The Same Old Thing

The Same Old Thing

by Delilah Rodrigo

I always want more in life. But the one I made for myself has left me nowhere, utterly nowhere. I have friends, but not the ones that you are really close with. We have fun, we kind of just snack, eat and watch the latest Ryan Gosling movie (which 9/10 times is The Notebook). Don’t get me wrong, they’re really nice but, without them, I have nothing to do. Like my parents are busy people who aren’t home. They’re always on call, they’re surgeons. I watched a couple (or all) episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and I don’t get it, like standing all the time on your feet and cutting people. I mean it can be fun, like the rush, but living in a small town all you get is to treat the next-door neighbor’s lung transplant because they’ve been smoking since the 60s, and the flu.

I wish that my parents would have forced me to do some boring after-school club or signed me up for one, because eventually I would like to have something right, and then my whole life would be planned out. The phone rings. As per usual, my friends ask to hang out and we all decided to meet at Addison’s house, and since Amelia is the only one that can drive (because I failed my test three times), she’s picking me up.

“Hey. I was really thinking that we can switch things up instead of watching The Notebook, you know,” Addison said.

“Yeah,” I responded, “No problem. So what are we going to do?”

“Ummm I don’t know. We can have a baking contest and then Olivia or my mom can be, like, the judge.”

Olivia is Addison’s younger sister, so you know she won’t choose sides.

Ameila pointed out, “Yeah, so where are we going to do all of this because I know your room is the smallest in the whole house?”

“That’s why my dad left me the attic. He emptied it and everything so we can just decorate it and clean it up,” Addison said. “Even though we were cleaning and it isn’t, like, my biggest strong point but, hey, at least it’s something new.”

“Luna, LUNA, LUNA, remember these? These were the pants you left at my house ‘cause you ripped them.”

“Jesus can you be any more loud, anddddddd I thought you guys forgot about that, like, so not cool, Amelia.”

Later in the day while everything is done and there are no more cobwebs, we have the old princess TV, Just Dance 2013, and a bunch of snacks. We have done almost everything on the list, and, of course, Amelia won because somehow she watched all of Cake Boss and did it even though they only use Rice Crispy Treats. But it’s fine, because I won Twister and all the board games until they got mad at how good I was. So Addison cheated by taking some juice that apparently helped with singing. It’s like all the rage in Korea, but I will just let her take the win on that. Thinking that we are done for the night and watching a movie was all that was left, Amelia had to come out with this crazy idea of “astral projecting”—you jump through different galaxies or something. I don’t know how she got into that kinda stuff; it’s like those people who think that the government is controlling everything, but honestly I don’t care. Whatever.

“Yeah, so basically, like, the government has really advanced technology that likes to control you with your surroundings and it stops you from opening your third eye.”

“So what we, like, get, like, super speed or something,” Addison answers.

“Yeah, what she said.”

“Yeah, well I don’t know. I never did it and I’m too scared to kinda do it alone . . . but you have to play, like, some vibration sounds and just close your eyes.”

“I’m sorry, but that sounds boring,’’ everyone responds.

Addison: “Yeah, that kind of sounds like selling our soul. I don’t know about that.”

Since there was nothing better to do and Amelia really wanted to do it, we all decided we would try it this one time, so I set up the sleeping area. Amelia brought more snacks in case and Addison got her mom’s Bible in case anything happened.

As we laid down we were just silent. The rain and, I guess, it could be that resin and the music made me really tired and all the things we did today. I finally felt like I was meant to and belonged somewhere when all my life I saw people together and bonding being the outsider and it stuck with me. Maybe it could be new beginnings. Feeling my eyes get heavy I closed my eyes and I dreamed about rising in the air into this weird white room. I had never been here, but I wasn’t scared.

It was weird because I walked and walked into someone’s mind and I was no longer in my small town in Massachusetts but in New York and in the 1970s too in some weird elevator. It was me but it didn’t look like me?? And then I shifted to another universe back in the 1800s in a field playing with my father. I was so confused. Lost and scared, I gasped for air and everything went in reverse, and I woke up.

“Dude, are you okay? You were talking in your sleep . . . NO WAY did it work? How do you feel? What did you see?! I told you it was going to work and should’ve put a bet on it.”

“First, can you guys, like, umm, I don’t know, shut up, my parents are sleeping.”

Cutting Addison off, “Sorry. I guess it was a nightmare.”

“Second, what happened? All I can see is white.”

“Yeah me too. It was weird. I thought aliens were going to pop up, but—oh well—I guess it was just a scam.”

As my cheek started to flare up, I didn’t know how to explain to them that it wasn’t a scam.

“Well I saw the white room too, but I started to walk and saw myself but like in the past and I got scared and panicked.”

As they both laugh at me, thinking it was just a dream, I laugh too, still feeling uneasy about how we had the same dream. We fell asleep ten minutes into The Notebook. But waking up was a different story. It felt like someone was sitting on me and everything was blurry, looking for my glasses, then realizing I don’t wear glasses. Somehow things go back to normal. Thinking nothing of it, I go down and see everyone’s already eating breakfast. Addison’s mom is a cook at the fancy restaurant across town so she doesn’t mind cooking.

“Oh hey, about time you wake up. My mom just finished making breakfast so just in time.”

“Thank you, Mrs.”

“No problem, Luna, it’s blueberry pancakes, my specialty.”

As the day goes on we clean the attic, get ready and go home. I noticed something about Amelia. She’s yellow, like she still has her warm olive complexion. It was just, like, a glowing color around her. Really bright if we have to put that out there.

“What are you so happy about?”

“Omg you can notice? Well you know how we were, like, dreaming about the same things? Well, what if it’s true, like I can write a whole book or something?”

“Honestly I thought you were crazy but I think you’re right. But what if you do write a book, wouldn’t the government just come after you?”

“True, true. Oh well. I mean I can get powers right, like, umm, did you get something, or did someone speak to you?”

“Erm, I don’t know. Why, someone was supposed to?”

“No, well, yes. I don’t know, but let us know. Maybe you can move things with your mind like that girl from that show Stranger Things.”

“Yeah, as if.”

Laughing and playing music, we finally arrive home, and, as she leaves, my mom comes home from work, noticing that she’s upset because of the glowing blue and grey color around her, she still puts a smile on my face.

“Hey mom, are you okay?”

“Yeah it’s nothing, you know, some patients just never make it.”

Going along with it, I go to my computer and Google it, and apparently it’s a real thing. It’s, like, some genetic thing that opens once your third eye is open, and apparently the ritual we did is different for everyone, and there can be millions of different endings to it. And if you don’t do it right, bad things could happen. What if I never woke up? What would’ve happened to Amelia? And Addison, what if the reason for me yelling was to stop them? Or what if it was all my fault? Feeling sick. Which is something I have been feeling a lot. I clean my room. And under the pillowcase I find some sort of button, a button that I never put there, and nobody in my house can sew, and none of my clothes have buttons either.

I’m wondering if someone broke in and I start checking around for more clues. More and more buttons show up nonstop. And the ones I have found disappearing. I have been running around in circles in my room for the past 30 minutes, and with the little information I have gathered, I only get more confused. It’s not like anyone understands so I run downstairs.

“Where you going? Didn’t you just come home?”

On top of my feet I say, “Oh yeah I have to go to the . . . library, I need a book for my essay.”

Nodding to let me go, I go to the local shop and get some sage, panicking.

“30 dollars, Mrs., Mrs.”

“Huh, oh yeah here keep the change.” Damn, 30 dollars! This

thing better work.

“Shoot, the book.” Running in and out, I get home and burn it and clean my room, the button, and my house. I fall asleep without noticing and the dream, or the image, I should say, is all I see when I sleep. More and more things from my past show up, and everything’s the same personality and everything, until one day things go back to normal. After weeks without sleep, I have a good sleep, but nothing changed. I still see the colors.

“Hey Luna—you look really tired, you okay?”

And everything, every little thing that has been happening just put there for Addison to know, for her to tell Amelia, and she says it’s just that this new type of energy has been taking over my old body, and I need to change what I wanted before. The intentions I had while in the “globe” took a couple tries to find out what my intentions were. But then, looking back, it was that I am lost. A lost soul, some say, and once I became more aware and selfless not only did I get to know myself but also those around me. That was the reason for the colors around everyone, and I even found out I have one too, soon Addison and Amelia did it too. The meaning of it was not to get out of the system, but to become part of the system. And there was no way the government could be controlling us. It’s just impossible . . . or what we believe.