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     The hauntingly appropriate lyrics sang out through the air of Jane's bedroom. Her new Tori Amos cd hadn't left her stereo in days. That one song, "Strange Little Girl," struck her. It described her perfectly. She was unable to see joy in anything ever since she hit the downward spiral in senior year. She was barely above water grade-wise, seeing no purpose or meaning in the work, had a horrible case of creative block, and although she didn't want to say anything, she feared a change was happening in her friendship with Daria.
     All these things culminated when she came home this Friday afternoon, to the usual empty house, and knew she would be alone for the rest of the night. Her parents were out of town again, and Trent and his band actually had a gig for the night. The quiet couldn't protect her from the sadness, the apathy towards humanity, and downright malaise that filled her. Sitting on her bed, listening to Tori Amos, she thought of Daria.
     Daria had told Jane that she was the person she trusted the most, but Jane was beginning to wonder if their friendship would survive separation. There was no guarantee that they would end up close enough to stay best friends next year. After high school, everything changes, Jane knew that, but she wasn't as ready as she thought she would be. This reality, harsh, cruel, and exhausting, was what she had to get away from. Her escape lay in the pilfered lavender pill in her palm. There were plenty of them in Trent's dresser drawer, he certainly wouldn't miss one.
     The health class horror stories had worked well on Jane for a long time. She was terrified of the burned-out hippie image, the cliches of speaking in/to colors, and walking into a new dimention. Reality had always been her anchor, sure, she let her imagination take over when she worked on her paintings and such, but she knew the way back. The level of uncertainty that LSD promised made her nervous. But wasn't uncertainty what her life was built on? As far back as she could remember, her family was pseudo-present, physically and emotionally. The daily question of whether or not they loved Jane at all, and the absence of a clear answer made Jane desperate for someone who loved her, and made sure she knew it. It also caused her to occasionally sink into a deep depression, but she tried not to let that show. Right now she felt very low, as evidenced by what she was about to do.
     Jane turned to the stereo. "It's true, all things are cold."
     She didn't swallow the pill right away. It stayed on her tounge, hard and medicinal, until it began to melt. Jane wanted to gag and spit it out, but a dark force inside her made her remain motionless. With a mix of self-loathing and defiance, she swallowed it. The residue on her tounge was swept up in a wavelet of saliva rushing down her throat. What would happen? she thought. She didn't feel any different yet. Was this one a dud? Jane lay back on her bed and stared at the ceiling, the whirring of the fan overhead buzzing in her ears.
     Imagining the drug as a green, radioactive liquid spreading through her bloodstream, corroding her organs, Jane felt a rush of fear, panic over the choice she'd just made. What if she never came down, lost all sense of reality? Became a paranoid schitzophrenic in a mental hospital? Her clothes stuck to her skin, saturated with perspiration, and they irritated her. She shrugged out of her red overshirt and tossed it aside, her waifish form trembling. When suddenly, her skin felt very sensitive. Even the breeze of the fan assaulted her skin, making her tingle sharply. The haze settled over her mind like silver lightbeams and soap bubbles, passing her eyes and moving towards the window, the light of the Friday evening sunset turning them into blood. The orange ball slowly disapeering over the curved horizon drew Jane's attention. She remembered from somewhere the idea that the sun represented god in many cultures. God was disapeering, giving way to twilight, and a world held together by something unidentifiable. Jane thought all this and began to laugh. She was so alone, and now even this phantom god was leaving her, it was so depressing, she could only laugh.

     Strange little girl, where are you going? Strange little girl, where are you going?

     "Didn't I already hear this?" Jane said out loud, looking over at the stereo. Then she remembered that the cd was on a loop, repeating the whole album over and over again. She had spent most of the time the album played staring out the window, watching the blood bubbles dance in the air. They were herself, essences of her anyway, the remains of a failed experiment in humanity available to her vision for the first time. She now saw how basic she was, when any talent she had went unnoticed and therefore wasted. Any emotion she had meant nothing because no one cared. Her ears, her mouth, her nose, they all felt stuffed with raw, scratchy cotton. She felt hot and dry.
     The silver beams radiating from her mind clashed with the faintest lingering rays of the sun, her bedroom walls the backdrop, the battlefield, as they turned coal black and melted into tar. Colors had always been constant, now they too were changing, leaving nothing sacred or stable for Jane to cling to.
     Emotions became tangible. Jane identified love's silk hands brushing her face when Daria entered her mind again. She squeezed her eyes shut. "My best friend..." she murmured, remembering how they almost dissolved their friendship when she started seeing Tom.
     She really didn't care that Tom wanted Daria instead of her, she was just worried that she would lose Daria to him. She'd seen it before, best friends torn apart by a boyfriend. She got along with Tom, but she loved Daria.
     Jane opened her eyes and Daria was there, standing right next to the bed above her. Well, an image of her was, abstract and watercolored, like "Water Lillies."
     The illusion was silent, staring back at Jane in her altered state, writhing on the bed, sweaty and teary-eyed. She mustered the strength to sit up, the room spinning and spattering it's colors all over itself, and faced the imagined Daria. As blurred and distorted as it was, the image seemed so real. It truly stood there, gazing down at Jane with a look of imagined, wished-for love.
     "You can't tell me that you love me. You can't tell me I mean something! You aren't real !" Jane's voice cracked sharply, her eyes spilling over. Damn! She needed her friend. She didn't need to plunge into this too-honest, yet far too deceptive world she had created with acid, but it was too late. The drug inhibited her from doing anything to stop it's affects. She was too dizzy to stand up, and even to succeed would be futile, as she watched the carpet turn into a gray ocean that would swallow her in a second.
     She stayed seated on the bed, and with a rush of confused abandon and need, brought her lips to the image. It felt so real, like kissing a warm waterfall in the shape of her friend. It wasn't attraction per se, but rather a cry out for someone to make contact with her, to say, "Yes, Jane, someone does love you..."
     But just as that teasing vision of contact was made, the doppleganger dissolved, as images always do. Jane couldn't handle it, the abandonment. She began to scream, crying out for Daria, for some semblance of a god, and for her mother. Not Mrs. Lane, but a spiritual mother, a divine nurturer to save her from this Wonderland. Jane's lips still tingled, and it hurt her entire body to just be alive. It was more stinging, more agonizing than the depression ever was. The colors of the room ceased to swirl around and turned to ashes, burned into neutraliy. She cried in fast-forward, the high pitched sounds of rushing through life punctuated the hours passing. The blurs of Tori Amos occationally permeating the haze. How many times has that cd played by now? It was dark now, hours must have passed, it could be near daylight for all she knew. She continued to cry and scream. Her parents had jetted off somewhere again, and Trent was out for the night, so no one could hear her. Where was Trent? She couldn't remember.
     "I can't live anymore. The world is too damn big!" Jane lamented into the heavy, blue darkness that began to consume her.

     "One day, you'll see a strange little girl look at you. One day, you'll see a strange little girl feeling blue..."

     She stopped screaming when the darkness fully coated her, and the suffocating silence took over. The music had stopped. Someone came in and turned off the stereo. Her low moans of dull aching continued for some time, until she began to reemerge, a broken child, but firmly returned to reality. The first solid things she could identify were Trent's scuffed up shoes. She must have fallen, as she was now on the floor, sprawled on the shag carpet, not sinking, with her brother staring down at her. He had the bright red gaze of a classic pothead, and seemed barely able to make the connection to realize what Jane had done.
     "Janie, is the trip over? Are you okay? " Trent's voice vibrated her body down to her fingertips, but otherwise everything felt...normal.
     She nodded and swallowed hard. Her mouth didn't feel so dry anymore, but she was very thirsty. "Can you help me get down to the kitchen?" she weakly asked.
     Holding his hand down to her, Trent pulled her to her feet. Bracing her weight on his shoulder, he wrapped his arm around her waist and they carefully trod downstairs.
     "How could you tell I tripped?" Jane asked, when thoughts that clear could be formed in her head.
     "When I came home from the gig, I heard you screaming for Daria and Mom, and something about bubbles of blood. What else could it have been?"
     Just then, Jane recognized the sense of early morning, pre-dawn. Trent was still fully dressed, meaning he must have just come home. She guessed it was about four a.m. When they entered the kitchen and Trent flicked on the lights, she winced, her eyes feeling as though they were on fire.
     "Here, sit down. I'll get you a drink." He headed to the refridgerator.
     Sighing heavily, her chin lazily propped up on her hand, Jane spoke again. "I'm so tired, Trent. The other world was really exhausting." She wasn't quite sure she was making much sense, but she figured it was close enough.
     Trent put a glass down in front of her. It was mostly water, but a few sips worth of cola was mixed in with it. "The suger will make you feel better." He would know.
     She gulped down the liquid right away. It was cold and dislodging in her throat, opening air passages and relieving her. Her hands shook as she held the glass, all ten fingers wrapped around it like a small child's. She couldn't believe what she had done. She was so stupid! So cowardly, too, running from everything that hurt her, falling from the frying pan into the fire.
     "So, what did you think? Do I have to find a new hinding place for them?" Trent asked, leaning back on the formica countertop, casually holding a beer bottle against his hip.
     Jane thought for a moment. The trip was scary, she had lost all control, and the problemms of her real world were still present there, only distorted and aggressive towards her. The brief moments of surreal beauty and off-kilter awareness did not outweigh the pain she put herself through. "Never again..." she muttered under her breath.
     "Huh?" Trent had zoned out, oblivious to the world, and forgot what he asked her in the first place.
     Jane found the strength to stand up, and started to make her way past him to her room. "My thoughts exactly."