Time to Share!

Hello All!

I was just working on some school assignments and I thought I would take the time to upload my re-vamped novel. It is getting critiqued in class tomorrow night, so I thought I would make the best of it by posting it online. To anyone out there who wants to critique it, please feel free. The more comments the better. Enjoy!Please me forewarned this is still very much a draft!




Bollywood Nights
By Jacqui Menard



Chapter one


October 1st. 2007

Aunt Jacks sitting next to me. We’re sharing his IPOD and he’s got Gwen Stefani’s latest album on loop. He’s braiding my hair, while I write. Moms behind us doing energy work on Uncle Reggie, she’s got a white crystal resting on his third eye and she’s liberally applying globs of tea tree oil cream all over his pudgy face; he broke out in a bad case of hives not to long after take off. Dads sitting to my right with Grandma, she’s chewing on the complementary barf bag and talking into the remote control and he’s laughing out loud as he watches the latest in-flight installment of Everybody Loves Raymond…looser. Kurt’s all alone at the back of the plane. He’s playing with his tongue ring and flipping through his back issues of Modern Goth. I glance back every now and then and can’t help but to laugh as the flight attendants toss bags of peanuts at him from across the isle...

I put down my pen and stare out the window.

‘Ladies and gentleman, we will be serving dinner shortly. This evening’s menu consists of chicken tika or aloo paneer with-’

Right about now I’d sell my right leg for one last chance at a Big Mac. Heavy mayo, extra pickles, no onions and a side of curly fries.

Aunt Jack ties up my braid, I thank him and he pinches my cheeks. He pulls out his novel, the one with the blond haired hunk of muscle on the cover; he’s been reading it for months. He giggles like a school girl while I close my eyes and take out my ear piece just as Gwen breaks out into the chorus line of Wind it up for like the millionth time.

I hate my life … I hate the fact that my destiny awaits me in a land of sacred cows and elephant headed men...but most of all I hate my family. The only difference now is I get to do it in a new country on the other side of the world far, far away from home.


***

September 19th, 2007

I’ve decided I’m running away. I’m going to fulfill my sixteen year old dream and become a Hollywood actress. Yeah so I might have to wait tables and work as a janitor at some seedy strip join to make ends meet, but I’m gonna make it, I’m gonna make it big I-

‘Kali,’ my mother knocks on my door as she opens it, pokes her head in and totally interrupts my blue prints for a new life. ‘Hurry up or you’ll miss daddy’s speech. Chop, chop, were starting.’ she winks at me and then leaves.

‘Argh!’ I pick up my diary and chuck it against the door. I fall back in my chair and watch as my Justin Timberlake poster falls to the floor and lands softly on my Hello Kitty welcome matt.

***
I can hear my dad’s awful rendition of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ coming to a close. I put on my slippers and bathrobe and leave my room. ‘You just go down stairs, tell mom and dad you think you’ve been hexed and it’s all Kurt’s fault,’ I say to myself as I cackle loudly only to realize I’ve woken Grandma.

“No…no I wanted extra cheese you IDIOT.”

I tiptoe past her bedroom, close the door and softly make my way down our winding stair case.

Through the lounge and into the bathroom, I stop momentarily to tease my hair, splash water on my face and smear Kurt’s black eye liner under my eyes.

I leave the bathroom, float softly along the ceramic tiles in the kitchen and prepare to throw myself past the screen door and onto the porch. From here I’ll make the dramatic claim,

‘I am the angel of death.’

My trembling hands latch tightly to the door handle; I quickly jar it to the right just in time for me to hear my father say,

‘And so gives us our first book, ‘The joys of the Karma Sutra,’ he smiles wide as he slowly revolves around my parent’s hippy friends with a massive picture book perched above his head.

Suddenly, I feel light headed as my eyes make contact with the appalling cover latched between his hairy hands. Bits of peanut butter and jelly from lunch propel up into my esophagus, for never in my wildest dreams would I’ve imagined my dad’s prune like figure capable of wrapping itself around my mom’s flabby waist line and saggy boobs.

My vision goes blurry, I feel dizzy, I can’t see my feet and I try to re-claim my composure. ‘What the HELL,’ I yell before I trip over my feet, hurdle face first over the railing and into our lotus pond.

***
My eye lids feel heavy, I can feel a goose egg throbbing on the top of my head and my hair is crusted over with vomit.

‘Kali…Kali,’ my Aunt Jack whispers softly as he strokes my hand and runs his gnarly fingers through my tangled mane. I cough. Aunt Jack cups his hand over his mouth and yells, ‘Jesus Christ… I think she’s waking up!’

Through the slits in my eyes I can see a stampede of hippies coming straight for me and I wish I would’ve somehow slipped into a comma.

‘Let me at her!’ orders Uncle Reggie as he bursts through the crowd with a giant purple crystal.

‘What the-’I sit up on the sofa. ‘I’m fine,’ I say totally embarrassed that I let him come anywhere near me with that thing.

‘Kali,’ begins my father as he lifts his sarong, kneels alongside me and lovingly takes my hand in his. ‘You…you’ve been in an accident. Kali how many fingers do you see?’ he repeats slowly as he slides his index finger back and forth in between my eyes.

‘Dad!’ I shout as I slap his hand away from me.

‘Honey,’ hollers my dad to the kitchen. ‘It’s serious…get the herbs.’

‘You guys… I am fine, perfectly fine,’ I yell as I get up to readjust myself in my robe.

‘Could’ve fooled me,” My brother hisses as he runs past the lounge in a black cape.

“Dill hole,” I yell as I pick up a pillow and chuck it at him.

‘Kali…Kurt,” My father scolds.

‘Bill,’ hollers my mom from the kitchen. ‘Bill, did you see the-’ I can hear cupboard doors slamming. ‘Never Mind,’ my mom suddenly rounds the doorway and enters the lounge.

‘Here Kali drink this,’ she offers me a cup of bubbling black crap in my favorite Rainbow Bright cup.

‘Mom, seriously I’m fine! Like, just lay off you guys!’ I turn around and race upstairs before anyone can respond. I begin to hear the chorus line to Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Break Away’ start on loop in my mind. I tear open my bedroom door, dive bomb onto my bed, stare up at the glow in the dark stars on my ceiling and realize,

‘Wow I truly made an ass of myself tonight.’

TO BE CONTINUED!