Flicker and Snaps

During the average person's lifetime they will eat about 60,000 pounds of food. That's the weight of about 6 elephants.

That fact alone makes a girl think about how much she shoves her face at dinner. Hum- or maybe not. I was never one for dieting or watching my figure, as some girls are.

Plus, I had a feeling that mom had told Chad, my step-dad, my favorite food. Mash potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and for dessert red-raspberry jello. It was childish, nothing sauve or anything like that, but easy and consistent. I loved consistency, consistency made the world go round, after all.

Dinner was not what I exactly wanted it to be, normally when my mother and I ate it was by ourselves, or a silent maybe a few words here or there, dinner. Yet, here in this strange house, nothing was right.

Chad's table sat eight, three on each side and two at the end. I really wanted to sit next to my mom, but because my mother was such a hot-commodity, there were no seats left next to her by time I got down stairs. So instead of sitting next to either Gage or Cicil, I chose to sit at the other end of the table alone.

If my life was an anime: large red and blue lines would be above my head, my eyes would be unnaturally narrowed, and my lips would be frowned in an unreal fashion. If it did not apply to me directly, I would have found it funny.

But instead I just sat, quiet as usual, glaring at my mash potatoes. How pathetic, really now...

"Jade, will you stop moping, and join the family, really some pleasant conversation would be nice for once!" My mother said, shaking her head at me from her end of the table. I just stared blankly at her, no emotion on my face, I could not tell what tone she was using, was she mad?

Or, maybe she was joking? Who knows...

"No thank you," I replied shaking my head at her comment. Looking down I started to mess with my dinner. Annoyance ripping through me as ruthlessly stabbed my jiggling jello. Before I knew it, my jello was a liquidy-solid, mushy form, something that I did not want to actually eat now.

Great, just great, jello ruined!

"So, speaking of Jade, she'll be starting school next Monday, right?" My mother's voice rang out again, this question towards Chad. Although, I would much rather not start school, and just take pictures and look up facts on the internet.. It would get me out of the house and hopefully away from Gage for a while.

"Yep, I picked up her schedule and her uniforms. Her uniforms are in the storage box under her bed, and her schedule is in the kitchen on the fridge. She will be able to start bright and early, Monday morning." Chad's voice piped up from my mother's side.

Looking up I took notice of his pepper colored hair, and deep brown eyes, smile lines lingered on his face as he sat there, content with his comment I suppose.

"Uniforms? I thought I was going to public school..." My voice dropped off at that note. I tried to show my disappointment, but I think it got misinterpreted.

"Ha- no, I assure you it's public school! Our school just voted on it last semester." He added laughing slightly as if what he said was very funny. When in reality it was not.

'Lucky me,' I get to wear a uniform. Just the words a girl wants to hear, not.

Sighing I crossed my legs under the table, wrinkling my nose as I thought about wearing some god awful uniform.

This was a seriously unfortunate turn of events, indeed.

The look on my mother's face made me frown even more, that deep puppy-dog love look was getting old and fast.

"May I be excused?" I asked, but in reality I was telling as I stood up, and took my plate into the kitchen which was the room next to the dinning room.

"Jade, if you want to be in a bad mood Young-Lady, you can clean up the kitchen." My mother's voice rang out from her seat in the dinning room as I walked quietly, as usual, to the kitchen. Putting my things in the sink I walked back out to the dinning room to overhear the small conversation that Chad was having with my mother.

"Now, Maude, Jade does not need to start her chores on the first day!" Chad's voice cut into the conversation, saying my mother's name making me even more annoyed. 'I did not need his help.'

"It's fine." I added replying with a bit of the tartness I was feeling, as I started to pick up plates from the table, not bothering to look at anyone's face, as I did so.

Reaching for Cicil's plate my hand brushed against his hand, the feeling of his skin was unpleasant, pulling back I tripped on the edge of his chair, causing Chad's plates to go flying.

As I laid spiral on the ground I watched as the expensive looking plates hit the ground each landing with the horrible sound of shattering glass, or what ever they were made out of.

Before I had dropped them they had looked old, the texture of the little flowers around the edge of the plate had occupied me during dinner. The plates had been an off-white, with faded redish-brown flowers on the rim. Now, all of the plates were in several pieces, only Cicil's survived.

"Are you okay?" Gage asked as he stood leaning over the table to get a better look at me. I had to say that his face looked blurry in my mind, I could not tell what he was thinking, or doing. Yet, I had a feeling that he was secretly laughing at me, somehow I had a feeling that they were all laughing at me.

'Jade is stupid. Jade is clumsy. Jade has no friends. Jade has no life. They were mocking me I just knew it!'

Pushing myself up I ran from the room, tears streaming down my face as I went. I could hear voices behind me, calling me back, but I could tell that they just wanted to yell at me.



Shaking my head I ran. Hot red anger filling me up, forcing itself around me like a shroud of evil, pushing itself up from the bottom of my body to the top of my lungs.

Blindly I ran, until I found my room. Grabbing my Hasselblad I pulled it close to my chest. In that camera I could easily find the palliative that I wanted.

Pulling the camera straps around my neck I held onto it like a child as I dashed out of my room right into Cicil who was trying to knock on my door.

'I was beginning to dislike him now because this was the, count it, second time he had made me fall in the last few minutes!'

"You really need to slow down, less accidents would happen if you did that." Cicil said giving me an odd look as he tried to help me up.

I let him, only to shiver as his hand touched mine. I really did not like the feel of skin on mine.

"Maybe you should not scare me, or run into me!" I growled out, dusting myself off as I tried to get around him and slink out of the door.

"Not so fast, we need to talk. You can't go running around here like some eight year'old on crack, this is not a playground! The house, except for our bedrooms, is set up as a museum. We get to have parties, and reenactments. Our house even is in the local magazine and newsletters! Our family is part of the historical society, so you can't go around breaking priceless heirlooms like you own the place. Those plates had been in Gage's family since; since, I don't even know when! They were his mother's plates!" Cicil ranted without even taking a single breath as he blocked my escape.

Really, he did not take a single breath as he practically yelled at me. I had thought that Cicil was quiet, but once you got him started he seemed to not stop.

"His mother's plates..." I said looking down at my camera, I knew I would kill anyone who hurt my father's camera.

Maybe, Gage was not laughing at me but was dying on the inside, instead. That really hurt. I was not sure how close to his mother Gage was, all I knew was that she had died in a car accident around two years ago.

My mother did not like bringing up the late Mrs. Ashton, and why would she, it was a touchy subject for her, as well as Chad.

Apparently, Chad and his late wife, had been on hiatus for the time being, something about differences, yada-yada-yada. So they were not even together when it happened, my mom had said that it made it all the more worse for Chad.

Although, he seems fine now.

Gage is always smiling, so things can't be that bad, can they?

"Yes, his mother's plates, Jade. I like you, and Gage may still like you, even after that huge theoretical middle-finger you just gave him along with the big F-Off you gave him earlier. Still you need to calm down. You are too emotional and bipolar for your own good." Cicil added running his fingers through his hair, his eyes suddenly shined as he saw the camera that I had in my hands.

"We got the darkroom set up for you downstairs. Wanna' check it out, real quick?" He asked grabbing my hand again, against my will, as he started to pull me downstairs.

And I was the bipolar one?