Emoticon

Emoticon

by Mari Colinares

“My face is a raisin, no, more like a white, crumpled paper on a garbage can, but that’s just when I laugh. I know this ‘cause one night, I was, like, really bored, so there I was, on my bed, I, like, video-ed myself laughing. It’s genius! I like, tried laughing with different looks. First, you know how my hair cascades down like silk? Yes! Like, my hairstylist said my hairs the best kind. I don’t need the double-Oh-seven bond thing you get for your hair to look like mine. So as I was saying, I took videos of myself laughing from all point of views possible. Front, sides, up, down, all angles! Like,”

It was talk-athon time, a talk-till-you-drop—DEAD—event where Miss-Model-of-Yahoo-Messenger wins every time.

“Like, my nostrils go, like, THIS big,”

As her ten china-doll fingers said “O,” her nose turned into a dragon’s that flared up before spitting fire.

“It was, like, superkaduper fun! You want to try it?”

She was in a teethy-grin-mode, her favorite emoticon. Her gazillion silver bangles studded with rainbows of jewels jiggled and tinkled down her elbows as she clapped loud and sharp. The sound wasn’t clapping, more like, spanking. A smack on the thigh sound, tinkling silver, and a cartoonish voice.

“Let’s try! Omigoshingbananas! I, like, have a joke…”

She was sitting down on the conference room, the confession room, the sleeping room, the making-out room, her home room which is not a room but a bench. A stone bench. Her stone throne. Her throne room. A fountain of words, she went on and on. Her bangles, hula hoops on her wrists, wonderfully served its purpose as a concealer.

“Get it? Like, get it? Get it? Like, get it? Get it?”

Battle scars need to be concealed but they can’t be hidden from curious eyes forever. I stared at the horizontal keloids and sighed.

“I can’t stand being alone. Like, I am tempted to pick up a blade. A razor blade, thin and silver and sharp. And silver. And sharp. And sharp. Then, like, I would, like, slice my skin so deep—just to make sure that whatever it is will be gone with the chunk of flesh I’m about to rip off my arm. So I slice my skin and it stings but it’s kind of a pleasant feeling. Like the feeling of putting lemon juice on a fresh wound. And that’s what I’m doing right after I talk to you. I’ll dig up a chunk of meat and I’m going to put lemon juice—freshly squeezed.” (30)