An ominous light glows crisply in the darkness, only illuminating a plastic grin of fangs. I adjust my eyes to see a clown with the most inhuman smile- close enough to smell his layered makeup. My eyes widen and my chest grows. My hands clench to the mattress in tensed paralysis. So this is my vision. This is how I’ll go. The clown begins to laugh maniacally while wiggling his head side to side. Realizing that I am about to experience the pain of death- I release a scream of distress that can only be described as primal. I scream even after the lights turn on and the clown rips off his face to reveal my laughing older sister underneath.
“Silvia! What the fuck are you doing?! It’s five AM on a school night! You guys have your first day back to school, let’s not forget!”
I stop screaming, and anger replaces fear as I hear Pops’s voice snapping me back to reality.
“Omar! Did you really think you were having your vision?!”
She let out a disgusting laugh at the sound of her own sentence.
“A fucking clown?!” she snorts.
“You thought you’d die by a fucking clown?!”
She bursts out in louder laughter and I shove her off my bed. Are you kidding me? I say to myself. I could care less how I die- I just want to be a man already. She leaves my room- leaving a trail of cruel laughter in her path. My pops nods his head and turns off the light. I struggle to fall back asleep and wake up pissed off. Still no vision, I think to myself, maybe I’ll never get it.
Everyone supposedly gets their vision eventually. If you die before or during puberty, you get it seconds before death. If you die after puberty- then you get your vision around fifteen to seventeen. I’m seventeen now, and though it’s not uncommon for people to get their vision sometimes five years late from adolescence- I can’t help but feel singled out. It’s the biggest marking of coming-of-age. Most people throw a huge party, like my best friend Seth. He got his vision over the summer, had two DJ’s at his party and his dad bought him a Rolls Royce. Seth told everyone that in his vision, he was an old man that got a heart attack, but I knew the truth. And no matter how much Seth avoids the grand canyon- he’ll die with a good view of it.
That’s how it always is. So most of us just decide to accept it. My grandpa was one of the people that didn’t take such a liking to destiny. His vision was drowning at sea, so he moved from the east coast to Nebraska- the most landlocked state. He never went swimming, didn’t even risk learning in a pool. Avoided aquariums, waterparks and the like. Despite this, he couldn’t prevent the lethal milk flood at the ice cream factory he worked at. It wasn’t lightning in his vision- just the factory losing power during the flood. I don’t plan on preventing my vision, fate is what it’s proven to be, but I’m not as averagely inclined to believe visions are predetermined.
I spring up at the sight of the time, throwing on whatever clothes I can find. Making sure to cover up my left upper arm. As I tie my last shoe, I hear the screeches of the un-oiled bus coming to a halt. Jumping on the bus at the last second, I can feel my stomach rumble. I pass out against the cold and foggy window, relying on Seth to wake me up when we get to his stop. There’s some shuffling, and I hear lots of car horns. Refocusing my eyes- I’m on a balcony. A city. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a city before. This has to be it.
“Hey what the hell are you doing? I have places to be! Get the fuck up!”
My vivid dream is interrupted by the bus driver shoving me. I get up and he doesn’t move out of my way. Just a grumpy look with an equally grumpy mustache. I shove my way by him, doing my best not to inhale his cigarette stench. Hopping off the bus into the swarm of stinky teens, I see Seth waving to me from the curb.
“What the fuck man? Thought you were gonna be outside at 6:00 for me to pick you up in my new wheels!” Seth exclaims before I get close enough to dab him up.
“My fault G, my sister woke me up in the middle of the night. She thinks she’s all big and mighty since she had her vision when she was my age. She thinks I won’t get mine in time for my birthday next week. Can’t say I think I will either” I explain as we walk into the cafeteria.
He doesn’t bother to stop plopping french toast sticks on his tray while he formulates some crummy Seth-response.
“Oh cheer up bub- you’ll get it eventually. Let’s just hope it’s something cool- like fighting a polar bear, or deep-sea diving. Would hate to have your vision be you dying in class.”
He confirms his comedic value by glancing at my fake smirk- then returns to smothering his toast sticks in a two-month supply of maple syrup. He doesn’t exactly help with the tension. What if I die a shitty way? What if I pull an elvis and die taking a dump? These unappetizing thoughts make the food less appealing, and I take three pieces instead of five. The lunch lady at the checkout is yelling at her son from across the cafeteria.
“Ralphy! Ralphy baby what-a-ya-doin gettin’ in that line? You don’t love your mother or something? Stop acting like you don’t know me!”
She continues yelling at poor Ralphy while punching in buttons into the cash register without losing a glance of her highly embarrassed freshman son. Seth and I chuckle and make our way to the corner of the cafeteria we’ve stained for two years now, throwing our backpacks down out of habit of them usually weighing fifty tons in worksheets.
“Ohhhh fuck here she comes”
My glance jolts up in response to Seth’s warning. Lissi, Seth’s girlfriend since Freshman year, is making a full speed trample towards our table. She’s normally a pretty girl, but man can she look as manly as a fighting bull in a state like this. Seth ducks his head behind me, as if there’s some slim chance he can still slip into camouflage before she reaches our table.
“Oh so you picked up your stupid little friend here but not ME?! You’re fucking girlfriend? You can only imagine what my friends thought when they saw you pull up without me. I’ve just spent all morning convincing people we haven’t broken up!”
I wince at every word she yells as if it’s being thrown at me.
“Hey, hey, calm down Lissi. He didn’t even pick me up!” I plead.
“Shut the fuck up Omar, Seth can speak for himself!”
She just about spits in my eye and I instantly regret directing her anger my way.
“No, it’s true!-” Seth pipes up. “-Ask your friends who were keeping such a close eye on me! Maybe you should correct them! The next thing you know they’ll be trying to steal me from you for homecoming.”
Uh oh. I somehow managed to inspire confidence in Seth with my words. The snake bites back.
“Oh so you’re so fucking confident, alright dickhead, take yourself to homecoming. I know damn well none of my friends will go with you.”
She’s smug with this response, knowing exactly how to hit Seth where it hurts.
“Yea?! And what will you do? Stay home on your phone or something? Cheat on me?!”
He stands up as he says this and I can hear the desperation in his voice.
“Who knows?” She shrugs and locks eyes with me. “Maybe I’ll just take your cute friend here instead.”
My face grows warm to the thought, but I shake the feeling and stand up and take my leave before either of them notice how red I’ve turned.
“I’ll catch up with ya later Seth, gotta rip a piss.”
Both to avoid involving myself in their argument any further, and to get out of earshot before I can hear her take that tainted compliment back. It’s not till I unzip that I notice the familiar aroma in the room and the three pairs of shoes shuffling in the handicap stall. Probably freshmen, they’re always so damn sloppy when they smoke. I wash my hands rather fast, hoping to leave before a hall monitor catches the stench and blames me as the culprit. Bending down into the sink, I splash water over my face. Didn’t get nearly enough sleep last night. Wiping my eyes, facing the mirror, I find the growling face of Henry staring back, over my shoulder. He must’ve felt like Jason from Friday the 13th when he crept up behind me.
“I told you, the next time I see you, you’re dead. Too dumb that you forgot?”
His lack of self-control could be heard with the way he shook with his words. He’s still pissed at me. Either this boy is about to shatter my skull into the mirror or he’s constipated. I take my time to finish shaking the water off my hands and turn around to face nose-to-nipple with the oversized ogre.
“You plan on attacking me right here? You’re just asking for trouble.”
I’m not exactly an intimidating force. I don’t think that’ll be enough to scare him off.
“You think I care if a teacher walks in on me stomping your eyes out? It’s Junior year now Omar, and you can be my first detention!”
His eyes widen and he grows a thin smile, knowing full well that he could turn my nose into a splattered fruit-juice water-balloon with the slightest touch. Shit. I gotta think fast. Probably would only do me worse if I reminded him he’s failed for two-years and is still a freshman.
“Yea? Sure you can take on me. But four of me? You wouldn’t stand a chance.”
I try to take a step to move past him but he steps in parallel to block me.
“What the hell are you talking about, you fucking walnut?”
He shoves me into the sink as he says walnut. My tail-bone smacks the edge of the sink but I don’t let my face show the hurt. I turn my head with a bluffing smirk.
“Boys! Get out here right now!” I shout.
Henry grunts a caveman noise and looks over to the handicap stall. The panicking kids inside shuffle as they hide their paraphernalia, and single file walk out of the stall, greeting the situation with faces of confusion. They clearly expected to see a hall-monitor here. Shit, lucky me, just about the three biggest freshmen in history. Henry grips me by my collar and pulls me up to his face, baring his yellow hillbilly fangs.
“Next timeeeee” he growls between his teeth, with the most insulting smell of onion.
He plops me down and stomps out of the bathroom. Whew. I wipe the sweat from my brow and look down at the floor and chuckle at myself.
“What the hell man? Thought you were an op?!”
One of the tall boys reconfirmed my assumption of their grade with his equally high pitched voice.
“Sorry- sorry” I catch my breath. “It’s complicated. Listen. You guys did great- go do whatever”
They shuffle back in their little smoke closet of a stall and I do a double take of the hallway before I merge lanes with speeding traffic. Nearly full-course colliding into a substitute teacher and someone’s overly-packed backpack. I manage to slip past just in time, leaving the substitute teacher to absorb the side slap of the backpack. Ouch. She took a metal water bottle to the teeth! Serves her right for not looking out.
WHACK!
Pain pierces my temple and I stumble back in response to smacking my head against something. I look up to see Cleo, equally hurt and just as shocked as I am that we’ve run into each other.
“Shit! Sorry- I’m really sorry I didn’t see you there!” I shout.
My confidence dissipates and I scurry to pick up her fallen items. I haven’t seen Cleo all summer, and this is how I make my grand impression?
“It’s all okay Omar! Seriously! Don’t even worry about it.”
She’s still holding her head in pain, so I know she’s lying. Then a bitter familiar voice appears.
“What’d ya do to my brother Cleo?! You wanna start shit on the first day?” Sylvia taunts, giving Cleo a shove back a couple feet.
Sylvia hates me. She just hates Sylvia more. They’ve been friends for about a decade, this is just one of the many hiccups they’ve been through. Probably the longest though. Whatever Cleo did, Sylvia is dead-set on ruining her last year of highschool. I put my hand up to stop Sylvia before things escalate.
“Relax dude- it was my fault. I ran into her. Cool it.”
Sylvia swings the first half of a punch forward to make Cleo flinch and turns around to melt back into the sea of students. I look back to expect Cleo to thank me, or at least a smile, but she’s gone.
I stumble my way into the classroom just as it starts and plop down at my seat. Seth’s already here, and in a good mood to boot. Seems like he just broke a record for compromising speed-run, or one of his mistresses sent him a cheeky text.
Ms.H walks up to the front of the class, and knocks her desk three times hard. The class goes quiet, except me, I let out a loud grumble of deja-vu.
“Alright class, welcome to Finance 101, for some of you this is your first time learning finance.”
She makes sure to lock eyes with me as she says this.
“For those who haven’t had the blessing, let’s start with taxes.”
My eyelids shield me from the painfully fluorescent light. She starts bringing up numbers and I fade into the void. I let in a large gasp of air but only some of it comes in. Woosh. Colors start to trinkle in from the darkness of my sleep, and I can feel myself reaching towards a pain in my lungs. But I grab onto something. Is this a knife?
“It’ll be okay Omar! You’re okay baby”
I hear a voice, too distorted to even tell the gender it even came from. I keep trying to suck air in my lungs. Each time I can breathe in less and less. Woosh. More colors. A shoulder. A metal crescent moon. A marble counter. White papers and paintings everywhere on the wall. Rave kandi bracelets on the floor.
“This isn’t gonna be it baby, it’s gonna be fine” The voice echos. She echos.
I go to breathe in again but no air comes in. My lungs stop working. A numbness in my fingers. A coldness to my skin. A warmth in my forehead. I lose control over myself again, and can see myself from above. A bird’s eye view of a horribly blurred crime scene.
“BLARGHHHH!”
I release a roar of vomit and the noise of a forgotten sea beast as I snap back to reality and my organs slap back into place. Everything is dizzy. I feel my chest. No knife. Heartbeats still there. I can breathe. The sour taste of stomach bile engulfs my tastebuds. I glance up to the silent classroom, everyone is staring at me. I can hear kids whispering but my senses are too blurry to translate.
“DUDE! Congratulations! Holy fucking shit! Can’t deny you weren’t sleeping in class now!” Seth exclaims, trying to bottle in his laughter.
The teacher hangs up a phone and walks up to me, stepping around the vomit.
“You’re okay honey, come with me to the nurses, you just had your vision.”