Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

He bowed. I swear I’ll never date a history major. I looked for an imaginery red button to open a trap door beneath his feet as he straightened his back and his tie. He began his daily recitation of the Gettysburg Address to his reflection in the window. This aggravated my annoyance, so I dropped a fifty-ton anvil on his head. Hmm, maybe next time I’ll pluck each offensive bristle from his Lincoln look-alike beard – I’ll have to narcotize him some night after he has been particularly goading and obnoxious. Too bad I couldn’t do it then; it would have set me back even later and I still needed to catch my bus.

“Where is Thumbkin, where is Thumbkin?” I sang the absurd song under my breath at the bus stop. My run-ins with Romeo and Abe enabled me to see the back of my bus just as it pulled away. I was at the stop in time for the bus to wrap its tendrils of exhaust around my throat, though. I whisked a stray hair out of my eye and dropped the weighted backpack to the ground. In between crunches on my granola bar, I fought with the preschool song that kept running through my head.

“Here I am, here I am.” I lost the battle with the song that time, but another bus pulled up. I walked to the curb and received my second shower of the day; I didn’t remember that it had rained the night before. My hopes for a good day were the elusive Road Runner and I was Wile E. Coyote about to catch it but falling from a cliff and ending in a cloud of dust instead.

I plopped myself down in one of the bus seats designated for the elderly and handicapped and composed a three point argument stating why I should be included in the latter category.

The song continued to plague me, though. I glanced at the little girl sitting nearest me. She was staring out the window and her lips were moving ever so slightly. She seemed to be humming and playing with her fingers. It looked as though she was carrying on a conversation between her right and left hands. Eager to dispell the song from my head and continue with a less childish day, I leaned in a little bit closer to her. I was careful not to disturb her pink backpack that rested precariously on the seat between us. It was decorated with the latest girl power cartoon characters. I noted the poorly drawn characters with dismay. Cartoons just aren’t what they used to be. Bugs Bunny as the Barber of Seville crept into my memory and pushed out my plans for discovering the girl’s secret song.

I saw Bugs kneading Elmer Fudd’s bald scalp with sketchy Acme hair supplies and realized I had missed my stop. That final omen was enough for me and I settled myself into the uncomfortable bus seat with its worn-down, padded nogahyde. What could be more entertaining than riding an entire bus route? Surely not my graphic design classes.

The little girl pulled the bus cord for her stop without missing a beat in her song. I caught the words she was singing as she lugged her pink backpack down the aisle: “How are you today, sir? Very fine, I thank you.” Thus returned the wretched song, mocking my current emotional state.

An hour-and-a-half later, the obnoxious song still cursed my taste in music, but I knew I could find some relief as soon as I could get to the radio in my room. I didn’t miss my bus stop this time and trudged home. My housemate formerly known as Mark, the perpetrator of my latest melodious malady, surprised even me when I walked into the house. He stood arm in arm with Tristan; both were clad in black tuxedoes and shiny top hats. Adrian held his beloved camera and directed their poses in the sunlit living room. I had never heard Adrian say so many words in succession, which stunned me from my usual chatterbox self. Tristan turned crimson when he saw my mockingly raised eyebrow and Melvin glared when he heard my unsuccessful attempt to supress a half-snorting giggle.

“You could show some respect for the deceased, Haley. Well, I see you’re at least wearing black for the occasion.” He addressed me in all seriousness, I think.

“My deepest apologies, dear sir. I’m not sure I know what overcame me.” I hope my sarcasm wasn’t too odious. The situation definitely did not merit the gravity Melvin suddenly required.

Adrian’s shutter finger finally grew tired, so Melvin motioned for me to join him on the couch. I sat down next to him as he reached into his khaki satchel and ceremoniously removed two stiff pieces of white paper.

“Very nice certificates,” I noted. “Did you put the glitter around the edges all by yourself?” I shouldn’t have said that, but his “Death Certificate for Mark” and “Birth Certificate for Melvin” must have grown hands and wrenched the sarcastic remark from my mouth.

“Can you ever be serious, Haley? This is actually a significant event for me. Off with the Old Me, the moody and melodramatic Mark.” He flailed his arms, trying to convey the obvious. I flinched, ducking his dramatic hands. “On with the New Me – Melvin the Polished Chief, my new identity!” He finished with such a flourish that I clapped my hands.

As I was clapping, I caught my reflection in the mirror hanging opposite us on the wood-paneled wall. My face had turned progressively pinker as I failed to contain my laughter. Ah, Melvin, always an actor, no matter your name. Do you really believe that a name mystically changes a personality?

“I’m sorry, Melvin. Really.” I said, pitying him. I somehow managed to return to my usual pale self.

Tristan cleared his throat and adjusted his bow tie.

“Dearest friends,” he bellowed, while actually lowering his voice an entire octave. “We are gathered here today to witness an occasion of squared significance.”

I rolled my eyes but tried to compensate for my disrespect by affecting a purposefully prim posture. Tristan had showed off throughout high school speech classes and apparently entertained no ideas of quitting now. I could still out do him, though. I always did – if I wanted to, that is. I was eternally the comedien, he my simple subject.

But I put aside all my glorious plans of casting Tristan further into the abyss of my scorn and instead excused myself from the ceremony.

“I just remembered I have a lot of catching up to do before the trip tomorrow. I’m truly sorry I must leave so soon. Adrian, you’ll have to show me the pictures, you have such a knack for photography. And Tristan, do carry on with your speech. It began marvellously. What a pity it is that no one can record it so I could have enjoyed the exquisite pleasure of hearing it on the plane tomorrow.” Did I at least look sincere? I tired, anyway.

Going upstairs to my room, I ran into Carissa for the second time. This time, however, neither of us landed in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. She greeted me by pointing to a bruise on her shin from our earlier collision.

“Sorry,” I told her.

“It’s OK. Rush insisted on kissing it until it stopped hurting. See ya!”

Disgust or pity? Hmm, which won that time? My usual ability to like and respect everyone I met was quickly turning into a general disdain for most bipedal organisms.

No more dramatic events occurred between the stairway and my bedroom. I ironed my dress for the wedding that would be in Nashville that weekend, packed my carry-on for the plane, and then gratefully sprawled across my bed with my best friend – my sketchbook. All this I did to the soothing tunes of Simon and Garfunkle. Ah, yes, good-bye preschool song! I didn’t leave my room until dinner and I hurried back to it as soon as I had put my plate in the dishwasher. I wanted to complete the caricatures of my housemates that I was entering into a contest at my college.

Drawing the caricatures before going to sleep turned out to be a mistake. I dreamed I was caught in an awful Sunday morning comic strip. Tristan, obviously disguised as Abraham Lincoln, chased me with his cane and pointed at me with his long, crooked finger. He yelled “Where is pointer-finger? Where is pointer-finger?” after me in a sing-song voice. I ran away from him, but couldn’t escape his repetitive song. His cracking voice bounced from the haunted house mirrors that distorted him into the horrifying image of my uncle who had refused to stop picking on me at the family reunion two years ago. Tristan-slash-Abe keeled over with a sudden stroke, but resurrected as Rush. Rush was actually Pepé le Peu, a cartoon skunk who thought he was the Adonis of every female’s dreams, and he sauntered toward me with his tail high in the air. Carissa appeared as a sexy black cat and Rush decided I wasn’t all that appealing after all. I hopped into the next comic frame, eager to be free from my overactive subconscious creativity. Adrian sat that frame in a director’s chair and held a megaphone in his lap with one hand and a watch to his ear with his other.

“You’re late!” he whispered with extreme urgency into the megaphone. “Your date had to wait and now you’re late! Oh, what to do, what to do? I fear for you, I do, I do.” He stood up, ran around his chair three times, sneezed a loud “achoo” and fell over. Trupmets flittered down a chromatic scale as he dropped to the ground.

To Be Continued