The story was about a girl. A girl that was losing her mind. She tried to catch hold of her sanity, but it was a slippery, writhing thing, always wriggling out of her grasp. And with her sanity followed her life: her friends, her family, her interests.... her homework. Senior year should not be about homework. Or college apps. It should be about rebelling, breaking curfew for the last time, arguing with your parents and cherishing the moments you have left. Lying on your bed in your room, staring at the poster of Taylor Swift and wondering what it will be like. To be gone, removed from all this. Senior year should be about branching out and testing the limits, strengthening and forming relationships to last a lifetime and discarding the worthless ones. Culling the flock, in a way. But considering all of these things had fallen out of her grasp... senior year was about, well.... failure.
Slipping, falling, inevitably coming up short. That was what life had always felt like. She sensed that her relationships with others were endless exercises in brinksmanship, or that she was teetering on the edge of some great abyss. And then there was the sleeping. She could definitely define her senior year as one great nap. Perhaps a hibernation. Sleep came easily, softly, and welcome, in the beginning. And then there was the insomnia.

Leaves: purple and gold. Banners, streaks of royal colors, fluttering hearts in the breeze. Clinging tenaciously to their origin; those spidery black branches that twist and knot into a junction a yard from the base. And then the roots: knobby-kneed creations, projecting from the ground, scaly like dry skin. Charcoal black. The red sun, streaming through the leaves, light glinting off the gold surfaces of the leaves and pooling into the bark as if it were a black void. Or perhaps a formless shadow.
The ground is littered with black shriveled corpses of the nameless, numberless inhabitants of those spidery sable branches. They lay so thick upon the ground that one can hardly step without sinking several inches and hearing the infinitely finite crunch of a thousand breaking bones and seeing countless black spiders scatter from underfoot.
The sky is red, but growing darker. A streak of emerald green at the horizon, shooting like a starburst into the night sky, pointing to the coming blackness and the winking stars. It will be night soon.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Thick, syrupy liquid splattering on the skeletons of those gold and purple banners. Running like lava down the bark of a particularly twisted tree. Look up, into the rising moon, the setting red sun, the starburst of green emerald. Look up, into the purple and gold leaves dangling from charcoal bark.

The tree is raining blood.

She wakes up with a pounding headache, rubs her temples, blinks in the dark. Reaches over to turn the phone alarm off and reminds herself: it’s 5:30 in the morning. Starving kids in Africa don’t wake up this early. A severely flawed comparison. Starving kids in Africa don’t get showers, either. Her hair is black. And long. Nothing for it but that. Sometimes she feels tempted to shave it off. Perhaps then others would feel sympathetic for her because they would wonder, nervously, if she had somehow developed leukemia. But she doesn’t want that kind of attention.
She runs a brush through her hair, pulls on old black jeans and a grey, long-sleeved tee-shirt with a pair of well-worn red keds and her brother’s grey sweatshirt from middle school. She’s always cold in the mornings.
Her head feels like it’s splitting apart. She must have slept too soundly last night. She’s been told she can shake the house apart with her snoring.
The carpet feels nice under her feet. Her room, in the mornings, is like an ocean. The walls are dark, navy blue, the carpet mixed browns, her bed a mattress in the corner of the room next to a low-set bedside table with a navy touch lamp. There’s a beanbag in the opposite corner of the room, and an old, chipped wooden bookshelf set behind it. Most of the books are piled on the floor from when she decided suddenly to go through them the other day. Papers strewn across the desk, papers that she’ll probably wish she had at school later today. More books, and a black wardrobe. The light creates patterns on the walls, giving the effect of light refracting through water. There is nothing she would like more than to sink under, again, to descend into unconsciousness. Instead, she rubs her temples, grabs her book bag, and stumbles her way out of the room, wading through the carpet down the narrow hallway and into the half-lit kitchen.
“Brother,” she says, unceremoniously, on her way to the medicine cabinet. Begins sifting through the pills until she finds the ibuprofen and swallows two. As an afterthought, because she knows that otherwise she’ll pay later, she fills a plastic finding nemo cup with water and chugs it all in a few gulps.
“Meeka,” Brother says. Turning his hazel eyes away from filling his cereal bowl with milk to examine her. “Meeka, that’s my sweatshirt.”
“So,” Meeka grunts.
Brother shrugs noncommittally and turns back to cap the milk and transfer it to the fridge, just as Meeka is sitting down at the pristine black stone counter with a slice of cold pepperoni pizza. She chews deliberately and swallows noisily.
Alec is off. He sets the half-finished bowl of cereal on the dividing ledge between sinks (typical) and turns the faucet on. A mini waterfall is formed. Or perhaps a fondue fountain. Meeka swallows her last bite of pizza and realizes she still needs to brush her teeth. When she returns, the faucet is still running. She twists the chrome handle and stares into the black contents of Brother’s cereal bowl. What she sees scares her, because-
-swirling inside are purple and gold leaves-

November is not a time for snow, thinks Meeka, as she leaves Calculus to step onto the concrete, blasted by a flurry of God’s dandruff. What hell is this? What hell is the integrals she’ll have to evaluate tonight, or the article to annotate for government, or the practice problems on deadweight loss for economics? Sometimes, she believes sincerely, there will be some sort of mass suicide at the high school in which thousands of overworked and overstrained teenagers will finally succumb to the many self-imposed (or societally-imposed) pressures. Only then will society have some inkling of what they are doing to their youth.
She enters the taller brick building unassailed, passing many in the halls. She imagines she is introducing them one at a time as the oddball characters in a mystery novel. Andrew Palmer. The short kid with fringe and holes in his jeans, the one that rapped for the talent show last year. As if anyone that white could rap.
Sarah Stein, the prodigy saxophone player who was extolled for playing a concerto in a fiery orange dress last spring. She is Swedish, platinum blonde, and fairly tall. The boys point and stare but she has eyes only for her sweet silver alto.
Meeka wishes she could be so apathetic. Because when she walks into the library with the cold grey carpeting and sees Brandon bent over a binder in one of the burgundy leather chairs, her feet steal behind a bookshelf and into a secluded aisle. Her hands follow also. But her mind is still there. Melting, by the space heater.
Because she still remembers that night. That night when her parents were in San Francisco for a weekend vacation and brother was out skateboarding with some friends until late. She was walking and it was ten in the evening and she was breathing the fresh air and reveling in her freedom and then she walked by the school, and sat down on a bench, shrinking into herself, into her sweatshirt, and thinking. Which was mainly what she always did.
And then there was a voice, a voice that thrilled through her body and resonated in her skull. They talked for an hour, and when it got too cold to talk they walked back to his house and snuck into the basement. He turned on the space heater and turned off the lights and they settled cross-legged before the only source of heat. Before long they were lying prone. It was three in the morning.
And one moment she was staring into his blue eyes and raking over his blonde hair with her own eyes and the next she was kissing him. She felt it deep inside her. Everywhere. It branched into the tips of her fingers as she ran them through his hair. The warmth of his lips made her forget everything. But that was months ago.
She sits on top of the lockers in the very back of the library. From here she can see everything. And no one can see her, because she is hiding behind some dusty old boxes. Over the years teenagers have written poetry and invectives and scathing remarks on top of the lockers. She knows them all. And she feels a part of something, when she’s up here, as if she’s a part of the ages. A part of the long line of high school rejects.
The bell rings, and she clambers down. Heart pounding, she walks slowly, skirting around the edges of the shelves in order to avoid Brandon. Because she doesn’t want him to meet her eyes. She doesn’t want to meet his. She doesn’t want him to know. Because when she looks into those clear blue eyes... she feels like he can see her soul.
From the safety of her English classroom, she can glance outside. Outside, the snow is swirling round a cloudy sky and the trees look especially knobby and skeleton-fingered. English teacher is droning about blood and knives and witches and Macbeth and King Richard the Third and her mind is elsewhere. Her mind is watching the syrupy liquid roll down English teacher’s forehead and ski off her nose. Her mind deems Andrew Palmer a ghost, doing his math homework in the corner of the room. Aubrey Churchill is a demoness with fiery eyes and a poison tongue, sitting with one leg tucked under her butt, texting surreptitiously and smiling gold at herself. Meeka wonders if this is natural, to feel stuck underwater. She begins folding paper aimlessly to stay awake.

Freeze me to apathy, she writes.
Fiery demon freeze butt
Freeze your ass off
and then swish your hips to my door
and we’ll see what’s going on.

She writes a lot of random s*** like this. And then she leaves it in random places. It’s a bit of a hobby of hers. Today she will leave it in some metal pole in the parking lot. Because one day she found an unshaven lego man with a machine gun perched on top of that very same pole and she feared for America’s future. But maybe she should spend some time fearing for her own. She wonders if someday someone will start finding these sheets of papers and think they are clues. They will spend hours over her mind’s refuse, looking for patterns and clues and, ultimately, a treasure, and when they finally realize that none of it, none of it, will ever come to fruition, they will be old and grey and lost and they will need to let go of their dream and realize that there is nothing left...
But don’t think about that.
Richard the Third. Macbeth. Blood, knives, hands. My hands, your blood. The implications of those words. Meeka has a knife at home. It’s plastic. Well, part of it is.
She’s getting sleepy. Meeka has never fallen asleep in class before. Because that would be losing control. And she never does that. But today must be different, because one moment she is listening to English teacher speak, and the next...

Drip, drip, drip. Red rain is falling. Warm, tropical, on her forehead. The air is humid and stifling. The leaves are purple and gold, illuminated from beyond the leafy canopy. The ground is moist. There is a distinct feeling of squirming, from beneath her body, like a bed of snakes. Not only from beneath her, but also from within. Insidious. Something is eating away at her.
Her body is twisted, ribcage compacted, legs sideways to the ground. One arm trapped beneath her ribs, the other resting peacefully on her chest. She cannot move. But she follows with her eyes, because something is terribly wrong.
A drop of salty red syrup falls directly into her eye and stings. She blinks rapidly, and when her vision clears, she looks down at her hand. But it’s not a hand anymore. It is blue and black and rotting, fodder for the mouths of a thousand toothed beasts. Maggots and beetles and beaked ravens, worms and creeping molds. She opens her mouth to scream-
-but suddenly the downpour of red syrup increases. It is melting away her features, and she is watching, from within and from without. She sees her own corpse melting into the moist red compost, and yet it is not her body. She feels herself becoming one with nature again. But this is not nature. This is something wrong. This is is time corrupted. Time manipulated. Nature.... overpowered.

She wakes with a start, gasping. The pencil clutched in her fingers tumbles to the ground. Bright LED lights, rigid desk. Sharp pain in her ribcage. The people around her are staring and she tries to ignore them but then English teacher looks over, rigid nose and black eyes hard, thin lips pursed to form a rebuke, and then her face breaks like so many blocks, softens to the stroke of a watercolor brush. “Are you alright, Meeka? You look rather pale.”
No, Meeka is not alright. Because, as she watches, Ms. Eckerman’s eyes fill with blood until it spills over onto her cheeks. No, she whispers noiselessly. Nurse, she mouths unintelligibly. Ms. Eckerman nods, once, and that’s all the confirmation Meeka needs before she stands up and stumbles blindly out of the room. Left, down the linoleum and carpet-lined hallway, where the lockers reflect blinding LED lights. The white and black is like black spots in her vision. She shoves the front doors and falls down onto the grass before throwing up once, violently. The pain in her ribs is sharp, but dimming. Her vision is clearing. Her shaking hands are steadying. Suddenly she can feel the cold sweat in her armpits, and at her temple. Meeka stands, shakily, and looks around.
The leaves are-
Meeka has been having these dreams for a long time. Dreams about the forest of purple and gold leaves, black dirt, red sun, green starburst. The blood is new. The corpse is new. She is afraid.
But the leaves are orange, and fading. Few remain on the spindly branches of the oaks and aspens. The grass is muddy and torn, and covered with a layer of leaves, acorns, and debris. Cars drive by on the residential street. Inside the Magma Cafe she can see the orange Christmas lights streaming down the windows and the bar. Everything is as it should be. She turns back to the school, stronger now. The building is brick, the windows small apertures with gothic black iron screens.
Her head is pounding, but she figures now might be a good time to go to the bathroom and clean up. Today I lost control, she muses to herself while brushing her thick black hair with her fingers and trying not to notice the inordinate paleness of her face or the dark circles around her eyes, because it makes her think of a corpse.
This is new. Losing control. A strange feeling. Falling asleep and vomiting at school for the first time in one day. The experience is stimulating, which is rare, because hardly anything stimulates her anymore.
She leaves the bathroom, intending to wait until the next period to rejoin her classmates, and sees Brandon Holtz disappearing around the corner. His appearance is stimulating, to say the least.

Later-
She’s singing under her breath, voice intertwined with the melodic stream of music, stabbing aimlessly at integrals. The only source of light comes from the touch lamp on her bedside table, and electric candles strewn among the books. The embroidered curtains are drawn tightly over the window. She is underwater, again. From beyond resonate the voices of Brother and Father, discussing politics. Brother loves politics. Brother wants to be a politician. God help him.

Fork the page
And turn the leaf

She lost it. Meeka calmly removes the ear buds and emerges from her room noiselessly, like a turtle from a shell. In the kitchen are half-cold dumplings and sweating noodles. She dunks a dumpling and absently pops it into her mouth.
In the living room are life-sized dolls. Splayed on the sagging floral couch is Brother, Physics book upside down on his chest. Father reclines in the blue velvet chair, loafers still on, raincoat on the scarecrow behind his chair. Mother sits at Brother’s feet in her silk pajamas. They watch a show where some Dominic Dunn-esque man weighs the pros and cons of various gothic horror novels. Meeka sees Dracula in black and white. She thinks she’s being quiet, but Mother speaks.
“Meeka,” she says, without looking away from the television. Alec twitches and looks back. He’s been sleeping. Father shifts his gaze to the green shaggy carpet. “Grandma is coming for dinner tomorrow. Make sure to be home by four. We need to do some cleaning.”
Meeka nods.
“Yes, mother,” Mother says.
Meeka nods.
Satisfied that she is done with this conversation, Meeka retreats back into her room. The integrals are waiting, lying in wait, crouching in wait, poised like crowned tigers, monarchs in the grass. Buried is the derivative that you and I and the world seeks. It is the answer. We crave it.
The lights are dimming, the horizon is receding. She is sinking, deeper and deeper, swirling into the depths of the ocean. It is warm.

Blackness.

I slept until Spring. The sun is shining, veiled through the curtains, casting ripples on the walls. Mom is in the kitchen, moving pots and pans around. The last thing I remember is listening to Pink Martini and trying to evaluate integrals with ultraviolet voodoo. And then I remember earlier, at school, vomiting on the lawn. I remember, and I blush and sit up in bed. How did I get here?
It’s ten in the morning. On a Wednesday. And I am still not dressed. There are clearly problems with that state of affairs. Time is screwing me over. I get up and wander into the kitchen. Mom is making eggs and oatmeal, and the kitchen smells like coffee. “Good morning,” she tells me. She must see my confused and supplicating look, because she says, “I figured you needed the extra sleep, so I didn’t wake you up. Want some breakfast?”
“Yes, please,” I say. I should be upset, but I feel too good to be upset. I feel rested. I sit down at the black stone counter with a cup of coffee and breathe in the scent. I watch mom as she serves the oatmeal. She is short, pale, with brownish-black hair and almond-shaped blue eyes. “Alec left this morning?” I ask, somewhat pointlessly.
“Yes,” she sighs. It’s snowing again. The sun hides behind the clouds, casting fuzzy shadows on the glass animal figurines on the cracked white windowpane. The window is framed by transparent blue curtains. I feast my eyes on the beauty of this scene. The sunlight, illuminating the snow, passing through the dirty window. Casting patterns and ripples on the figurines, spindly shapes from the wire of the salt and pepper shaker holder. Light illuminates the cracked imperfection of the white windowsill, reflects off the silver sparkles embedded in the black countertop. It is beautiful.
My mother is a shadow.
Where did that thought come from? My mother completes the picture. She is crinkled, like cream-colored tissue paper. With tired, drooping eyes. The same thick black hair that graces my own head, but short, cropped. It’s too young for her, I think.
My mother is a wraith.
I am her demon.
I blink and take a sip of my coffee. “I think I’ll cut my hair,” I find myself saying.