Just A Normal Day In A Neighborly Neighborhood

Maya hates pranks. And she often and says it within her heart and chest, as open as she could, to as many people as she would care to mention. It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy a good laugh now and then; especially when a good and harmless joke is done right, to other people at least - it is a hoot, she thinks, but still, such a thing leaves a bad taste in her soul, and she doesn’t care for it, or doesn’t want to care for it. So when it comes to pranks, there’s something inherently childish and deadly brutal to them that she finds hard to swallow. Sometimes she just wants to kill someone because the prank is so tasteless and cruel, but she takes pride that she has never done so.

Mind you she has never been a victim to a prank even once in her life. She’s the sort of girl one would find extremely hard to antagonize - it is just how it is. She smiles a lot, and mostly because she doesn’t know to properly do other emotions; she thinks the subtler the emotion, the harder it is to fathom. Emoting, that’s a word she, too, hates. It almost makes it sounds like she’s hateful and anti-social, and this is common, but she is wholly not, she reassures that often. For instance, she thinks she likes doing nice little things for people she knows when they themselves are lacking, whether actions or inactions, with surreptitious manners and gestures such as fixing her friend Piper’s apron before a service shift, or putting a nice and beautiful cube of ice onto a warm drink of beer that so needs some tempering desperately when she’s playing bridge with her friends on the weekend, or listening to a boring conversation from an acquaintance when she doesn’t even remember their name. After all, one might ask themselves if they had ever, in their lives, dedicated so much of their time trying so hard for people who probably would love to take things that she does for granted. However, Maya doesn’t think about it that way. It is just not the type of thing anyone talks or brags about.

April’s Fools is the one day that Maya is indifferent about, for the day spells trouble for so many people around her, but somehow, all of it seems to have successfully avoided her altogether, and it is today.

In preparation for the day, she has done nothing but going from supermarket to supermarket, trying to use up all of her cut-out and online coupons, getting the best deal on different cuts of meat, marinated goods, canned foods, fruits, in order to prepare for the best night her friends will ever have in their lives. She thinks that it would be much more fun than listening to people complaining to her how they are getting pranked, and how masterful they are at avoiding being pranked. Her sister, Penny, always calls her and tells her how she is always successful in tricking their dad into seeing something, or doing something unseemly, which always resulted in some sort of laughter and heartfelt moments from all parties involved, as Penny seems to think so. Maya thinks that’s a very wholesome thing to do for someone who is widowed. 

Good things matter; otherwise, there’ll be more deaths in the world. Maya thinks that there are way less deaths in the world than it’s supposed to be. Humans are so malleable. She knows so. So fragile and breakable. It’s comforting to know that too. And so not a lot of people have that, she thinks - moments of pure empowerment juxtaposed with moments of pure and subtle genuineness. Something Maya thought of once, though she was not sure how to feel about it so she forgot it at once, (It’s the type of thing that is easy to miss if one is not actively looking for: one would be too cordial in and of melodramatic practices, and be frowned and shunned to just be in seek and want of such sweet-nothings), or something along those lines.

But no matter, for the day is hers and hers alone, and it is beginning. She gets home and prepares her grill. 

Set coal. Ample lighter fluid. Ignite. Fan well. Nice heat and fire, she puts in some strength. 

Set table. Cloth. Napkins. Knife, forks, chopsticks, spoons, she repeats twice.

Drinks. Meat. Chips. Cards, dominoes, speaker, microphone, she reminds herself.

There is nothing else that she forgets. This is going to really surprise her friends, and then she smiles stupidly to herself, without even imagining the looks on her friends’ faces when they see that she had gone all out trying to make a pointless holiday special that one deigns not forget. 

Maya’s boyfriend, Gerald, comes home from his work and she gives him a kiss and a hug. Maya sees that Gerald has had a tough day at work so she suggests they have sex before the party is underway, and so they get in bed. They finish. Everything is good and fine, Maya thinks so. She can’t let the day be ruined by a stressed boyfriend. Nothing can change the course of the evening now, she thinks. She knows so. This has happened so many times before. Gerald should be good now, Maya thinks; she expects another long winded story about how Gerald got in another altercation with a guy at work, but the sex surely has mellowed him out until his friends come over and he gets to share the story with them instead. If he shares it with her, then Gerald doesn’t have his icebreaker moment with his friends as natural as it is. He has to tell it clumsily, which makes it all the more special. Maya thinks she’ll inject in a joke that she’ll think up to turn Gerald’s story into something lighthearted, a segue into alcohol and food. And she has to do it mechanically: A joke that’ll kill them dead. Her smile turns into a gnarling rictus. 

Their friends are supposed to be here at seven, and it’s already time, but no one is here yet. Maya waits for five minutes before questioning Gerald if he knows where they all are. Gerald, who is in the shower, gives her an answer that she doesn’t want to hear or acknowledge. It is going to be perfect, Maya thinks. She just has to calm down, or she’ll rip her hair and her head off. 

But then ten minutes goes by, and then thirty, and then she starts to suspect something is not quite right, so she starts calling everyone that is on her list. 

Call Stacy. Rob, Stanley. Tomas, Geraldine. She puts in some speed when dialing.

Stacy doesn’t pick up. Rob too. Stanley asks and jokes around then calls for a rain check. Tomas and Geraldine are going to come after nine because something has come up. 

When Gerald comes out of the shower, he hears loud crashing noises in the yard where the party is going to be held. He rushes outside and he sees Maya there next to the grill, which is on the ground with hot coals spreading all over the yard, on her hand the iron coal shoal, sharp and white hot, her eyes fixated on Gerald like he is something that is not supposed to be there. It has been a long time since Gerald has not seen his girlfriend’s smile. Maybe he should help her pick up the burning coal off of the ground now. Geralds asks nothing because Maya says sometimes there’s just no rhymes nor reasons why things are on the floor just like that.

Why is there a day dedicated for pranks when there are just casual pranks of life everyday, everywhere all the same?