WE'RE ALL A LITTLE WEIRD basics
40
By Ejin J.
Dayna was sobbing. Her face bright red as sore tears gripped her flesh. Jin wrapped her arm around Dayna’s shoulders as I awkwardly attempted to formulate a way to cheer her up.
Over the course of the past three weeks, Dayna’s shell had cracked for the third time. It had become a routine, and our hall was used to our big sister sporting tears after every dance. Only this wasn’t simply a crack. It was more like an utter detonation. The very last time Dayna would ever spend at CTY as a camper was a bittersweet moment for a nevermore like her.
The last dance was a crisis of bawling teenagers. Every one of them yearning for another three weeks to relive nostalgic summers. As the unfortunate CTY theme song “American Pie”, blasted through the cramped moist auditorium, the campers strangely swayed in a lopsided conglomerate circle, arms around the sticky shoulders of their fellow CTYers, kicking alternate feet. The nevermores united in the middle of the huge circle as they formed their own circle. Don Mclean entered the chorus, signaling everyone as they brought their arms to the air, and waved their limbs to 64 bpm. Once Mclean whispered "This will be the day that I die", masses of campers floundered on the dance floor, pumping their sweaty fists into the air as they jumped up and down.
Their fists came up once more to punch the air with emphasis at “fists of rage”. Once Mclean finished his song, practically every sixteen year-old began to howl a wistful cry. This was their last horrifying dance to “American Pie”. This would be the last time they got to attend the most nauseating dance where the DJ played “Make a Man Out of You” and the Pokemon theme song. As everyone exited the auditorium, I grabbed my small duffle, exiting the building with Dayna, Jin, and Sarah. We walked across campus as Dayna continued to cry. After seeing the masses of crying faces, Jin began to join the parade. I’m not sure if the latter began due to her sudden inspiration, but nonetheless I felt quite left out. My baggy eyes could not manage to harvest similar sentimental tears. I was too tired and in desperate need of a shower. My shoulders and feet were begging to change into more comfortable means.
Once Sarah, Jin, Dayna, and I had arrived at our hall, I immediately ran for the showers. That night we were allowed to stay up as long as we wanted and we were allowed to have a sleepover in the main lounge. Although most of the girls in my hall were exhausted from the dance, there were still a few of us who could test our limits by staying up for the entire night.
Once everyone had deemed themselves ready for the long night ahead, we called dibs on the (most likely unsanitary) sofas residing within the lounge, and the girls who were unable to book a piece of stale furniture had dragged their mattresses from their rooms or stayed in their rooms. I had called the largest sofa from that morning before and thus I shared it with Dayna. Before we officially started the night, we planned ahead what we would do. Nina, Rhadika, and Emily crowded around the largest sofa as Sarah, Abigail, Jin, Dayna and I squeezed together on it with my blanket wrapped on top of us. We placed my iPad in the middle on a coffee table as I opened up an online version of The Breakfast Club.
We watched the movie until about 1 am. Dayna had already fallen asleep while the rest of us watched the movie. After it had finished, Sarah and Jin arduously moved back to their sleeping spots. Emily, Rhadika, and Nina had left in the middle of the movie to congregate in Rhadika and Nina’s room.
Everyone in the lounge was still sound asleep and I miraculously had enough energy to stay up even longer through the night. Abigail dragged me to Rhadika and Nina’s room where they resided with Emily. The three were FaceTiming with their new camp friends from a different hall. I slapped my sluggish body onto Rhadika’s bed as I entombed myself within her red sleeping bag. For the rest of the night we all ate leftover snacks that we had brought at the beginning of camp and talked about the most outlandish topics. We challenged our obtuse judgments to perform an all-nighter and stay up for the entire day. Undoubtedly, the poorly hatched contrivance did not prevail.