First period economics was nothing more than a hazy fog for me, my mind drifting in and out of memories from this morning. It couldn't have all been coincidence could it? But then again, how could it not be. Mom wears that sporty outfit all the time, and the first thing she does to an egg carton when its empty is squash it so it fits in the bin better. So of course those aspects could easily appear in a dream. But the deja-vu, the surrealism; was still making me so twitchy and distant.
Listening to Mr. Steven's monotone drone about today's whatever lesson definitely was having the opposite effect of clearing my head of clouds. No, it must have just been a dream, had to have been. An intense, beautiful, insanely crazy and unconditionally improper dream to have of my mom.
But those looks she was giving me, .. gah! This is so frustrating!
While the morning wore on my thoughts did not. By the end of third period my head was so saturated with recollections of my mom's soles crushing down on me I just had to get some fresh air. Walking out into the courtyard I see Alicia and her friend Julie sitting together on the bottom steps leading up from the common area and I head over to them. The two of them are a year ahead of me and lucky enough to have a free period, so they were probably sitting there since second period ended just goofing around.
The May weather was still cool enough to need a light jacket, but nice enough for shorts. Many of the girls had started wearing flip-flops and sandals the very moment the weather permitted and my sister and her friend were no exception. Alicia was wearing a pair of flat strappy leather sandals that wrapped twice around her ankle while Jamie was in a pair of classy brown leather flip flops that fit snug between her tight pedicured toes painted a dark magenta shade that matched her sandals well. Alicia's feet were much larger by comparison, but she was also a full head taller than Julie too.
Both girls were quite popular and dressed the part, Julie in a red plaid skirt and grey cardigan over a white blouse, and Alicia in a simple black skirt and light blue button up shirt. Both girls had similar long straight hair, but Julie's was coal black where Alicia's was copper brown like our mom's. I really liked Julie, with her grey contact lenses and self-assured smile. She was one of my favorites from my sister's friends. She was beautiful in her own right and got plenty of attention from the guys, but even I could see she paled in comparison in popularity to my long legged sister. Which in my opinion wasn't entirely fair, but then I guess I'm just a bit biased against my sister. Then again, are guys supposed to think of their sisters as being long-legged? Best not to think about that one.
The steps from the commons were made of rough chiseled stone and fit between two raised-bed planters made from the same stone boulders. The girls sat with their backs against the stone facing each other so I set my bag down at the base of the stairs to the side of them and had a seat. They, typically, were chatting too much to even notice I had sat down to join them.
As they gossiped I gazed out over the commons not really listening to them and was soon day dreaming to the sound of their peaceful girlish voices. It wasn't until I heard Julie say my name and start giggling that I was pulled from my peaceful delirium.
"I think your brother really likes my toes, Alicia. He's been staring at them for some time now." Julie mentions to Alicia as my eyes come to focus and realize I have been in fact looking at her toes. I don't even remember when I started. Feeling embarrassed I glance up into Julie's grey eyes looking at me teasingly before I quickly look away, feeling the heat rise in my face. "No fair, I painted my toes too you know. He shouldn't only be noticing yours." Alicia complains to Julie as she wiggles her own plum colored toes accented with a simple gold band wrapped around each of her ring toes.
Returning to ignoring that I even exist the girls start chatting about where they got their toes done which quickly turned to what guys they ran into and what they're planning to do this summer. Feeling relieved the discussion had moved on from my embarrassing ogling of Julie's toes I relax again and focus on the movement of a little pill bug as it squeezes out of a crack in the stone and begins walking without purpose along the stairs between the girls. To my surprise it crawls up onto the tip of Julie's leather flip-flop and walks along the edge of it around toward her big toe. I watch as her toe shifts a bit making the pill bug hesitate, before resuming it's trek along her sandal. As it approaches her big toe it stops next to it, seemingly being unable to go any further. Then it decides to try a different tact and latches onto the side of it, pulling itself up over the toe and onto the nail before Julie takes notice as to what was tickling her.
"Oh I hate those things," she says as she reaches over and flicks it with her finger, sending it bouncing onto the stair. Alicia looks over at it and picks it up between her fingers, pinching it gently. "Aww, why do you hate them? They're so funny the way they ball up and just let you roll them around when they get scared," she says as she playfully rolls it around her palm.
I catch some voices from students leaving the tables in the commons and notice it's time to head to fourth period. Grabbing my bag I stand up to leave and as I rise I notice Alicia looking directly at me, her almond eyes just like our mom's staring directly into mine. Before I'm fully standing a feeling of vertigo fills my stomach and I feel like I'm pitching headfirst toward the concrete.
"Their shells are hard and they have a hundred running legs, they're just gross." I hear Julie say from somewhere as I fall headlong toward the ground as if I were rolling down a hill. I can't see a thing and a moment before impact I fling my hands out to absorb the shock, and suddenly there is light as I find myself falling once more off a warm rounded ledge that looks strangely like a manicured hand. Plummeting through the air my legs are kicking wildly before I impact something firm, yet soft and roll off to the side into a dark crevice, tightening myself into a ball to shield myself along the way. My heart is pumping a mile a minute and I'm waiting for the worst to be over.
"Whoa, Julie, I think you scared him!" Alicia laughs as she watches the pill bug suddenly spring open and fall from her hand. "Ha-ha, no way. Isn't that going to scare him more, he fell between your toes!" Julie laughs in response. "No, I think he feels safer in there, safer than being out here with you calling him gross!" Alicia giggles, pushing Julie playfully. "Fine, fine, well better in there where I don't have to look at him." Julie replies jokingly.
Confused about the discussion, I lay confined in darkness, my body tightly pinched between soft, and incredibly warm walls. The space I've fallen into quickly starts to become uncomfortably hot, but I can't seem to move myself in order to try and get out of it. Why it is so warm I can't even guess but it is near stifling.
The sensation of not being able to move is a dreaded familiar one as my mind races and I try my best to gain my bearings. I'm frozen in place just like last time, and for some reason am much more prone to panic than before. But even as I can sense how alarmed I am, when there is no further movement around me I feel myself instantly start to relax. Almost as if I only have two settings, extreme panic, or all is safe. The feeling is incredibly limiting my emotional spectrum.
My body starts to unfurl on its own even though it is still too dark to see. I feel the hot, steamy walls on all sides of me, but below me is a smooth surface my legs can grip easily. It's strange because I swear I can feel several sets of legs where I should only have had two. The crevice is becoming unbearably warm, and all I can feel is heat emanating all around me, but lesser so directly overhead. Moving instinctively toward the cooler feeling my body seems to know exactly what it is doing as my many legs adjust to the uneven surface along the walls and expertly pull myself into a vertical position facing the source of cooler air.
Hesitating I can see the tight walls of the crevice empty into open air, but far above it Alicia sits looking down at me with an amused smile on her face. On the other side of her I can just make out the face of Julie watching as well. I wonder why they're not helping me, but my body doesn't seem too alarmed by the large hovering faces and I feel myself begin to scramble upward as I squeeze out of the crevice and onto the landscape of what I quickly discover to be Alicia's toes. Shock rocks my senses as I take in the sight of her gold toe ring glinting in the distance and I can see the indentations along the hills and valleys of her toes as they gently slope to her purple toenails. The surface of her toes is completely uneven and seems impossible to navigate, but my body seems to have no trouble at all as I take off like a bullet across the difficult ground. The heat of her toes and slight scent of lotion from her skin only spurn me on faster.
I have no choice but to come to terms with the fact that this morning I dreamed I was an egg carton, and now I've somehow become a pill bug. And both times I've ended up at the mercy of my family's feet. But with how insanely quick the terrain of Alicia's toes was moving beneath me, I just couldn't focus on the thought for more than a second, the act of moving at breakneck speed keeping me focused on the here and now.
"Doesn't that tickle?" I hear Julie ask, her voice much more booming and powerful than before, as if I were hearing her through a damp, echoing tunnel. "It does, but it also feels kind of good," Alicia responds with a voice differing in volume, but still reverberating and loud.
As I get to the end of her toes and reach into empty air with my front legs I turn this way and that, but see no immediate way to continue on. Turning again on her toe, I circle down toward her toenail and begin making a circuit back along her nails in the direction I'd just come.
"He seems to like it there." Julie comments, as I sense the movement of her own nearby toes and hesitate in place, my panic spiking again to the apparent danger. "See, your toes are not the only ones worth staring at." Alicia responds, the memory of that conversation filling me with a new and ridiculous sense of embarrassment. But that felt like a lifetime ago and I still don't understand what happened to me. Why am I stuck on Alicia's toes and how is that even possible!?
As if that deliberation itself was enough to over-ride my uncharacteristic sense of panic, I suddenly take off again like I was possessed with a mission to crawl along these toes and I needed to get there ASAP. When I reached the end of Alicia's big toe again a shrill, resonating bell goes off, freezing me immediately in place.
"First bell already, time to head back." Julie mentions as she begins to gather her books from the stair above her. Thinking it safe again I turn along the edge of Alicia's toenail and wall-walk my way around the tip of her toe. Before I can move another step a shadow falls over me and I stop in place as another wall approaches me from the other side, pressing into my back and gently pushing me into the tip of Alicia's toe. My panic shatters through the roof again at the fact I'm unable to roll into a ball and my legs kick frantically trying to get away without result.
"Ohhh, what are you going to do?" I hear Alicia ask, her voice muffled from outside of my prison. "He's gross, and since he came out from between your toes and made me look at him I can't let that slide now can i? He'll need to be punished." Julie responds in a pouty, matter-of-fact way. "Well he has been pretty pervy with crawling all over my toes, so punishment might be fitting I guess." Alicia says as I feel her toe move forward into Julie's, my legs crumpling beneath the pressure. "See, I knew you'd agree with me." Julie says happily as she slowly begins to press back, matching the effort of Alicia's toe with her own while my body is caught in the middle.
The wall of their toes slowly come together, and my panic turns to real terror as I feel the heat and the pressure of the girls toes boring into me. My legs crumple into ruin against Alicia's big toe as my hard shell begins to crack beneath the pressure of Julie's punishing foot. I can't see a thing in the dark space between their toes and the sound of my back coming apart cracks and splinters loudly in my ears. I can feel myself expanding against Alicia's toe and can't do anything to fight the crushing mass of pressure that is squishing me. As their toes come together my body splits apart in half a hundred places, forcing my juices to spread out through the fissures as my insides erupt against my sister's unyielding digit.
My mind flashes white and red from the pain, and the pressure mounts to a crescendo while the final cracks and pops leave my body. Slowly my consciousness begins to fade. I can't believe that I have been crushed by my older sister as if I were a bug and neither of the girls even care about what they have done to me. I'm just a victim of their enjoyment, left crushed and broken between their toes for no other reason than they have the power over me to do so. While my mind fades out it's as if I can almost see myself squished between their feet, wrapped in their cute leather sandals, their pedicures sparkling in the morning sun.
My last thoughts are of the girl's giggling laughter at my demise before I pass out.
------
A second school bell going off jolts me up in my seat, the light blinding me as I raise my head from my schoolbag and sit back in my chair. "You're still here?" The teacher asks me, "This isn't your class, go find your next period, you're already late." He says as the students giggle at me mockingly. Confused, I gaze around and realize I'm still in my third period class and quickly wipe a strand of drool from my lip as I look down at the indentation in my bag where my head had been while I was sleeping.
Unable to respond to the teacher with more than an apology I quickly gather my things and run out the door to the sound of laughter behind me. While I make my way down the hallway I look out at the commons and try to center my head around what had just happened. There's no way that could have been a dream, again, for the second time today. What was happening to me? Am I sick!? I think to myself as I head toward my fourth period English class.
I walk past the senior's Environmental Science room and glance through the window, seeing Julie sitting with a group of girls in her grey cardigan and red plaid skirt and stop in my tracks. I was pretty sure I hadn't seen Julie before school this morning, so how is it I would know what she was wearing if it was in fact only a dream?
Suddenly feeling nauseous I decide I'm not feeling at all well today and make my way toward the entrance of the building. I hope mom won't mind my taking the rest of the day off, but I am clearly not doing so great. Walking slowly toward the bus stop I think back to the events in the commons, the horror of being squashed, mixed with the thrill of being in such close proximity to both my sister's and Julie's feet. Now that I'm not in that restrictive emotional state of being a bug my brain is filled with an incomprehensible mixture of dread and arousal that leaves my head spinning. The bus arrived mercifully soon after and I quickly board for home. Maybe if I'm lucky mom won't even be there.
To Be Continued...