemble Dame Liz circa the early 90s.
“Hey now, I was just blowing off steam. It’s basic science, people. If you don’t let it all out, and keep it bottled up, you’re bound to explode into smithereens,” I responded as prudently as possible, gesticulating wildly with my cigarette to haughtily empathize my point.
“What the fuck? We’re not talking about some damn science fair project, we’re talking about human emotions!” Estelle barked, stomping her right foot on the ground like a charging gazelle. I knew it was only a matter of time until the psychology major in her started to channel out into this bullshit.
I couldn’t take their petulance anymore. I wasn’t going to let these blubbering babies persevere. Shit, do I always sound this callous?
“Look, bitches, can’t we just call it even? I said some not so nice things about people I love dearly...well most of the time. And you nut jobs pecked away at my computer like the busybodies you are to get some dirt to use against me. I’d say none of us exactly win a medal today,” I lectured to them, as they exchanged dubious glances with one another. I felt as if I had them. I was a master at persuasion. Trust me, there is an art to an argument.
“So whose with me? Calling it even to put a grinding halt to the toil and mayhem!” I said valiantly, pumping a fist into the hair and leaping onto my bed to add the icing to the cake.
Estelle grimaced at me, raised an eyebrow, and shook her head. Mabel bit her top lip, crossed her arms over her chest and stared blankly at me.
“Too much?” I ask, bounding off of my bed and back onto my desk chair.
“Too damn much,” Estelle said mockingly.
“Mmhmm,” Mabel echoed.
“A woman of few words today I see,” I muttered under my breath, flashing a snide smile at my roommate.
Neither of them even bothered to utter a word in response. They didn't need to tell me I wasn't being amusing. Let's just say it was a defense mechanism.
“What even made you clowns paranoid that I was talking about you?” I wondered aloud, taking a drag from my Camel.
“We got bad vibes,” Estelle bluntly retorted.
“Now you’re really starting to sound like me,” I teased, throwing my head back and cackling like a hyena. More specifically, a chain smoking, hazardously raspy, hyena.
“We’re serious,” Mabel said, glaring at me again.
“Well, what can I say? You guys were right. Vibes don’t fuck around. Their wisdom is never-ending,” I said, nodding in agreement, as I turned my Camel over with my index finger and thumb.
Suddenly, Mabel started to cough and splutter uncontrollably, her eyes bulging out of her sockets like two golf balls balancing on tees. Her eyeballs were as scathed and raw as a third degree burn, and were so protruding and bloodshot they looked like a veiny, erect penis flapping in the wind.
“Why the fuck are you smoking?” she bellowed grasping her neck as if she was holding a dead animal.
“I’m a closet smoker,” I said matter-of-factly.
Estelle looked as if her jaw was about to plummet to the floor. Mabel melodramatically tossed herself off of her bed and onto the carpet as if she was throwing herself off of a sinking ship and she inched her way over to the refrigerator no doubt to rummage for a water bottle. I rolled my eyes.
“Are you quite finished?” I snapped hotly, and smashed my now miniscule cigarette into a random glass bottle that posed as my ashtray.
Mabel just kept hacking away as if she were about to vomit out an organ, sprawled out on the floor spread eagle as if she was immobile. Now it was Estelle’s turn to be exasperated.
“For Christ’s sake, chug this and shut the hell up!” Estelle boomed, violently chucking a half empty Dasani at Mabel’s throat.
“Thanks,” Mabel croaked gratefully.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to trust you again,” Estelle said to me, her eyes narrowing. “This is a betrayal, you see.”
“Oh let’s not get dramatic, I think we’ve have enough melodramatic performances for the day,” I said cavalierly, darting my eyes over to Mabel slumped on the ground lapping up the remaining droplets in the water bottle with the tip of her tongue as if she was giving a rim job.
“I’m serious,” said Estelle coldly, crossing her arms.
Jesus, these people would be swell litigators.
I sighed heavily and scraped the back of my right hand across my forehead to rid myself of the perspiration.
“I said I am sorry. And truly, sincerely I am. I will do anything to remedy it,” I tell them.
“Just prove to us that you will change your ways,” Mabel chimes in, now stretching herself across the entire ground like a dog rolling around in the sun.
Estelle nods in agreement.
“All right! Will do. Now can you chumps promise me you won’t go snooping where you don’t belong? That’s not okay, and I deserve a damn apology too,” I tell them sternly.
“We’re extremely sorry, we knew that was fucked up,” Estelle said, frowning.
“And shady! And sketchy! Don’t forget those things too,” Mabel added.
“Thanks for the addition, Skippy,” I retort.
“Anytime, homedog!” Mabel grins unabashedly.
“Let’s take an oath,” I say exuberantly. “To no more being vicious, gossiping, nosy, wicked peeping Toms!”
“Hear hear!” Estelle shouts, chuckling a bit. Her plump cheeks, as round as apples turn as ruddy and crimson as a pair of red delicious.
“Huzzah!” squeals Mabel, finally springing off of the filthy carpet as if she were bounding off a trampoline and back onto her feet.
We all raise an imaginary glass and I begin to chant.
“Cheers to no more gossiping and bitching and doing shit behind our friends' backs!”
We clink knuckles, as if we were testing out invisible brass knuckles on each other.
“To only doing these things to people we DON’T know!” Mabel bellows.
Estelle roars with laughter, and I merely nod my head slowly.
“I like the way you think, roommate of mine. I like the way you think.”
#2: Trees Under Trees
My dour, pursed-lipped stick in the mud of a roommate had gone home for the weekend, much to my delight, so naturally, I was prancing around the room, leaping onto the beds and desks, as Lady Gaga blared in the background in my fervent attempt to diminish the vision of myself ate age seventy, alone and decrepit, stuffed in a bland and sterile nursing home somewhere with nothing but a wheelchair and tubes shoved in my nostrils; ruefully praying that I extracted more wisdom and love from the disillusionment that was my life.
At first, I didn’t hear the urgent knocking that had my door wobbling in and out as thuds reverberated through my room. Then when I did hear it I yelped like a banshee undergoing surgery without an anesthetic and I proceeded to smooth my frizzed hair into place, and shuffled over to the door to see who in God’s name needed me this badly amid my two in the morning liberation jig.
“Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in,” I said crisply as I opened the door.
It was my cousin who wasn’t really my cousin, Pearl. You see, our mothers were dear friends, our fathers third cousins with something or other removed, and my grandmother married her grandfather in an attempt at a second marriage. But of course, Pearl being the cool cucumber she was, was utterly unfazed. Her eyelids hung low with weariness and a tinge of stress.
“What’s the deal with your hair?” she barked, deadpan.
I scowled and self-consciously patted my head negligently.
“That seems to be the question of the year,” I retorted, hinting to my friends’ relentless harping of my wide array of bizarre hairdos.
“It could be worse though, I suppose. Thank the Lord you quit with the teasing already,” she said with a sigh, as if it was such a strenuous day for her to visually absorb me whenever I rocked a beehive.
“Okay, you had your cracks. How can I be of service?” I snapped hotly. I was this close to slamming the door violently on her fingers. Though of course, that would cause suck a ruckus that every busybody in my hallway would poke their head out like gossip-hungry ostriches to see what was going on. Especially my next door neighbor; Petunia. When she caught a whiff of something even a tad newsworthy, it would be like a shark sniffing blood.
Thankfully, Pearl cut to the chase.
“When’s the last time you had your mind altered?” she wondered.
I took a moment to allow this to sink in. Pearl had a tendency to get exceptionally cryptic when she wanted something. She would make a marvelous lawyer, with all the tricks she had up her sleeve. I raised an eyebrow.
“What do you mean exactly?” I queried, crossing my arms over my bosom, or lack thereof.
“Okay, so I’m fucking stressed---Bio and Chem and my Humanities papers---I can’t take it, look at me I’m a hot mess! I’m turning into you---“ Pearl began, running a hand through her hair. But I cut her off.
“Do not blame me for your neurotic self rearing its ugly head! It’s about time!”
“Whatever. Want to hit a peace to calm my frenzied nerves?” she added, composedly.
I gasped, ever so slightly.
“Well why didn’t you say so?” I demanded, feeling a coiled ball of knots beginning to unravel deep within the pits of my abdomen.
“I knew I could count on you,” Pearl snickered with glee.
I sprung out of my room, failing to close my door all the way. Pearl eyed my bare feet.
“Shoes,” she said, waving a finger in my face.
“Oh me oh my, what a fool I am,” I exclaimed, tossing my hands into the air dramatically.
“You can say that again,” Pearl muttered under her breath.
I chose to ignore that comment and stabbed my feet into my tattered red Converses and pulled my keys out of my pocket to quickly lock my door and hobbled down the hall with Pearl. After I nearly toppled over onto her like a bowling pin, she rested a hand on my shoulder and stage whispered, “Tie your shoes, asshole. Don’t want to fall into a ditch or anything.”
Hey, how’d she know of that anecdote?
I smirked at her, tied my shoelaces in the most meticulous manner I knew how (two bunny ears then one goes under the hill), and we were off. As I strolled past Pearl’s room toward the exit sign, she yanked me back.
“Pit stop---we can’t blow without the blaze, yes?” said Pearl.
And before I could choose the perfect witticism to follow up with, she sputtered, “Don’t bother, I realized how that sounded just a moment after it came out.”
“Mmhmm,” was all I said. I flashed her an enormous, cheesy smile.
As we crossed the threshold of her door, right out of the corner of my eye I spotted Ling Kim, Pearl’s disheveled, glassy-eyed martian, who in other words, was her roommate. Ling Kim peered at me over her Nintendo controller with her beady, bulging eyes. It never had me taken aback, I knew it was a result of all the high quality chronic she puffed on a daily basis. I was fortunate to always catch her in the aftermath of heavy inhalement, given that whenever I spotted her, strong clouds always tightly encompassed her. You certainly had to commend the girl on her taste.
“Pure shit only,” she once slurred to me, her breath reeking of Bailey’s whiskey as I caught a glimpse of a shiny, silver flask dangling off of one of her bed posts.
When all was said and done, the girl smoked like Snoop Dogg. Therefore, she wanted the world to know that they shouldn’t even bother raising judgments. Because she wasn't having any of it.
THAT'S IT! WANT MORE? MORE IS SOON TO COME LATER!
No comments:
Post a Comment