TERMINAL LAUGHTER

by BILYANA ILIEVSKA
In the cold blustery winter of 2003 I was a student and a waitress in Montreal. I lived in a mid-sized studio apartment in the Shaughnessy Village, a neighborhood so devoid of local flavor that few of its inhabitants know its official zoning name. At that time I was spending night and day with one of my closest friends, Deanna, who was also a student and waitress in Montreal.

Working similar late evening shifts, it made sense that Deanna would sleep on my couch, instead of go slug it back to her den in St-Henri. We’d go to school together the next day, skip the same classes, and eat the same shitty vegan handouts.

One night I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned, folding and unfolding my pillow, covering and uncovering my feet at the edge of the bed. When I complained to Deanna she suggested, “try to think of revenge. That’s what I always do”. At the time I chalked this suggestion up to all my female asian friends secretly wishing they were emotionless assassins. The next morning to impress her I relayed a hapless dream in which I revenge-peed on some childhood bully’s bed. When I was a kid I remember doing something similar (lying to sound cool, not peeing) (although that too) when my older brothers would pow-wow, bragging about their vivid dreams that were just straightup Samurai Showdown II. I would concoct really amazing scenarios in which I, a giant falcon, and John Candy were seeking shelter from an electrical storm. Never having really dreamt, I was disappointed to find that they’re a lot less plot driven, and a lot more where I just keep getting shot in the neck, over and over.

Looking back I realize Deanna was a few years older than me, a precious amount of time at so young an age, that separates the boys from the men, the loved from the loved and scorned. Now, at the height of my hormonal vindictiveness, I’m happy to say that I no longer struggle when imagining bed-time revenge.

It began last summer when I worked a boring mindless job, allowing me the oppurtunity to sustain these really intense internal monologues, that would only get interrupted by a little lunch ritual known as Subway Sub Club. I’d think real philosophical shit, like, Bilyana, dog, what do you think heaven is like? Well, glad you asked. My heaven is one that allows me to travel back in time, with all my current knowledge in tact. There I’d be endowed with the tools (my MIND) to confront, and defeat, my third grade teacher/VP Mrs.Marshall, who nailed me once for scrawling some bullshit graffiti on the wall.

It went down like this: She called me into her office, and listed offenses off on her witch-fingers, because I guess I had some behavioral problems. She threatened suspension and I cracked, sobbing as though my tiny child-heart had broken. In heaven I do not admit to my offenses. I stand firm and prattle off some bullshit about how history teaches us that an oppressed population must express itself in uncommon ways. I would cite my babyish message of “Candace loves Doug”, to be a guerrilla weapon of the weak, as powerful as that photograph of the Vietnamese girl running naked down the street while on fire. As powerful as a RATM Che Guevara shirt, or the Afghani girl on the cover of National Geographic with soulful sand-glass green eyes.
The best part about this heaven is, I don’t even have to iron out my argument. I’d just drop a few three syllable words, and bammo – Mrs.Marshall’s world is both sufficiently and thoroughly rocked. Being 9 years old, I probably hadn’t begun wearing collars, but standing 4 feet tall in front of her massive desk I would sneer, roll up the sleeves to my oversize “beach bums” t-shirt and spit on her wood carving of a smiling worm + apple (with plaque that says “You’re the Apple of my Eye, Teacher!”). Bitch would straight-up blanche, and after a closed door PTA, I’d skip about 15 grades.

The same year I was yelled at for doing extra problems on my arithmetic work sheet. Old Lady Marshall bellowed at me for not listening, but little does she know, I was just trying to learn harder, is that a crime? In heaven I don’t need my future-college-graduate-brain to tell her to “shove it”, I would have just needed to have seen that episode of the Simpson’s where Lisa turns cool, which was probably in the late 90’s.

My most recent forays into Revenge World have gotten a little more NC-17 now that I’m a legal adult, and have smoked at least 3 ‘doobs’, and soooo much hookah. I almost don’t want to sleep anymore because the “think of a scenario where you are always right” game has become a liiittle too fun for bedtime! In it I revel in my ability to cure illness with my healing touch, crack up a room full of beautiful, but discerning, strangers with a bit of impromptu prop comedy, and most of all, alienate every woman who has ever been involved with anyone who I’ve ever loved so goddamn hard it hurt.

Before I wrap this up, Let me tell you how.
In the future, I go out for a group dinner with an ex (doesn’t matter which) and they like, bring a date or whatever. The date says something kind of bitchy, along the lines of that scene in Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts pulls some crumpled bills out of her trashy bra, and the snooty store clerk on Rodeo Drive is just like “you don’t belong here”. Everyone at the table is kind of put off by how awful this girl is, so, being kind of, unpredictable, I text message everyone at the table — except her — on my blackberry 9!!!!!!! What the text message says is completely arbitrary, but mark my words, it’s still very clever, and searing, kind of like….Dorothy Parker??

What really matters is that everyone receives a text except her. She’s scrambling to find out what every one’s laughing at, but of course it’s all at her expense!!!!. My ex fondly recalls my Dorothy Parker wit, and wish he wasn’t saddled to such a slut of a girlfriend, who, it has to be said, is kiiindof a bitch. Everyone wishes they were my boyfriend/girlfriend, my dinner is paid for, and then John Krasinski, of NBC’s The Office shows up, and rubs my back. Star-struck, enemy-bitch asks for his autograph, and John says, “sorry, I’m not here for business, I’m here for pleasure”, and then helps me put on my jacket. We walk out of the resteraunt levitating about 10cm and then I fall asleep and then I dream I’m getting shot in the neck.