Jo

I started staring at the wall of my room for nearly an hour. It seems more exciting than any other shit that my friends and family have planned for the day. I hate them troubling me with their nonsense and crying over with their petty things and getting all fuelled up for the corniest of things. I hate them. They were just there for me. Not me for them, them for me. So I had to please them in somehow to maintain the connection, making sure that when I need them, I was there.

I shut the blinds. The sun stinks. My room was painted black, like most of the things I own. My nails chipped, but still black. My hair, black as I have remembered. Even my books were black even in the inside. Sometimes, I’d char my Barbie dolls to make them black, not in the ethnical way though. Just black. That dark feeling of greatness and power.

It was already 8 in the morning. Damn the blinding light. I had to go to school, and do shit. To please my parents and even my snotty friends. I know I was late. But, hey, better late than never, right? So I stopped staring at that amazing wall and got up so that I could “get a life”, well, that’s what they say. I had already bathed yesterday, so what was left was a shower. I undressed and just let the cold water just flow against my body. Yes. The cold. It just feels so good. I got out of the shower, dried and proceeded to my closet. Black top, black skirt, fishnet stockings, since I’m feeling hardcore, black peep-toe shoes. Boudoir time. Eyeliner on my whole eyelid, my undereyes. Mascara. Wait, is that a pimple? Concealer. I hate being a girl. I forgot my deo. Deo done. Out of the room I go, for breakfast, some scolding and even meeting up with them shitheads.

Back from school. Flung my bag to the floor, nearly broke my mirror. Oh well. Still safe. I went directly to the bed. I sat there and instantly stared at the wall again. I just can’t help fascinating it. It was blank. It was black. It was perfect. And I found something new every single day I stared. Yesterday, there was a red bug crawling from corner to corner, I wanted to kill it, but I was too bored. The day before, I found a row of ants. I confused their paths by smudging on them. The day before that, more light shined on it, and I quickly shut the blinds. But today was different. There was a chip off the paint. It was weird yet thrilling, sucky yet curiosity-inducing. So I peeled it. It was too blind to see the color behind the rich blackness of new coat under that few lighting. So I dared to open the blinds, and nearly got blinded. Well, that stinks. But then I fancied the weirdness of that small chip to even get bothered by it. So I went back to that chip on the wall and started peeling further. It showed an ugly shade of red. It was too faded to even deserve the name Red. It was ugly. But I still peeled off the new paint off the wall, because I had nothing else to do. Well, nothing else important to do. Ughh. All right. Nothing else to do that was not even the least bit boring. Even in the face of boredom, the ugliest of things get amusing. And that shade of red was surely too amusing. I peeled too much that I conjured up the weirdest and nerdiest of thoughts – something I hated to do most of all. Sometimes, I even forget why I do that nearly every time. But even still, I was not fazed with the least bit of worry of turning to the things I fear most: Goody-Two-Shoed-Nerds. I kept on. Wow. America. A molecule of benzene. An illustration of a cross section of an Amphioxus. Shit. I got to stop thinking this crap.

Mom called me to dinner. I shouted “I’m busy, Mom. Get lost!” She’s really annoying. I never even planned eating dinner at all today. Sometimes, she even makes the crappiest noises at night in her room. I can’t even sleep or stare well with all that racket. Now that dinner has been cancelled, I kept on peeling my worries away with this nearly ugly wall. Yuck. It’s soooo…light red. It’s disgusting. And it’s creeping me out. It was half past 7 and I turned around. All that chips of paint felt good. I wanted more, and what I saw, was more, much much more. And I started to work, quickly. With all thingamajigs I can find. Nearly rusty nails to impale the black paint, my ID for a scraper, and my arms for the pulling. Sometimes, I get enough paint to fully cover my notebooks. I would’ve but I was to immersed with this paint. I had gone used to the dullness of the color underneath. It reminded me of stuffed animals, the cute ones – not the ones I normally hold, the ones drenched in formalin – but the type you pull their heads off. It sucked. But the action was so cool.

I could not remember much of what I did when I woke up. It was already a quarter to one. I fell asleep just in time when I was done with the last piece off my wall. So I quickly got up, shook off the chips on nearly everything in my body. And stared at the mess I made.

I was at a loss. I could no longer distinguish my room. The only reminders were the patches of black on a lightest pink wall. It was filthy. It was nice. It was shitty. It was comforting. What the hell is happening to me? What is this? How do I feel foreign and at the same time at home in this cell that bore no resemblance to who I am? I tried to brace the wall. Felt it. It’s color’s name at the tip of my tongue. It was…still disgusting, yet I felt myself in it. I tried to throw the paint chips on the floor to the wall, hoping that it would stick. Nothing worked. I didn’t feel any good in this. I felt as if I had lived here before but I did not. I wasn’t this. I looked at my hands, my nails were chipped because of all this chipping paint. I rushed to my bathroom, even my hair wasn’t that black. My roots were showing. I had brown hair. I was a brunette. I was pulling my hair all of a sudden to really check if it was mine. My hand accidentally swooped to my face, smudging my makeup. I saw my fair lids. I saw my amber eyes. I saw my pinkish face, beneath all the light shaded concealers. And I even saw that I was crying, mudded rivers through my face, ruining my mascara. I was a woman. And I felt emotions.

Looking like a mess, I went back to my bed, pushed it away in all my agony and I wept further on the floor. I just let myself go and lay suddenly, hoping that a bump in the head would save me from this insanity and loss. And I did bump into something. It was a notebook.

It was no mere notebook. It was a diary of some kid named Jo. I must have stolen it some time ago. I looked through her stuff and saw notes and pictures. It was strange. She was just like me. She had a pink room. Pink. So that was the name of that shade. Pink. And I like it. Then I came across this.

Dear Jo,
About to have a brain surgery today. Doctor’s say that it’s scary and all, but I will take it, to spend more time with mom. If I die now, who would take care of her? I would rather take the risk to be with her. Her smile, her laugh, her voice, her cooking. I love her so much, Jo. And I’d like to wake up tomorrow morning to see her smiling and holding my hand, and hugging me, and taking me home waiting for me to get even better. Remember all the fun you had together, studying. She was patient with you. She took time in waiting for you to get it right. She waited everyday at the door getting worried you won’t come back. She cooked vegetables every day, even though you hated it because she wants you to be healthy. She worked hard, Jo. For you. Because she loves you. Remember this after the surgery. It’s all going to be ok.
Lovelots,
Jo

I was dumbstricken. I didn’t know. It was as if I had been living a lie the past five years. And I heard that sound again. It was wailing. It was such a sad sound. It was off key and muffled by all the tears. It was Mom. So I got up and went to her room, hugged her and said…

“I love you, Mom. I remember.”

Everything changed after that.