11:11 Blinking on the Microwave

It’s 11:11, make a wish.

“I wish I had never gotten fired.”

It doesn’t come true if you say it out loud. Damn, she forgot that part. No going back in time with that one.

The day begins the same way it always does: with a bowl of corn flakes. Filling food, safe food, full of sugars and carbs and lactose-free milk. She doesn’t have to think about a thing as she prepares it. It won’t do much to soothe the ache in her head, but maybe it’ll help settle her stomach.

God, what happened last night?

Maybe it’s for the best that she’d been fired. That dead end job was no good for her anyway. Now she can focus on the here and now, on the things that really matter, like friends and family.

Though she has to admit, she isn’t seeing much of family these days. Dad passed three months back. Already three months, can you believe it?

The clock hasn’t yet changed. 11:11 blinks bright green on the microwave. Morning or night? She can’t even hazard a guess, she keeps the blinds closed shut tight these days.

And she doesn’t want to know exactly how much distance exists between her and last night. Not yet, anyway.

It’s like the clock is waiting for her to finish eating her cereal. “Come on, one more wish. You have the time. You know you want to.”

She can’t make up her mind. Can’t decide whether or not she wants to wish her father back to life. The clock blinks into 11:12.

”Sorry, you had your chance.”

Maybe it’s for the best.

A few spoons of corn flakes are all she can muster today. She doesn’t have it in her to eat much more. Is it morning or night? Maybe something in her knows that it’s too late to eat breakfast.

Down the drain, into the disposal. She reaches for the switch, watching the bruises on her arm stretch across her skin. How did those get there again?

The kitchen swells with a horrid grinding noise as she churns the cereal in the sink down into nothing. It takes her back, though she doesn’t want to go there right now. She has no choice, she’s launched through time, back to last night by that awful noise.

Rendezvous opens its doors at 11pm, and she and Greta and Gerald arrived at 11:11. The music there was something else, something truly awful. Pots and pans, she called it teasingly. Like a choking, sputtering garbage disposal. What genre even is that? Nothing anyone really wants to listen to, you just sit and listen because who are you to say what Rendezvous does and doesn’t play?

But the drinks, the drinks are to die for, and if there’s one thing her father taught her, it’s how to die for a good drink.

11:11, make a wish. I wish Greta hadn’t brought fucking Gerald along.

They sounded like a couple in the old folks’ home. And Gerald had not been invited that night. But Greta needed him, she said. “He’s sweet once you get to know him!”

She didn’t believe it, not for a second. But there he was, sweethearted Gerald, with his brown curly hair only just starting to fade into bald. He was too damn old for this place. Rendezvous was for the young and the fun and Greta and her. Not for Gerald, but there he was anyway. The bastard.

At least Gerald didn’t blink at the way she drank.

“And how do you expect to pay for all that?” Greta asked her, hands on her hips. Afterall, she had just lost her job.

“Dad died, it’s on him.” Lucky lucky, the money was still coming.

So maybe it really was for the best.

Garbage disposal music all night long. After a few drinks, it started to sound good. She figured out how to dance to it. Found her rhythm. Found her style. Found her feet, and found herself at the bottom of another glass. By 1am she was vomiting in the bathroom, Greta too busy picking her nails to hold back her hair. It didn’t matter because daddy was buying, and those drinks were to die for.

”I’m not goin’ home. I wanna dance. I wanna dance damn it, fuck you Greta I wanna dance.”

That’s enough. Her head is pounding. She flicks the garbage disposal off and stares down at the dirty drain.

11:13. Is it too late to make a wish? She can’t stop staring at the bruises on her arm.

Stumbling. Falling. “I wanna dance!” But she wasn’t dancing so much as she was just stomping on the floor, light on her feet. Greta fucked off somewhere else. There was only that bastard Gerald to watch over her. “I wanna dance!” She grabbed onto his arms and he grabbed onto hers. He wasn’t as drunk as she was, but he was drunk enough. And Greta, Greta wasn’t around anymore.

That bastard Gerald with his balding head and his sunken eyes.

“I wanna dance!”

“So dance with me.”

Gerald had an iron grip and he held on tight. Even as she stumbled and tripped and pirouetted across the club. He held on, all five of his fingers digging deep into her arm in a neat line. When she finally went down, down for good for sure, he pulled her back up with that same grip, nearly yanking her arm out of the socket. And she, she kissed Gerald, that bastard.

“The hell do you think you’re doing?!” There was Greta, back from who knows where. “Get off of him! Gerald, you bastard!”

That bastard Gerald. The whole bar seemed to fade away then. It was just her and Greta and that bastard.

Greta, she was shrieking now, louder than the garbage disposal music. Gerald was still holding on, still digging his stupid fingers into her. Greta had this really annoying voice. Especially when she screamed. There’s death at the bottom of every liquor bottle. Her father taught her that well. What else was she supposed to do? She reached onto a nearby table for a half-empty bottle of something or other. Smashed it over Gerald’s head, made him let go at long last. Then, the sharp end, that went right into Greta’s shrieking mouth. Made her fall silent, got the job done.

And she ran. Of course she ran, before the police could be called, before anything more could be done. She was out into the night, yipping and yelling and shouting and jumping for joy.

11:15. Try to make a wish, just give it a try.

I wish I had never been born at all.