Ice, Ice, Baby

Cam was the hottest guy on the dance floor by far, the guy with the best suit, the best moves and a white tophat, (brand new, for purchase, twenty-five dollars extra), cocked over his left eye in the best imitation of music video style. The music was only the best in eighties hits, standard music for proms everywhere since this year's harvest of punk, punk and punk didn't do as well for dancing as it did for moping and writing bad poetry about one's life. All night the eighties pumped through the speakers and all night, Cam danced like only he could, soaking in the catchy rhymes and overused record scratches and recycled beats.

Eighties music, to Cam's ears, was the sweet serenading of angels above, blessed music that never, ever went out of style. As he danced, all the girls stood around him in a circle and he felt like a king, a modern day Michael Jackson before the nose incident or the accusations of pedophilia. When he pulled at the crotch of his white tailored pants as he'd seen Eminem do, the girls all shrieked and clapped in delight, their hands a white blur above the myriad colours of what Cosmo called the Season's Hottest Dresses. When he sidled up to one, grooving with the beat, she giggled and blushed and attempted to flirtaciously play with her hair, which was, as fashion dictated, cemented into a mass of goldilocks curls spilling from the top of her scalp. Under the guise of taking her as his dance partner, he took a quick assessment of her boobs, tiny and sort of triangular but perky with fantastic nipples that prodded through the flimsy fabric of her magenta dress. Bah, he thought to himself, mosquito bites, and was relieved when she refused his offer with an embarassed shriek. He gave her one last once over, regretful that she had such tiny boobs because she had fantastic legs. Following the music's lead, he returned to the centre of the circle for a few of his signature breakdance moves, soaking in the sounds of girls cheering. He swung in a circle, eyes lingering on pair after blurry pair of boobs. Perky, saggy, round, cone shaped, propped up by corsets or hanging loose, sporting cleavage or skin stretched over sternum. All small. He adjusted the level of his vision and out of the corner of his eye he saw their assorted dates and boyfriends huddled over the tables at the edge of the dance floor and couldn't decide whether they were jealous or thankful he'd stolen all their girlfriends' attention. He figured he'd know the answer to that after prom had finally ended.

With a round of enthusiastic applause and cheering that stung his ears, the song that had been his glory ended and he removed his tophat to take a dramatic bow. The DJ cheered him too, before announcing into the grainy microphone that he'd be "Slowing it down." The sounds of chairs shuffling as two hundred obliged boyfriends in matching drab black suits rose from their seats to disperse over the dance floor, pairing off with girl after Cosmo-approved girl in blue or pink or red or maroon. Cam stood waiting, still in the centre of the floor, for some lucky girl to be his partner. The music started, Aerosmith's infamous asteroid-movie love ballad. Everyone paired off, looped their arms around one another in the prescribed way and began to sway lethargically, traversing the dance floor slowly. Couples stared into each other's eyes, stared at other couples jealously, rested together with a girl's head on her partner's shoulder, kissed with sloppy tongues. Cam, his hands behind his back now, wasn't approached once.

Defeated, he took a seat at one of the now abandoned tables, fishing out an unopened can of soda from the pile of discarded purses and cameras. He opened it, drank a bit, found it to be lukewarm and flavoured, to his dismay, with aspartame instead of sugar. He watched as the couples broke away from one another, song ended, and the other guys returned to the tables with shuffling feet. When they noticed him, they simply scoffed and shuffled away squishing too many people into other tables in order to avoid having to sit with the night's big showoff and girlfriend stealer. The music resumed with the opening lines to Cam's favourite song, Vanilla Ice's narcissistic single hit, but Cam didn't feel like dancing. The girls broke off into groups of their own, for the most part standing in large, hollow circles of ten or so. A few broke off into lesbian pairs, engaging in gratuitously skanky dancing which the seated guys watched appreciatively. They didn't seem to miss Cam at all, which disheartened him even more.

The night went on with Cam slumped over his lonely table, song after song passing him by. The eighties music left a bad taste in his mouth. If he hadn't have paid so much for his tacky white suit, he'd probably have left during the opening lines of "Billie Jean". At long last, the night was drawing to a close and the DJ, purring into his crappy microphone, announced that the last song would be a slow dance. The couples, looking considerably more tired and bored, once again took to the floor. Even the girls looked like they wished the night would just end, but couldn't allow themselves to miss out on the customary last dance. The last song was Lifehouse, for some reason, despite their lack of popularity, and Cam assumed the song had been a request. The couples on the floor didn't seem to really care about the choice of music and swayed to it just as they'd done before, looking like mere shadows in the dim lighting.

That was when there was a tap on Cam's shoulder. He turned irritably, growling, "Whaddya want?" The girl who'd tapped him recoiled nervously at his tone, beginning to blubber out stuttering apologies. Her round face was flushed red, sweat glistening on her wobbly double chin. Her hairdo had flopped, hairspray-sticky red hair hanging in her face, and the mascara around her muddy eyes was smeared. Her expansive torso was strapped up in an ineffective corset and her green skirt exploded like a firework into multiple layers of tulle-- last year's style. Tammy Smith. One of the nerdiest girls in the school, the only one Cam had ever seen in the library playing Magic cards with the pimpliest guys. Cam didn't think she'd ever had a boyfriend, not hanging out with that lot.

"I," she stammered in a slightly nasal voice, "I r-requested this s-song just for you and me and I. . . I'd like if we could dance together to it." Cam looked up at her incredulously. Did she know who she was talking to, here? He wasn't the type of guy to just dance with anyone, especially not a fat nerd like her. He stood up, about to tell her off for being so presumptuous, when his eyes drifted automatically to her chest. He was greeted by a pair of double-d's, freckled and spilling out of the corset like a cup running over. He could prop up a flag in her cleavage. He froze, one finger up in lecturing position, mouth hanging open about to speak. She was wincing, apparantly bracing herself against the sound rejection she was about to recieve. She started to turn. He dropped a hand on her shoulder.

"I thought you'd never ask," he breathed.

The Death of Emperor Meiji

We’re in class, pens poised over looseleaf, fingers hovering over laptop keys, eyes turned momentarily from the professor to the projection of a sleek overhead sheet she’s laid out for us. Its heading, in neutral text:

DEATH OF EMPEROR MEIJI

We scrawl and tap mechanically while the professor stands, breath bated as though momentarily frozen in time, waiting for the movement of her students to cease so that she might continue her lecture with our full attention. At long last, a hush falls over the assembly. Suddenly unfrozen, the professor looks up at the screen she stands before and folds her hands behind her back, letting out a simple, thoughtful “hm.” In our ready positions once again, we wait now for the ensuing onslaught of information, the apathetic details on why this death would be significant to Japanese history. Most of us don’t give two shits about the life or death of this puppet emperor so revered; we’re here simply to engorge our scholarly mosquito brains or, even more detached, to continue our course to academic success by way of three hours credit.

The professor narrows her eyes. “Tell me,” she begins in that condescending voice of hers, to our complete surprise breaking from her habit of diatribe to pose a question, “How many of you have ever witnessed an event that, at that very moment, you knew was history in the making?”

A completely different kind of silence overtakes us. From the back of my mind and the usually hazy grips of memory comes the half-heard sound of a radio in another room, the cold feel of a spoon balanced in my hand, the fiercely unnatural light of my kitchen, the clock beneath the cabinet reading seven forty-eight am. My father’s TV in a dark room, my mother perched at the edge of her bed in her nightgown, face in her hands as the television flickers the same colours over and over again reflecting on her face. She is sobbing, swearing, praying for safety and for retribution all at once. I stand above her silent, tugging at the cuffs of a brand new navy shirt, overpriced. Numbers read by solemn voices rise, rise, rise, pulsing in my head like an oral thermometer under a fevered child’s tongue. Resolution not to cry, to be strong for her sake before a moment of realization that sends me hurtling, tripping down the stairs and throwing myself before the computer. A hastily typed email: “Hi. Where are you? I’m praying.” And then later, the dim cafeteria of my junior high, three hundred sets of eyes focused on a television that normally was reserved for music videos or cartoons. Utter silence. A paper airplane tossed in the hallway that swoops, spinning, to the ground, greeted by a plethora of horrified glances. In class, anger on my part at the normalness of things, the mimicry of routine. A screaming fight with a friend that ends with flight, crying openly now. A brisk walk home in the autumn air, a cup of tea in the bright kitchen, a quiet, apologetic phone call with the school secretary. Finally, a red and black instant message: “Hey. Yeah. Thanks for the email; I got a lot of them today. The skyline’s changed.” A brief sense of relief followed by a wash of sadness, another realization that this exchange will not be typical. Finally, the overwhelming comprehension that the world has changed.

“Well?” the professor prompts in annoyance. As one, her students blink back the glaze in their eyes, drawing in their awareness like a kite on a string and returning to current surroundings. There is no question as to the nature of the distraction. The professor folds her arms over her chest, tapping an impatient foot. For a moment, nobody says anything, not quite yet returned from four years ago to respond. Finally, a boy in the front raises his hand. He says what we’re all thinking tentatively, his voice fearful.

“September Eleventh.” It’s more of a question than a statement by the intonation of his voice, the way he leans forward in his seat to be more clear. It feels like everyone in the class breathes in all at once, treating his statement with reverence like some divine revelation. At the same time, the affirmation of our innermost thoughts feels intrusive.

“Yes,” the professor says, approving the answer. We all breathe out again as though we ourselves had been the ones who’d suggested the idea and waited for the professor’s affirmation of its validity. “Anything else?” she asks, surveying the confused faces of her class. We are mute, returning to the dragged up memories, each of us lost in visions of fire and crash and fall, albeit viewed through different lenses. “How about Watergate?” she prompts. The same boy in the front row replies to this, a small smile lingering on the corners of his lips.

“Most of us weren’t born when Watergate happened,” he notes with that smile making an obvious jab at the professor’s age. An uneasy chuckle ripples through the class in response to this and the professor puffs up her shoulders like an irritated cat, mouth twisted in helpless amusement at the undertones of the statement. The curtain of tension lifts somewhat.

“The death of Emperor Meiji signified, to the Japanese people, the end of an age.” Pens scrawling and laptop keys tapping, rushing to catch up, the lecture resumes its pace.

“It’s weird to drive over the bridge to Manhattan and not have them there,” said the instant message window that day. My own pen lashes across the page in barely legible script, three words behind and guided by a purely mechanical hand. Perhaps those events had signified the end of an age too.