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"Moonberries"

by Taylor Peterson

The harsh scent of cherry-flavored nicotine filled Sydney's nostrils as soon as she stepped inside the door. Another shriek of lightening flashed outside the windows, immediately followed by the low rumbling of thunder. Alice sat entranced on the floor with her back against the couch, her pale skin glowing blue against the reflection of the TV. Electronic depictions of various cyber-stylized objects flew across the screen in a whirl of neon. "Welcome home," she murmured, her brown eyes focused on the plethora of colors.

"The storm's starting to kick up again," Sydney said, kicking off her boots and falling onto the couch. "Should we still do this?"

“Of course." Alice paused the game and jumped up, heading to the kitchen. She returned with two glasses filled with sweet tea and knelt in front of the coffee table, a ruby cigarette dangling between her lips. She put what looked like a half of a pink pill on the table and mashed it up with the bottom of a spoon before scooping it into one of the cups and stirring.

"Drink this. The moonberry will dissolve and you probably won't taste anything." She did the same to the second glass and offered one to Sydney. "To psychedelia."

"To psychedelia." Sydney pushed her hair out of her face and lifted the glass to her lips. Alice unpaused the video game and the whirlwind of painfully bright colors began streaking across the screen again, computerized music seeping through the speakers.

"So why is it called moonberry?" Sydney sat down next to her.

Alice opened her mouth to reply, but she was interrupted by a loud clash of thunder and lightening. The AC gave off a short hiss and the TV fizzled out.

"Oh, fuck me!" Alice kicked the bottom of the TV set and sighed. "How long do you think the power's going to be out this time?"

Sydney shrugged, though she doubted Alice could see her. The room was in total darkness. "I don't know. Let's just light some candles." Within minutes, the living room that had been a haven for bright colors only minutes before was reduced into a dimly lit cavern of orange and gray. The only light came from the flickering of candles and the small battery operated jack-o-lantern that Alice had bought last October.

"Well this is just great. Go figure that the night you finally decide you want to trip, we lose all power." Alice's lime hair looked yellow in the poor lighting, her arms crossed over her chest. "How are you supposed to experience anything in a place like this? It's way too fucking dark to be able to see color vividly at all..."

Sydney was trying to pay attention, but Alice's words seemed to flutter off into the distance as she began to stare more closely at her roommate's face. Alice's freckles were slowly beginning to take the shapes of tiny little bugs, crawling along her blush and burrowing into her skin. Every time she blinked, the shadows that her eyelashes made turned into a miniature black forest for the bugs to crawl into, growing and --

"Sydney!" Alice jumped up, hands on her hips, the bugs on her face morphing back into their disguise as freckles. "Were you paying attention at all?"

"...You can't really expect me to. I can't concentrate on your words when your face is so distracting."

"And here I thought you were over me by now." Alice puffed on her cigarette, grinning.

Sydney frowned, her cheeks flaming. "Shut up, you know that's not what I meant."

"You know, now that the power's out, it's going to get really hot in here."

She was right. The temperature had been at a constant 114 degrees Fahrenheit for the last week, and even at night, it was still blistering. "We need to find the coolest room so we don't die of heat exhaustion. Mission: Findthecoldestroom."

"You take the hall bathroom. I'll check out the guest room. We'll meet back here at 0:5 minutes."

It was settled. Alice grabbed her jack-o-lantern and Sydney took one of the candelabras, and they took to their searches like adventurers finding shelter in a cave.

Sydney peered around the doorframe of the bathroom before stepping inside. In the soft glow of the candles, it was nearly impossible to see what lurked in the darkness. The marble tiles on the floor were swimming into one another, and Sydney felt like she was walking on water. The walls were breathing, and even the mirror seemed alive with its reflection of her.

She had dark hair that had been growing down to her shoulders ever since she graduated high school. The darkest brown, though Alice would swear it was black. Soft cocoa eyes and pale skin that would've been olive if she'd ever bothered to step into the sunlight.

Her face wasn't as intense as Alice's had been; her dimples weren't turning into caves and her eyelashes weren't dancing. But she could see into the pores of her skin, the exact place where her eyebrows began to grow out of her forehead, the bruising color that the makeup from the night before had left behind on her eyelids. She looked like a corpse that didn't yet realize it was dead; unrecognizable.

Her mind wandered into the guest room, where Alice was likely experiencing similar effects. Alice. Her heart choked at the very thought of her name. She stared down into the flames of the candelabra, the swirling marble design on the countertop, the silvery hand-painted handles of the sink.

Nothing could compare to her.

Sydney glared up at the glass, her fingers twirling knots into her hair.

“Why doesn’t she love me?” She muttered.

“Why don’t you ask her yourself?” Her reflection barked. Sydney jumped back, but everything seemed the same. She lifted a hand to her hair, and the mirror mimicked her. She shook her head and opened the door, stepping out. She’d had enough of the bathroom.

In the hallway, Alice was sitting against the wall, her jack-o-lantern propped against her knees, staring up at the life-size poster she'd plastered onto the bathroom door. Slave Leia and Jabba the Hutt: classic.

"Do you ever wonder what'll happen to us when we die?" Alice stared into her glowing pumpkin, the bugs on her cheeks seemingly retreating from the light. "I know mom says I'm going to hell, but it doesn’t make any sense. I mean, why fill hell with a bunch of homos who never do anything wrong? Like, a murdering homo, sure, he's going to hell. Because he murders people. But the worst thing I do is litter, and I totally ask for forgiveness when I do that."

"What the fuck got into you?" Sydney sat down next to her, setting the candelabra in front of them.

“Eh, I don’t want to go into it. But hey, how was the bathroom?”

“Fine.” She turned her eyes away from Alice and fixed them on the pumpkin. Its mouth was opening and closing, laughing at her. It knew the truth. She glared at it. Shut up, she thought.

“Well, I mean, was it very cold? The guest bedroom sucked.”

“Oh… no, no it wasn’t very cold.”

"It feels like it’s getting hotter,” she whined. Sydney was silent, staring off into the glowing orange ball. Alice jiggled the pumpkin, startling her.

"It's going to get hotter all night,” Sydney sighed. “We just have to hope we last until the power comes back on.” She lifted her hand to her mouth and began to chew on her fingernail. “Hot air rises. Maybe we should just stay really close to the ground.”

"You're absolutely right." Alice pulled off her shirt and tossed it into the corner, blowing out the candelabra in the process. “But we can’t just stay here. We need to make our way to the kitchen as low as possible. And we can't afford using those candles with all the heat they give off. Come on." She dropped down to her belly, pumpkin in one hand, and crawled like some sort of snake out into the hallway.

"You look like an idiot!" Sydney laughed, but she was doing the same thing.

“You both look like idiots!” Jabba spoke from the bathroom door, causing Sydney to yelp, wide-eyed. She stopped to look back, but the poster showed no signs of having moved.

Alice scowled, waiting. “Hurry up!”

Leaving the candelabra in the hallway, she crawled behind Alice, the shadows on the wall turning into waves. She would’ve sworn she was in the ocean, and all the water had turned into air. Everything was quiet except for the sound of skin against carpet.

They crawled around the corner, the candlelight from the living room illuminating the furniture, the shadows behind the bookcase dancing. Alice set her jack-o-lantern down in the middle of the kitchen floor and lay down next to it. Her skin was peach instead of a snowy, alabaster pale, wrapped with red marks that betrayed where her skin had been burned against the carpet. Even without her shirt, Alice was starting to sweat. Her green hair looked like it was melting into the floor.

Sydney launched up from her position and grabbed the gummy worms off of the counter, finally remembering why they had made that journey in the first place. The instant she bit down on them, fruit seemed to explode inside of her mouth. "Wiggly pieces of polychromatic bliss," she chewed. "Have these always tasted so good?"

"Your senses are heightened on this stuff." Alice kicked her legs up and propped them on top of the stove, her skirt shifting up her thighs. Sydney was about to force herself to look away before she stopped.

“Alice,” she whispered. “How am I supposed to deal with you?”

“Everything happens for a reason,” she whispered back. She turned her head to the side, lime bangs in her eyes. “You’ll find out eventually.”

Sydney sat up, crossing her legs beneath her. Her fingers tapped against the tile. “You really think everything happens for a reason?”

Suddenly, a flash of lightening hit outside, and at almost the exact same time, the television shot back to life. The AC powered up and the living room light flickered on. Alice shrugged, a bright smile running across her face, and pulled a gummy worm out of the bag. "I do think so."