Pink Flamingos

Rainy Nights

Rainy nights were few and far between, but when it rained it was something more – it was always a violent summer storm.

The thunder rolling outside our windows felt close enough to knock on our door. Every time it sounded, I couldn’t help but jump. Though cold, hard logic told me otherwise, the strong winds felt as though they were enough to sweep our trailer up into the eye of the storm, and I’d be Dorothy – except there was never any Oz.

Occasionally, the lamp would flicker and I would burrow further under my covers. The whole thing would be even worse if the power went out. I wanted desperately to sneak into Mama Chelsea and Mama Heather’s room and slide into bed between them pulling the covers up over all three of us, the way I used to do with Mama and Dad. But no, I was far too old for that. Not in their eyes, but in my own.

If I couldn’t survive a simple storm, how would I survive anything else? I asked myself, staring at the ceiling of my bedroom with a hopeless abyss growing within me. I hated how scared I was of the world. Like everything else, like every person I knew, the storm didn’t choose to exist. Through no fault of its own, it only happened like the universe intended it to. Surely, I couldn’t blame it for that, I thought to myself, as I felt myself shake even harder when a sudden bolt of lightning illuminated the room.

As scary as it was, the weather that the world had chosen for the night certainly suited my own gloom – the thoughts in my mind were chaotic, swirling around and around without end, echoing loudly and bouncing against the walls of my skull; walls that it seemed could hardly contain its contents. No one could make sense of everything I was thinking or feeling, let alone me.

I wished so deeply that I could hand some wise, wise person a saw and let them cut open my head so they could take a peek at everything that was going on in there. Then, they could sew me back up, tell me what was wrong and send me merrily on my way. They could even extract some thoughts while they were at it, just to keep things a little more peaceful for a while. I smiled sadly to myself; if only the world worked that way.

In a world like that, I thought, everyone would be a little happier. We would all say whatever was on our minds without any worries, we could all lose our inhibitions – every single one of us, even me. There would be acceptance all around. Everyone would be more in love too, because you would never have to hide how you feel out of fear.

I sighed. Yes, that was the world I wanted to live in – somewhere completely unlike my own current world; a world that I felt I didn’t need. The days were drifting by and I was wasting away. Yet somehow, I wanted everything to just stop.

No matter how hard I dreamt, none of it would come true. My only hope was to write my way out of everything. And even then, I couldn’t ever even begin articulate everything I had to say. The idea that I couldn’t be everyone I wanted to be, or do everything I wanted to do, or love everything I wanted to love, clung to me as possessively and oppressively as the Nevada heat. I had spent my entire life chasing a fantasy, and realizing that it was unreachable made me feel shattered. I laid in bed, staring at the plain, blank ceiling above me. It was as blank as I felt. I wish I had the power to scream, to cry, to tell the whole wide world how I felt. Instead, I stayed silent, unable to even move a muscle – let alone form a sentence.

Another crash of thunder; another moment that I felt my heart leap out of my chest, abandoning my body and making a run for it. The whole sky was calling to the world below with the sounds of a symphony and I still couldn’t bring myself to enjoy it. I wished I was like Mama Heather; able to see a reason in everything, whether it be a tiny flower, a summer storm or an isolated family that was missing a father and a husband.

But I didn’t see a reason for anything at all. Each day was as pointless as the last and the most disturbing thing about it was how aware of it I was.

Lightning sparked and lit up my room again, a flash of white light. As I gripped my bedsheets, butterfly eggs hatching in my stomach, I was disgusted by the first thought that popped into my head – as I laid there feeling scared, all I could think was that I wished Eddie was there with me