Sneaky Feature in the Blue Lagoon

I can’t remember the day I was born, nor can I remember my first taste of fresh delicious mangos.  Bu I do remember the day my soul was wrenched from my body and I never looked at the world the same ever again.  Up until that fateful day, I always thought that Lilith was good listener.  She seemed so compassionate and understanding, she always knew the right words to say.  It turns out that she was nothing more than a Judas Iscariot, Benedict Arnold traitor to the fifth power.  That conniving nincompoop sister of mine, sat there while I poured my heart and soul out about my desires to be a soothsaying fortune teller, and then she blabbed to the whole school about how I was going to do it.

I can’t believe that I didn’t see it before that day.  She would always sit and listen to me talk for hours on end about everything, but when we were at school, she completely avoided me and pretended that I didn’t exist.  I just always thought that she was quiet and shy.  I never once saw her talking to another person besides me.  Boy was I wrong.

They say that this is the age of information.  But what good is information if you can’t do anything with it?  The whole point of having information is to use it to make life better, isn’t it?  Maybe it would better if only we could get that one bit of information that would really change it all. This bit of information is nearly every man’s secret desire.  What is it?  The future, of course.  Who wouldn’t want to know which penny stock is soon to make millions?

I have always wanted to know the future, and it started when I was very young.  There was always a lot of interesting things to read in great grandmother Mabel’s bedroom.  It was here that I discovered the directions on how to see into future.

In order to see the future, you must first understand that there is no time.  It just doesn’t exist.  There are only patterns and cycles that are repeated over and over again in an endless loop.

In order to see the future, you must completely understand the nature of dreams.  Dreams play back all of your hopes and fears in your sleeping mind.  Dreams are just things that you’ve seen, only mixed up in a blender.  Dreams aren’t just the past and present though.  They are the future.  But the only possible way to dream the future is to follow a constant pattern, a ritualistic routine that puts you in harmony with the Universe.  Follow the routine for thirteen full moons, and at each midnight full moon drink a decoction dandelion root.

I really wish to God almighty that it could have been just any routine, like pulling the lint out of your belly button every morning at six o’clock sharp.  But alas, it was not.  The directions specifically said that one must swim in the clear waters of a secluded lagoon every single night at the exact same time.  And this ritual has to be done, in the buff.  We actually had a lagoon.  It sounds magical and everything, but it was actually the rock pit that was filled with water.  It wasn’t all murky and disgusting, though  It was clear and blue like a giant glass of blue raspberry Kool-Aid.

Well, I decided, that I just had to see the future.  It was driving me crazy not knowing so many things.  I just had to see what was going to happen. I wanted to know if my long lost Aunt was dead or alive.  I wanted to know if my mom and dad would really fly off into outer space and take those disgusting Sumerians with them.  But the most important reason why it was so important to see the future, was because of love.  I dreamed that one day, a tall handsome man named Ronaldo would come to my little food forest and sweep me off my feet.  We would get married, swing from the trees all day long and eat hazelnuts and roasted lizard toes together.  Looking back, I guess I can see how so many people thought this was hilarious.  Yeah, it may have been real freaking funny, but it was my dream.  It was my happy thought.  It was my whole reason for living and then that stupid sister of mine goes and rips my heart out of my chest and tramples all over it like Wal-Mart stampeder at Christmas time.

I thought that everything was going quite well, thank you very much.  I had it all planned out.  Late at night, after all the Sumerians had gone away, and everyone was snug in their beds, I would tiptoe outside and walk to the darkest part of the forest where the lagoon was.  I was so secret that I didn’t even use a candle.  I just walked down there in the pitch dark, feeling my way through the trees.  I use a big stick to bang against the ground to keep the snakes away.  Seven months went by, and already I was dreaming at night of being in the lagoon.  It was already starting to happen.  I would dream at night about whole entire conversations with people, and then the next day, find myself in these conversations.  I knew that if I made it to the thirteenth moon that I would be able to see everything before anyone else did.  I would know all the answers on math tests, I would know in advance if someone was going to put rubber glue on my chair at school, and most importantly, I would find out when Ronaldo would come to be with me forever.

So one dark night while swimming I started singing the love song I wrote for my dream man.  I sang about his long mustache and broad shoulders, then all of a sudden, I heard someone singing it back to me.  I called out and asked if it was Ronaldo, and he said yes.  He said that he would make all my dreams come true and that he loved me.  But then, I heard giggling, and then someone turned on a flashlight and I saw thirteen kids from school bursting out in hysteric maniacal laughter.  One of them grabbed my clothes and ran off.  The rest of them followed and made fun of me by using the very same words that I spoke to Lilith with.  I knew at once that I’d been had.

All of a sudden, it all mad sense to me.  I realized at once that it had been Lilith the whole time, convincing them to play pranks on me.  No wonder they knew my every move.  No wonder they knew so much about me.  Lilith had been pretending to be my friend at home, and then she’d go to school and use her “little sister stories” as a form of entertainment.

So there I was, naked in the water.  When I knew that I was all alone, I climbed out and grabbed a few big leaves from an artichoke plant to cover myself up with.  But when I started walking, I realized I wasn’t alone.  I couldn’t see anything at all because it was too dark, but I could feel somebody’s presence.  I felt like someone was there watching me.  “Lilith? Is that you?” I asked, but I didn’t hear anything.  So I started walking fast, which wasn’t easy because I kept stepping on rocks and bumping into trees.  It’s hard to run and cover your naked body at the same time.

I walked even faster and I heard the somebody move closer to me.  All of a sudden he  grabbed me and pushed me down to the ground.  I could smell peppermints and licorice tobacco on his breath.  It could have bad.  I have nightmares about what very well could have happened to me that night.  But it didn’t.  Marcel was there, too.  He shined a light and shot an arrow into the leg of the guy who was attacking me. I’m glad he was there that night, don’t get me wrong.  I just can’t help but wonder, what on earth was Marcel doing out in the forest at midnight?

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