The Subaudible

I strech my back out and it groans and pops. Probably the scoliosis that Ms. Clark diagnosed in the seventh grade in the locker room after our fourth period gym class with Ms. Garrett. There were only three girls that had it, and I was one of them.

I felt like an alien, like some sort of foreign life source was inside me well in my spine, which was good because that way I had one less connection to the "chip". This was after the years of riding the bus from Theodore's Clock with my neon green and pink coat to school and begging Mama to buy me the little pink Sanrio pencil box that all the other chip girls had. I wanted one, that way they would like me. They would think I was normal, like them. Instead of a year later writing 1-800-BOYSTOWN on the inside of the school desk, aching for someone to notice the difference. I hated the pink Sanrio box, I wanted to burn it along with the PE coach's windsuit pants in a big bonfire out front. Dancing wildly, like the young girls from the Crucible, rejoicing in the fury that I had created.
They all had a name and a face. Just like every school yard has its own Carrie.
The skinny brunette with the freckles that was new in town, she seemed fit. The rich boys liked her. The popular rich girl with the politician in the family, everyone knows her, all the teachers. She's treated as if she's thirty not thirteen. The raven haired beauty with just a little extra skin, but not plump with a golden voice. She gave the teachers massages which earned her own popularity. The freckled faced blonde with all the smiles and giggles, the cheerleader with the loud voice. The smart one that tried to fit in by trying every single extracurricular activity the entire district had to offer. This one had to be the best at every thing they did, they had to outdo the one's who had already found their talent, their niche. They had to push them away from the table and take away their fame.
I wake up and I'm in the art room, down behind the junior high with Ms. Taylor. She's dressed like an angel in Michealango's painting on the Cistine chapel ceiling...but I can't see her boobs. She introduces me to my new friend, the one who I find has the exact same make-up inside as I do, we are like sisters from another time.
We make the journey to high school and survive, barely though. We are almost, like the blink of an eye, caught in the cocoon that keeps the chips alive...they almost killed us. We broke through, one before the other and made it out safely and alive. Never looking back as we scraped the black tar from the bottom of our shoes. They didn't get us.

Imagine me and you and you and me.
So happy together.

The wasp priest with his rotting skull and hollow sockets for eyes crawls from beneath the podium and begins his graduation speech.