vague mystique.

I’m not usually coherent when I first wake up in the morning. Honestly, I don’t really think anybody is (Except, of course, those assassins on television that always sleep with one eye open and a loaded gun in their hand… but that’s irrelevant). Personally, I usually spend the first few minutes of consciousness utterly confused about something, not knowing where I am, who I am, or why I’m awake. It’s like a haze of mist is around me, inside of me, twirling my insides around like cotton candy*, turning my thoughts into melted butter. The median time it usually takes me to think thoughts other than, “Noooo, the word is on zero, I can’t think about it when it’s in a circle, don’t you know that?” is around five to ten minutes.

With that being said, last night I had the misfortune of being roused from sleep around two thirty in the morning by Aunt Winifred, who apparently had a rough night at her friend’s house and decided to come home incredibly fucked up on painkillers and alcohol. She was shrieking obscene curse words in the room across the hallway to my grandmother, who apparently highly offended her by asking her to be considerate to the rest of the town and stop shouting on the phone at the top of her voice, which she had apparently been doing for the past hour.

(Does no one think of the poor phone is this situation? I mean, that innocent device is the one who is getting shouted at, spit on, and thrown into the receiver all the time . Ugh. People these days.)

Respectively, I was stirred awake when the shrieking started, which is actually a pity because I believe I was in my REM sleep at the time. My first thought was something along the lines of, “Will you please just eat the cheese and get on with it already?”. When the high pitched screaming continued, however, I decided to take things up with my good friend, Karma.

“Karma,” I whispered into the darkness, rolling over in my bed. “I deserve this, don’t I? I did something wrong.”

“Of course you deserve this,” Karma whispered in a liquid smooth voice inside of my head. The way he spoke it was not of harsh accusation, but pure fact. “You’re a horrible person. You lie, you have a 73 in Western Civilizations, you can’t wait until your grandmother leaves for Florida next week so you can party with your sister and her friends, you don’t go to Church, you haven’t prayed in a few days, you threaten God when things go awry, and you’ve been a bitch to your friends and family on several occasions these last few months.”

“I went to Church last week,” I protested.

“One week out of what, seven, eight, nine years? And you were making fun of it inside your head practically the entire time, laughing with Jasmine. Don’t try to deny it; I’m Karma; I know everything.”

“Oh. Yeah. I get your point. Guess I do deserve this then.” I clung tighter to my blankets, then yawned, “Well, alright, that’s it. You can go now.”

Then Karma left.

For a good five minutes I just stretched out in my bed while the shouting continued, mauling over the realization that I deserve to be woken up and forced to endure this agony. I tried to ignore it at first, drown it out. It worked for a little… but came to an abrupt halt when the shrieking went up a few octaves (If that were possible), got louder (Again, if that were possible), and more vulgar (Is that possible?).

Aunt Winifred seemed to have finally reached the peak of her drug and alcohol induced temper tantrum and started to verbally attack my grandmother with the force of a ravenous cougar. She called her out on everything she could think of and struck below the belt to the point where if my grandmother had balls they would have been ripped out, stomped on, eaten, thrown up, and flushed down the toilet. I hate to admit it, but somewhere deep down inside me, perhaps on the toenail of soul, I was terrified. What was worse was that this suppressed fright made me shake uncontrollably from head to foot, too.

As my aunt continued with the verbal attack, now running around the house, slamming doors, and throwing a few things, I scrambled around my room, using my iPod for a light source, frantically searching for my cell phone to call Serena despite the fact that I could barely walk through the convulsions ripping through me. I was used to the difficulty walking, though- it happened every time Serena lost it, back during her dark days.

I practically disembodied my room within two minutes, but to no avail- the cell phone was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t know what to do now. Winifred was getting violent, and I had to do something before she stopped taking out her drunken tirade on the furniture and switched to my grandmother. I minutely thought of the house phone, but this was an impossible option because the phone was the CAUSE of this mess and was probably being clutched by somebody at this point, somebody who was not going to let go.

The chaos moved into the kitchen, which was on the other side of the house. I simply stood in my room, blank. Helpless. I didn’t have my contacts in, so I wouldn’t be of any use if went and tried to, um, throw Winifred through the window or something (I would probably break my neck tripping over something before I even reached the kitchen). I was practically blind. There was nothing I could do. Nothing.

For a good ten to fifteen minutes, I just sat on the bed in my room and listened to the chaos, cursing myself for not keeping my contacts in my room, cursing myself for not being able to quit shaking, and cursing myself for leaving my grandmother out to dry. Oh, and cursing myself for not knowing where my phone was, too. Ugh. Karma was right- I am a horrible, useless piece of jello.

Wiggle wiggle.

Eventually, Aunt Winifred stormed out of the house after listening to her mother yell, “GET. OUT.” repeatedly with horrible venom, breaking the door on the way out and screaming “YOU’RE A FUCKING CUNT, FUCKING CUNT CUNT CUNT CUNT UGH I HATE YOU I’LL SLEEP IN MY CAR ALL NIGHT I DON’T CARE ANYTHING TO GET AWAY FROM YOU FUCKING CUNT!” at the top of her lungs until she got in her car and left (What a show for the neighbors, eh?). My grandmother was left in pieces. She stayed in the kitchen for a minute or two to gather herself after the bitch left, whereas I took the time to hunt down the house phone and use it call my cell phone (It was under a pillow on the couch in the living room). I didn’t approach her- I knew that she needed some time alone. When she was ready, she met me in the hallway and said “Can you BELIEVE that?” I told her not to believe anything that Winifred said and that the bitch was never to be let in the house again. She shook her head and replied with, “It’s late. Go to bed and try to get some sleep… like that’s going to happen.”

I went back into my room and sent Serena three text messages, telling her to come home immediately. She called back an hour later to say that she was at a frat party that she couldn’t come home yet because everybody was drinking, to which I replied with not to bother and to come home in the morning.

The shaking stopped around three. I fell to sleep around four. The next day, around mid-afternoon, Winifred called from my mother’s house to apologize. I hung up on her twice and told her to never show her face around here again. A half hour later, my mother insisted on having the phone, and after a short conversation with Winifred to which she sobbed and gave some bull shit explanation that it was an accident and that she was slipped something funky at her friends house, my grandmother forgave her. Serena, who came home early that afternoon, stayed strong until SHE talked to Winifred, and then melted like a snowman on a sunny day.

I remained stoic, and Winifred knows that. My grandmother told me today, a day after the melting, that Winifred is afraid to come back to the house because of me. Apparently, I terrify her.
We have been having min arguments all day over the issue of Winifred coming back. My grandmother still feels a mother-daughter obligation to protect Winifred and give the 37 year old hag a place to stay, whereas I am under the strict belief that we have given family enough chances around here and the only way that things have a chance of running smoothly is if we eliminate those who complicate things.

The last argument ended with thus: “She’s going to end up coming back, and if you don’t like it, you can leave. Start packing your things.”

She should know that I am enough of a stubborn, hardcore badass to do such a thing.