[Apple Of My Eye]

“Always be on time—especially in New York.” The words rang around in my head like a lesson— a lesson I had learned in high school, coming from theatre. “If you're not 15 minutes early, you're late.” I regurgitated--something I honestly had stood by in all my years with it— my high school theatre teacher, Andy, probably my favorite teacher ever, if not a close second to my middle school English teacher, Mrs. Davis, or even a tie for first, since they came from different eras in my school years. Of course, my next favorite, Mr. Tucker, my middle school music teacher—a multi- instrumentalist and expert—some of the only happy blue eyes I had ever known— who had seen something musically gifted in me, and would at random pull me aside and stuck a new instrument in my hands, instructing me to play. I had enamored him with drums, playing out a copycat pattern by ear after watching it once, and seemed to continue to amaze him as I quickly repeated tunes or improvised on the guitar, bass, and clarinet—and though I had wanted to play in the drum line—with the cool kids who often bullied me, hoping desperate somehow to mix—he insisted that I take band, first playing saxophone, and then switching to trumpet, for my adaptability and ear for harmonies—I wanted of course to play first trumpet, but was assigned to the contrasting harmonies of second trumpet— also eventually joining the drum line, where of course I was still bullied and competed for the best-fitting harness, which would keep my Quads at waist level instead of around my hips—my body, then, now looking back, that of a stout young woman—I was maybe 5'2, with double -G breasts and no bavksidevworth mentioning-I was more wide than round at the rear with thugs, but no hips to accentuate—and though my body was strange for that of a middle school girl, leaving me miserable and disproportionate, compared to the white, frail and thin Mormon girls—and the long haired, pretty faced latinas— the only blac at school besides a couple of Mormon kids—who has a white mother, who had been abandoned by their obviously very black father at or near birth, as they were a couple grades apart—and besides actually knowing it, you wouldn't have known they were white at all. The girl, who was in my grade, might have been about 6ft tall by middle school, and her hair always disheveled and unkempt— which didn't seem to bother her white, Mormon friends—the popular girls who made my life miserable enough, and though she herself was for the most part neutral, her high status in the pecking order had been long established. The town was split into two by both class, which equated to race and religion—a Mormon establishment, the deeply rooted white and wealthy, conservative Mormons had huge houses on one side of the freeway—the lower-class, casino working Mexican immigrants and their l first generation children on the other side of the freeway; this was the place I had learned to hate myself the most, a foundation first implemented at home, and then fortified at school— where my skin was too dark, my hair was strange, though always well done— and my ill-fitting clothes, mostly boys clothes, as my mother had become impatient with attempting to find “cute” or pretty clothes, and the American obesity epidemic had not yet grown to the norm; plus sized clothes were expensive and hard to find—and so without being said, middle school was harder than it had to be for several reasons—but it was also the first place I had been called or considered a “genius”, at least musically. I had always excelled in academics, at least until middle school, where my life became dark and I first realized that my body was strange and unwanted. Fast forward to now, a 30-year-old loser sitting in the Manhattan glass office of a Sales professional and her counterpart, whose distaste in my apparel I could feel just sitting there— I quivered and became nervous, trying to hide my unmanicured nails between my crossed legs, however revealing instantaneously how vital they were to using body language, speaking with my hands and inwardly screaming “I'm poor, just look past this and hire me!” But it wasn't just my apparat that had more than likely cost me the job—though somewhere inside I still desperately hoped that they would see past my downfalls— I was desperate to stay at Equinox, and only had 20 days left in my reinstatement before the dues would set in—and the “free” month that I had been granted and had allowed me to access the club once more had not at all be “free” The elites had flaunted their ability to control everything remotely, through the use of cellular phones and satellites— which had spun me into a suicidal spiral at best for the last week, at least pushing through to get as much of a daily workout as possible— I had spent every possible waking moment at the club, writing, unloading the angst I had gathered in the brutality of homelessness, poverty, and blackness, summoning some way to land a DJ gig looking as classless ans haggard as I did. But they wouldn't look past my lateness— a whopping 37 minutes, and I blamed myself entirely, as I should have known that with both phones on and out of airplane mode in order to marinate, that I would be the center of a targeted attack. “Stay in the hood, nigger!!!l” The bus usually ran on time at the time of day when my meeting was, but of course didn't even show up at its scheduled time, and all though google had read that it had left on time, the family standing at the stop said that they had been there for at least 10 minutes, with no bus in sight. I had been up much earlier than usual, especially after a strange dream in which my ex husband taunted me; I hated seeing his face, hearing his voice, and being reminded of all the havoc he had caused on my psyche and sanity— I had spent the morning off, and in search of a case worker who could print me extra copies of my resume, which I had been asked to bring, but of course ignored by the time I actually arrived at the meeting— I ran downstairs to the locker rooms to use the bathroom, stashing my tattered backpack and decaying gym bag in a locker downstairs, along with my skateboard, before heading back upstairs and into the waiting area, which I was only in for a moment before a beautiful Asian woman greeted me, with immediate disappointment in her voice and a look of overall disapproval in her eyes.“Hi, CC…”, she said, almost pitifully. I stood up to greet her, shaking her hand “You're so late…” “Hi, Allison, I mirrored with self-doubt and disappointment—“I am so sorry” and I could feel it already that I was doomed. But I had always been doomed. Since leaving my now estranged ex, it had seemed that the curse he specificallytold me he had set onto my life was true “You know I control all demons” he had once said— and though I had argued, “I control my own demons”, he had snarled some smart ass remark in his cruel and evil tone, which still followed me in dreams, often taunting that he had someone new with him—someone better than me, and in the most recent dream, an Asian girl—but in the previous dream that he had haunted, a blue eyed blonde haired girl— and while in waking life I didn't care at all where he was, what he was doing, or who he was with, as long as he wasn't with my son—and even with my son, so long as whoever he was with was clean and happy, and loving towards my son —I didn't actually care at all. But the curse had other astonishing effects—the more my life would improve, the more drastic things would happen—those around me often becoming consumed with some sort of devil or demon themselves and eventually seeking to dismantle my well being, usually psychologically, often bringing up things from my own past without me having mentioned them—dead babies and other specific details from my past life, as If having been divulged to them from some sort of script. Then, there were the coughing people, who would surround me anywhere I went—and especially public places, but sometimes even in private, coming to the outside of my door, and standing there just coughing. Almost remnicent of the men who had been outside my window in Alaska, who had been screaming “Kill yourself! Just kill yourself!” And I wanted to—I thought about it all the time, dancing with the trains and praying for the bravery to leave behind the cursed, shattered world. But, with each passing day at Equinox, the suicidal thoughts had seemed to fade, although the gang stalking had not—there was a psychological game being played, and my dedication to Equinox made the perfect ploy to allow the attack to unfold. “Always Be On Time, Especially In New York.” I awoke the next morning with the words ringing in my head, alongside my own “FUCK NEW YORK. I HATE THIS PLACE.” And though I was in love with Manhattan, I had now been broken down into the disgusting and hood ridden ways of the people of Ozone Park, and the surrounding Jamaica Queens, materialistic and hypnotized, brainwashed, programmed slaves who had been bred to work, still poor but attempting to look rich, as if they ever could under their bad weaves and wigs, scrolling through social media on the way to and from their corporate slave owners, or to buy the goods of the even higher corporations—and it was all just “what you're supposed to do.” But I would rather die than do so, and had only applied at Equinox because I spent all my time there anyhow, and knew it would be easiest to sell something I actually believed in. But of course, I had been passed over the job, and wanted to die—in fact, it seemed I already was dead, in a way; My own hair and clothes in ruins, my body unloved, my mind shattered. There was no love here, just money and pain. The Equinox interview would be my last. I had failed the test of time and wouldn't even attempt another. I had fallen out of alignment: I was doomed to be trapped in the ghetto, with the hood rats and slaves, and in 20 days would gain be cast out of Equinox. But I wouldn't return to planet fitness, or LA fitness. Or any of the other, dirty packed gyms Queens had to offer. Even Blink, although owned by Equinox was riddled with high school children and always packed. Queens was only “diverse” in the blacks-and-browns, and the longer I stayedthere, the lower my vibration fell. Now I was off my path entirely, and though I had tried desperately to be on time, I just wasn't. It had cost me a job that started at 30K a year, plus commission I know I would have easily earned—now I had nothing, $5 to my name and with no one to blame but myself. “I hate myself, I hate my life.” It was too late to change. I was a 30 year old loser, and I migh as well have shown the Illuminati itself the very reasons why I was unfit to succeed at anything at all—Equinox especially, but also in music, or perhaps just life itself. I prayed for God to take me out of this hell, but it seemed my life was just some airy of cruel punishment altogether—a rotten busy no one would ever love, the inability to be on time— I felt the doors of opportunity just shut in my face. {Enter The Multiverse} [The Festival Project.™] COPYRIGHT © THE FESTIVAL PROJECT 2023 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. © -U.