*Untitled*
an excerpt

At long last, I seized the opportunity to regroup. With arms outstretched in front of me like an Olympic diver just off the board, I dove for Mariah’s king size bed. My weight hit the bed with such force that throw pillows bounced off the mattress and onto the floor. I should go on a diet.
“Clarissa!” Mariah screamed. She frantically picked up the pillows and put them back on the bed as perfectly as she could with my frumpy bubble butt smack in the center of it. I could have sworn that I just felt the bed bounce for at least 15 seconds after I landed on it.
“Everything can’t always be perfect. The sooner off you learn that the better you’ll be.” I stated with such force that it caught Mariah off guard.
I stared at her and tried to keep my eyes focused on her eyes. She finally adverted her eyes and began fidgeting with her fingers. That’s how I knew that she was about to erupt into one of her living life lectures.
“What’s the point of living if you aren’t striving for perfection?” she asked hesitatingly.
“What’s the point of living if you’re always failing because you can never be perfect?” I shot back.
“It’s all in how you see the world. I think a lot of things are perfect. In this moment, I am perfect because I’m who and where I’m supposed to be,” Mariah said plainly as if this concept was common knowledge and not just a tidbit of her personal philosophy.
“Your psycho babble bullshit never ceases to amaze me.” I said flatly. I propped myself up a few of the pillows that were still left on the bed and stared at Mariah, waiting for her to reply.
Mariah stared intently, her eyes never left mine. I knew that she was preparing herself for a verbal sparring match that would result in one of us receiving the verbal bitch slap.
“I think that’s your problem. You think my life view, my outlook on life…” she paused for dramatic effect, “is psycho babble bullshit…” another dramatic pause, “because you don’t have an outlook of your own.”
I was stumped. What the hell was she talking about? “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’ll spare you a full fledged conversation on existentialism and questions like ‘why are we here?’ and ‘what is the point of living.’ If you don’t have an outlook, a take, a stance, a STAND, how do you live? I hate to be mean, Clarissa, but if you ask me, you don’t have any of these things so you don’t live. And I think that’s why you are here looking for my help.”
My jaw dropped and my eye widened until I thought my contacts were going to fall out. I didn’t want to hear any of this, so I rolled onto my side and stared out her bedroom window.
“Oh go ahead, Clarissa. Ignore me. Stare out the window. We aren’t kids anymore. You can’t possibly think that I’ll forget that I’m bothering you and go away because you stare out the window and won’t talk to me. I’m not seven anymore. And you’re not eleven. Why did you come here? Huh? Was it to torture me? Do you think I like seeing you like this? Do you think I want a depressed, miserable, frumpy bubble butt as a sister? Huh?” Mariah picked up a pillow and wung it at my head. It bounced off my forehead onto the bed and then onto the floor.
I opened my eyes. Mariah stood above me with another pillow, aimed and ready to be fired at my forehead. I rolled over on my other side and stared at the wall.
“Hmmhrmmm!” I screamed. Well, muffled. Mariah straddled me; her knees wedged my arms against my torso. She firmly held a large pillow over my face. My sister was trying to kill me. I tried kicking her off of me, but to no avail. Her buns of steel held my legs down; I was going anywhere. I flailed, tried to scream, I fought and fought, but I couldn’t break free. I was starting to get tired and the lack of oxygen was starting to get to my brain.
Mariah lifted the pillow off my face.
I gasped for air. I waved my hands in front of my face trying to get more oxygen into my lungs.
Mariah still sat on top of me. She stared me down, unblinking, unflinching. I gave in and blinked. She loosened her grip on my arms so I kind of sat up and propped myself up on my elbows.
I finally caught my breath and regained my composure enough to ask the obvious, “What the fuck did you do that for?” I stared back at her, even though I knew I’d lose and end up blinking before she did.
“You didn’t want to die, did you?” she asked.
“OF COURSE I DIDN’T WANT TO DIE! Why would I want to die?” I yelled.
I was so confused at this point. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, talk or scream, stay or run screaming. I questioned my safety in the presence of my baby sister. Would she try to kill me again?
“Well, excuse me Clarissa! But you didn’t strike me as the type who wanted to live. You just struck me as the type who was too afraid to kill yourself. So, I thought I would help you out.” And then she stood up, walked off the bed and out her bedroom door.
I fell back against the pillows and stared up at the ceiling. I clutched the very pillow that almost killed me and began to cry.