Ginger

It’s always the normal ones. They get close and you never see it coming. They throw you off balance with their normalcy and averageness. Who knows what they are going to do. That was exactly what happened. She got close. She used her normalcy, her averageness, to get close and snap, the trap was sprung.

Ginger was a simple adolescent kid in a small town. She had acquaintances that she called friends and a friend she called a bestie. She was kind of a loner, never really participated to the maximum extent she was capable of. She was well read, spoke perfect English with no broken syntax unless speaking with locals in her town, and she never, ever referred to herself as a kid. She liked the adult world much more. She walked within the maturity that was not characteristic of her age group and she owned it. She flouted her command of maturity among her friends and submitted to the authority of the adults in her life as to not attract more attention than was necessary.

She had no boyfriend, no romantic interests to speak of except for the crush on the star baseball player on the school team. She saw him one day, in the cafeteria, and she fell hard. After he sat next to the cheerleaders, blowing her off in favor of the more outgoing crowd, she decided. Death was a fitting end.

She began to plan. First thoughts were pills, then poison, then bullets. Nothing she thought at first seemed right. She thought of a fall, a jump, a bus, suffocation, drowning, burning. The thought of screaming delighted her just a bit, at first a bit. Slowly she began to enjoy thinking of the screaming, the pain, and the pleasure of death. She began to seek company with herself and with the white horseman.

She knew that one day it would happen, the pain. Finally, after months of planning it did. She was a smart kid and her biology lab partner was none other than that baseball star. She filled with excitement. Weeks went by and the baseball player and she met every day. They talked about projects and grades. She almost changed her mind, almost.

A month after the lab assignment, she called him. She told him to meet her at the school, in the parking lot, to compare notes. He arrived within the hour and parked right next to where she was standing. He leaned out the window and asked, “Hey Ginger, you okay? I got the message to compare notes but you don’t have your bag with you.”

She giggled a little. Slowly she walked away from the car as he got out. She turned back and yelled, “Stop! You smell that, the gasoline. It burns you know, gasoline burns. Wait for it, the pain is coming.”

She pulled out a matchbook and struck a match. She dropped the match right in front of her and watched as the flames overtook the ground. Clothes caught fire, then flesh and screaming. She heard the screaming, felt the screaming, the heat of the flames burning an everlasting memory in her mind. He should have listened, should have acknowledged her. She opened her eyes and smiled, his body a smoldering heap at her feet.

“Looks like I’m too hot for you. Sorry, no notes today.”

She walked off towards her house, ready for another. Her emotions swirling at the glee she now felt would have scared her before. Now? She liked death, it satisfied her. It was her friend. Now, more than ever, she felt alive.