Turning the Tables(1.1)~Latest

Spoiler! :

Again, it's me! Yay! I have again re-written the beginning(I've forgotten the number of times I have done this before). My tenses might be slipping but I'll fix it up later, since I forget sometimes the tense I'm writing. I have read this piece two times, but I might have forgotten some things. Thanks for helping.

Here's the club and I'd love if you could go and click 'follow'. Please do join and support me. Also, please do check for updates.

Eleven ten PM…

…one second since eleven ten

…four second since eleven ten

…eleven twenty

…eleven forty

A sigh!

Without moving my head, I scan every corner of the street, my eyes moving to and fro in their sockets. The humongous raindrops slice my skin and give me the feeling of a knife running through it. I pull my shawl tighter to my slim body, and start puffing out breaths to speed up my breathing. It’s wonderful to notice how the puffed out breaths generate enormous heat in my body, and from inside I am all boiling now. But even so, I am trembling, my body vibrating.

“Is the cab comin’ or not?” I feel Crystal’s ragged breath blowing on my face. I want to beg her to do it again, to make my inside flush hot, but I can’t. We’re not on friendly talking terms, you see.

“Of course it is,” I reply. My words contradict the feelings building inside of me with every passing second.

We have been waiting for a cab, any kind of cab, a new one, an old one, or one with no glasses at all to show up and carry us to our destination. But all we’ve been receiving are raindrops for pricks, juicing up our skin, and accelerating our heartbeat.

“Oh, yeah. That’s what you said an hour ago,” she replies sarcastically. From the corner of my eye, I see a smoldering flame rising up and a smoky smell pervading in the wet air. I can’t help but admit that Crystal’s new gig has warmed up the air surrounding me to my comfort.

“God, don’t smoke when you’re in my body,” I stomp my feet on the concrete road. Immediately after saying so, I pull out the cigarette from her pursed lips and she lets out a mild yelp.

“No, no, no!” I am shaking my head vigorously. “No smoking with my body.” I speak as I stamp out the cigarette butt under my feet, and watch it getting crushed into flakes under my heel. A growing feeling of pride runs within me, and I manage to smile a little, despite the growing feeling of being stuck in the middle of nowhere.

“Whatever,” she puts her hands up and shakes them. Unlike what I had expected, she remains calm and with being in that state she doesn’t even take out another cigarette. Secretly I am pleased, but I don’t want to send a wrong signal by making it visible on my, no, her face.

Another minute or so passes, we’re both standing on the cemented pavement, tapping our feet gently and shivering with drenched up bodies. There is a silence between us, just like a wall boulder, preventing any exchange of talks until…

“Tell me more,” Crystal breaks the moment of silence.

“About what?” I ask, baffled.

“The Senses? The Miss Dona Rose?” she reminds me, shaking her head with each word. I suck in a breath, and shake my head.

“Not now,” I say.

“But why?” I figure out a hurt expression painted on her face.

“Look,” I turn towards her, and squeeze her, no, my shoulders in between my hands. “She’s just a magician sort of a thing, she turned our bodies, no, wait, swapped them,-

“…and we’re going to make her switch us back?” she nods, swallowing in the information I just passed on to her. It isn’t like I have told her something new, something most unexpected, or some flabbergasting piece of news, but she still seems to be thoughtful.

“You’re full of deranged ideas, Mia. What made you ask her to switch our bodies? I’ve been stuck in your body for ever, and if anybody’s grateful for getting free at last, it’s me,” she says, pointing a finger towards her.

“Don’t tell me that you’re the only one who suffered. I’ve been in much greater pain. You’ve got a weird life as Crystal, get it?” I defend myself.

“But it’s definitely better than the life of a street dancer.”

“What?” I gulp a large amount of air. “I ain’t a street dancer. I’m a professional.”

“Oh, my bad.”

“You know what, Cryss?” She shakes her head. I continue, “Forget it. I don’t see a point in fighting with you. It’s just some more time before we get Dona and ask her to switch us back.” With that been said, I turn away my face and start counting the number of raindrops splashing on me. It’s easier said than done.

One raindrop.

Two raindrop..three, five, nine, twelve, seventeen…

As the time drips by, the sky turns a fiery black, with heavy grey clouds rolling like a tornado. I watch people hurrying back into the luxuries of their apartments. Some of them cross us, stepping in a puddle of muddy water and splashing it on us. We pass them an unfriendly look, only to race up their speeds.

I see a teenager holding a red umbrella over her head and strutting God knows where and the sudden instinct in me is to snatch it from her, and use it. But I quell the selfish thought, and push myself to think about something more lucrative.

The last I had heard from Dona had been fifteen days earlier, just five days after…Since then she had not even entered my thoughts until I found the torn page in the Book this morning. If we didn’t meet her, then all are chances of living inside the bodies God prepared for us were lost. Forever.

What if I don’t find her? A sharp shiver crosses my heart, and I push back the tears welling up in my eyes. This had been a bad idea, I confess secretly to myself, but it seemed the only option back then. If I had not changed our bodies, I’d have lost everything and being a loser is hardly something I am good at.

“You’re sure we’d get a cab?” Crystal jabs her elbow into my ribcage, making me tilt my head towards her and glare. With the sleeve of my cardigan, I slowly wipe away the tears cascading like the raindrops juicing up my skin.

“Stop,” I breathe in a couple of breaths. “Stop this. All this poking.” I wave my hands vaguely.

“Yeah?” she shuts her mouth. I quickly steal a glance at her; for I don’t believe she can zap shut her mouth so quick that too on just one command.

“What? I can’t even stay quiet?” she retorts. I press my lips tight, and start rolling my eyes.

“Why you’re so cranky?” I howl, and I can tell I look wry.

“Maybe because-“

“Hey, there’s a cab,” I cavort excitedly, pointing at a cab coming from our right.

“Wow!” she exclaims sarcastically, clapping her hands like a four year old.

“Why do you have to be such a mood spoiler?” I ask, full with disgust.

“Umm, because you spoilt my mood big time twenty days earlier, and I’m still having trouble getting over it.” The cadence in her voice shakes me for a minute, but then the happiness of getting back in my body overwhelms me.

She gives me a pathetic look, and I turn my eyes away so I don’t have to go through her chanting.

Now that my eyes aren’t on her, I tilt my head to see the cab. The cab is rolling slowly, making my head swim.

If this is the cab, then we’ll easily get up to Senses by morning, I think.

The cab’s front is rounded, forming a camber like the old cars had. From the little light the street lamps provide, I squint my eyes to make out that the cab is shrouded with a yellow shit colour, along with some stripes embossing its top.

“Woohoo!” Crystal laughs. “My great grandfather owned something like this back when he was,” she halts. “…twenty. Pathetic excuse of a taxi,” she mumbles under breath. For once I can’t help agreeing with her.

The ‘pathetic excuse of a taxi’ rumbles towards us, bumping repeatedly on the almost leveled road(amazing, right?) and stops without us having to wave our hand, a few feet away from us. I curl my hands around Crystals’ wrist, pull her towards me and sprint in the howling rain towards the cab. On reaching, I rap my finger on the window glass. A light flickers on. A figure shuffles behind the closed windows, and seconds later the window is rolled down.

““Need a ride, girls?” A heavy voice enters my nervous system and immediately one of the cells sends the signal that something is digging into my skin. It’s Crystal’s nails.

“Mia! Let’s go,” she whispers under her breath, and for once she doesn’t instruct me but politely asks. I strain my eyes to gather a proper picture of the driver. I squint. I squint again, and again, until my eyes are all sore. But the face doesn’t change.

Alright, I didn’t expect some Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp face to smile, but neither did I expect a gigantic figure like John Cena popping his eyes at us. His jaw is large, large seeming an underestimation here. His hair, cropped short along the sides, is a worn out golden, with streaks of green on one side and shocking pink on the other. A red-coloured streak runs near his eyeballs, giving him the look of a drunkard. I stomp down a lump of uneasiness down my gullet and stow it away in my stomach.

“A ride?” he clicks his fingers straight in front of my face. I jerk back to reality, which is that we need him more than anyone right now, and I don’t care if he’s a drunkard or some peashooter, so I’ll have to keep my faith and believe that he’s a saint sent only to rescue us.

“Yup,” I smile tightly. I click open the back door. But before I enter, I am reminded of something. I step back towards him and hand him a card which now bears rippled ends. He takes it under his rounded nose and starts reading carefully.

“The Senses?” he asks, surprise ruining his ‘handsome’ face. “You sure, ladies? I can suggest a better place.”

Before me, Crystal nods. She knows that I won’t give up this cab despite her protests.

“Hop in,” he smirks, pointing the card back towards the seat. A sense of trepidation slips through my body, and with body trembling not because of cold but fear, I step inside, with Crystal following behind.

Dearest Mia (sarcasm included)

He’s been staring at my tits for a century. Please get us out of here, Mia!(desperation included)

Xoxo,

Cryss

My eyes run along the BlackBerry screen and my lips intuitively curl up inside my mouth. She’s right. He’s not been one hell of a gentleman and I doubt now if ‘he’s our saint’ trick would work to trick my mind. Or Crystal’s.

Hurrying up, I type a small reply to her, often committing typos in the process. When I am done, I shoot ‘send’.

Cryss,

I know he’s doing wat but I swear we’ve to put up with him, dere’s no other way. Alos, he is just 1 and we’re 2, right?

Cheer up,

Mia!

I punch in the ‘Send’ button and turn to look at the rearview mirror. His eyes are stuck on Crystal, which in actual, is me. More than her, I feel like punching and smashing his rotten row of teeth, but all I can do is prick my nails into my palms to block the anger from exploding on him.

“So, what you girls doin’ so late?” he asks, veering to a street on our left hand side.

None of your filthy business.

“We’ve got a friend to meet,” I reply, tucking back a strand of hair behind her ear.

“There?” he asks in surprise.

“Yes, now if you’d please.”

“Whatever,” he shrugs, stuffing some tobacco inside his mouth, which I have no idea where he took out from, and grinds it under his teeth. I shiver.

I sigh and putting my elbow on the window, start looking at the lights outside as we whiz by. The buildings we pass across are all dark, with little flickers of light in one or two floors of buildings with two hundreds of them. The rain has stopped battering, which I am grateful for, and the weather has miraculously turned balmy.

I snap shut my eyes, trying to rejuvenate myself of some positive energy, which of lately, I’ve totally been draining out like trash.

A vibration stings my thigh and I pull up straight, panicking. After a brief moment of tension, I find it’s my mobile ringing. I pull it out of my jeans.

You’ve got 1 message.

I click ‘Read’.

From: Mia

To: Crystal

Funny using ur dull phone, but…g8 us out of here. He just winked @ me. Whoa!

Cryss

I sigh, switching off my Blackberry.

I can’t explain what gets into me, but I unzip my bag. Rummaging through tons of trash items I have to carry as Crystal(), I pull out what we need now the most. A pepper spray. As I hold it in my hand, a smile forms on my visage.

I still remember when I first took my driving class, my instructor, a tall, burly man with anger sitting on his nose, gave me a lengthy lecture on driving safety rules. But I wish he had added even this.

Most important rule: Don’t chilly spray your cab driver even if he’s ripping you with his staring. Be kind…for your own safety.

I uncap the bottle and rounding my hands around the driver’s seat; I press the nozzle hard, and close my eyes.

“Shut your eyes, too, Crys,” I shout.

“Huh, what? Oh, fine, okay.”

“Now,” I grind my teeth. For her safety.

“God, don’t!” she begs, but it’s too late now.