school

Stage Fright

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Forced into doing a school play where I play second to the teacher’s “Sarah.” I’m meant to be the leading lady with one song where I lament about work before catching the eye of the lead, played by B. We’re late and instead of rehearsing the teacher decides to run through once with a paying audience. Outside the cafeteria, I put on my makeup and start going over the song but as it comes time to walk in I can’t remember enough of the words and back out. Flustered, I explain how I can’t bring myself to ruin the show further and the teacher steps in herself. Green screen effects are filmed on set and people grumble about it. One woman points out how the teacher’s topless in one scene (she’s drifting across the screen, acting as if she’s underwater) and another surrounded by kids squawks back at her that of all the things in the play, that’s what she’s upset about? They get into an argument about how mothers shouldn’t be ashamed of their bodies and I slump back in my chair.

I’m at a table with a bunch of rednecks who blame me for the play falling apart. They’re all in plaid and chewing snuff. One of them admits I would have been a better fit for the part. I hand the script over to the only one holding his tongue, who tells me he’s going to draw up an outline minus the songs so we can keep everything organized. Leaving, I pass him sitting at a typewriter and he hands me what he’s got so far. I walk up behind B. who’s carrying his dog Maggie, used during a green screen scene, only now her flowy red hair is cropped and white. She appears frozen in flight. He stops to chat with a woman and an old man missing his legs sitting in a small tub of sand on a bench. I stop and smile and they agree I should’ve been in the play. A large dried out insect — a bee or a fly — whines beside them and flexes its wings. They laugh, but everyone else flees and mutters how “that thing’s going to kill somebody.” We board a bus to leave, and I relax a little knowing the play wasn’t a disaster because of me.

– December 28, 2012

Small things ... 151/366
© Dennis Skley

Stone Jaw

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At a school function at the same table as Trey Parker and his girlfriend. A gaggle of girls are chatting farther down the row. Students are acting as waiters and taking orders but no one ever asks us what we want. I’m given a chicken sandwich smothered in green peppers when I see Trey’s left and people are filing out. I can’t remember whether or not I put my cell phone in my bag, and since our bags were collected and I don’t know where they are, I head towards Magnitude from Community intending to ask him. He’s sitting with his arms folded and his head down. There are three boxes of food in front of him that I assume he’s supposed to deliver. I set my cash down and he grabs it not realizing it’s mine, so I shove his boxes under a pile on the floor as I rummage through my pockets. He accuses me of trying to steal from him and says he thought I wasn’t like the others, waving the slip of paper at me that I’d written on earlier (we’d been directed to write affirmations or something at the beginning of the dinner). I start retching and stand over the nearest trash can. He says I’m acting. I gag that I have a panic disorder, pulling pieces of chewed paper from my mouth, but he’s already leaving.

Outside, I wander around in the rain with my hand over my mouth; it has swollen to the size of a softball and my tongue is poking out. A blue van I recognize stops ahead of me and someone waves at me from the cracked door. Sarah jumps out so I follow her. She stops to reassure her younger sister at the bus, and when she turns and sees me she screams. [Liz] catches up to us and starts crying, pleading for someone to help me as I’m clearly in pain. A nurse pulls me back inside and jabs a needle into my jaw, three spots on each side. She leaves me in a tiny room to fetch meds and I’m tempted to look in the mirror but can’t bring myself to do it.

– December 28, 2012

I woke up with a sore jaw and my chin and lips felt bloated and hard to the touch. This was the first of two dreams I had that day, the last I recorded for the year. Here’s the second.

Chutes and Spirals

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Outside, telling stories and fairy tales when the story of Robin Hood comes up and a couple of child-sized bunnies introduce themselves. A kid runs by screaming that we missed the first bell. Everyone runs for school, but the bell rings for homeroom and most of us aren’t even inside yet. Inside, there’s a meeting of some sort being held in the auditorium and they’re playing NIN over the loudspeakers. A bunch of us wind up on the stairs (which spiral, with a set above and below where you’re standing) and Katherine Heigl is above me and a young black girl is below me. Katherine is crying. Apparently, we’re being stalked by someone who wants us dead, and to avoid them we keep dropping from the ledge and onto the landing below, all together so that we’re swapping places. At one point, a door behind Heigl opens but no one’s there, and a door at the end of one landing slams shut. The girl below me has a gray-haired Kathy Bates suddenly appear behind her and Heigl shoots Bates in the head . . .

– December 29, 2008

Spiral Staircase
© p-damp