Life is a Parallel Universe

Contents

Chapter 1.

Chapter 2.

Chapter 3.

Chapter
4.

Chapter
5.

Chapter 6.

Chapter 7.

Chapter 8.

Life
is a Parallel Universe

Alexa Aella

Smashwords
Edition
copyright 2014.

Smashwords
Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed
for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or
given away to other people. If you would like to share this book
with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each
recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or
it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to
Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting
the hard work of this author.

Life
is a parallel universe

It was early
morning and the sun’s heat was a live and growing thing: competing
for space and air. On this day, early in the morning of February 3,
1980, three girls would start their very first day at school. Girls
who had never met before but whose lives would be lived in a
parallel universe of time.

As we gaze down
benevolently upon these girls, whom you shall soon meet, we will
see them leaving their beds, eating breakfast and brushing their
teeth; things which are done every day all over the country and
indeed throughout the luckier parts of the world.

Turn your eyes
toward the two story brick veneer home of Lisa White, as her
mother’s car leaves the stencilcrete driveway: a screech of
expensive tyres. Look closely and you can see the pooling, dark
eyes of the cleaning lady, Maria, watching the pair disappear into
the haze of heat, from behind the Harmony blinds; the current
fashionable pink shade, of course. Maria turns away to begin her
little paid job cleaning the house. This place must shine by the
time Mrs Shona White and her daughter, Lisa return in the
afternoon. Shona perfumed and primped from her day at the beauty
parlour; hair dyed a shade of blonde never seen in nature. And
Lisa: how will she be after her first day at “big” school? We will
have to wait and see.

Lisa adjusts
the straps of her pink school bag, decorated with fake, shiny
diamonds and hearts. A bag, bought after much research by her
mother. It is the latest and most desirable, ‘must have’ school
bag. Lisa flicks her ash blonde hair away from her face and blinks
her rather pallid blue eyes. She is not beautiful; her nose is too
long and her eyes have a sharpness to them which is unnerving. She
doesn’t know this, however. And that is what is important.

We watch Lisa
listen carefully, to the top forty songs being played on the most
popular radio station in town and see her relax for a moment
against the soft, brown leather in the top of the range Holden
Commodore: complete with matching electric, blue spoiler. The
perfect car for a Newcastle princess. For a moment, through the
glass, there appears to be two Lisa’s. But it is just a trick of
the eye.

In 1980,
Newcastle, the one in the Australian state of New South Wales, is
still a town. It is still known for its industry, its coal and its
steel. And, yet, there are those who would snub their nose at such
a place. But, you would go a long way to find a spot more
beautiful. There is a luxury of beaches here and the remnants of a
once prosperous almost stately town. The earthquake that will shake
the town’s core and foundations is a few years away yet. But, now,
let us swivel the eye toward another house, a more ordinary one
this time.

Wheat Bix for
breakfast: same as every morning. Then, the freshly pressed tartan
uniform is planted over a head of hair the colour of a wet tea bag.
Black, polished shoes: hard and unforgiving are pushed on pliable
feet. Sue Brown is ready for her first school day. Ever. Dad and
Mum rush into the family room and the TV is switched off. Thrumming
silence. It’s as if the life of the house goes with NBN. Aromas of
instant coffee and Ajax fill the void.

‘No more Romper
Room for you’ says Mum –that is Mrs Brown - with mock sternness.
‘You are a big girl now’. Sue smiles, not sure what her mother
means, but she knows that parents are always right. She is a good
girl.

Photos are
taken. Sue poses, her face like a peach, next to her brother, Ian.
He is only two, but he has that same submitting stare as his
sister. The same brown cow-like eyes. Mum slips the Tupperware
lunch box into the beige Kmart school bag. The doorbell shrills and
Stephanie Strauss, a primary student from next-door appears to
escort Sue to school. Sue marches across the expanse of dust
coloured carpet and waves at her mum and brother ‘love you’ they
all sing mechanically. Did you check as I did for a wind-up key on
her back?

The suburb of
Adamstown Heights is dominated by a great monolith; a building of
great proportions and immense magnetic power. This building appears
to possess some type of supernatural ability to pull huge hordes of
people inside its mouth. People, dizzy with the need to buy stuff
to decorate the houses they do not own and eager to shovel more
food into bloated bodies, packed inside petrochemical clothing:
like sausage skins. I see you look away now, but don’t, we will
turn our eyes elsewhere. But we must come back to the shopping
centre soon. We must.

Next to this
mercantile marvel, snakes a long and busy road. A road which snarls
and barks with grinding gears, squealing tyres and roaring exhausts
day and night. But mostly day.

In a little
decaying timber house, set not too far back from this cacophony of
sound, lives our last suburban heroine. Beatrice Snellgrove. Come
on now! Turn your eyes back, give her a chance. Do not be too hasty
to dismiss anyone. Most people deserve a chance.

Beatrice
Snellgrove prepares her own simple breakfast and washes her cup and
plate in the metal sink. Nobody else is at home here, because Keith
Snellgrove, Beatrice’s father has left for work. Her mother and
younger sister left two years ago. Beatrice is not sure why they
left or why she was left behind. Always left behind she thinks.
This is a kind of mantra. She slips her dusty canvas bag (found
amongst her father’s fishing stuff) off the plastic peg, which is
stuck to the faux-wood panelling of the kitchen; the kitchen, which
is really a tacked-on little cupboard, to a house which is
essentially one long room. Beatrice throws into her bag a margarine
sandwich, made the night before and glances over her shoulder, back
into the boiling heat rising and pulsating upwards toward the metal
roof. She swallows hard and gets on her way. Look! You can see her:
a carmine haired creature, scuttling across in front of the barely
retrained and panting traffic. Hurry girl! Don’t be late for the
bell.

That first week
of school passes rather well. The teacher was kind. A person who
sought to share knowledge and ideas with her students. Within
reason, of course. You can’t allow the little ones to think too
much. Not in the suburbs. But, then, the real teacher arrives. I
see your eyes light up and show interest. What excitement do you
anticipate?

Mrs Plodd was
young with a tumble of dark curls, which momentarily beckon the
eye. Eyes do not linger long on these tresses, as they are soon
called toward the astonishing hemline of an orange mini-skirt and
teetering black heels. Mrs Plodd smiles and her students look
stunned.

Lisa is pleased
by the fashionable personage before her. Those brown, leather
sandaled teachers disgust her. Sue, seeing the smile on Lisa’s
face, is also impressed by this pretty pedagogue. Beatrice,
however, sees cruel reflections from eyes hiding under green
eyeshadow. She suddenly realises: ‘I am trapped here and I will not
be free for many years’. She moans aloud and Mrs Plodd pounces.

And, so, begins
Beatrice’s career; standing outside classrooms in disgrace, and
later, graduating on to picking up wet and stinking rubbish at
lunch time. But, it is not really Beatrice, who interests the
callous Mrs Plodd. She reserves her special treatment for a meek
and petrified half Aboriginal girl named Terry and the class
genius, Richard, whose mother outrageously taught him to read and
do maths before he even started school. Don’t worry, Mrs Plodd will
knock his mother’s learning out of him. She will shape him up and
put him in line with the other children. Mrs Plodd sniffs loudly;
there is nothing she hates more than those who get above
themselves.

But look! It is
9.30 on a Wednesday morning and Mrs Plodd is busy telling Richard
what a stupid boy he is and how much he annoys her. Richard is
looking stoic, pushing his black-rimmed glasses up along the bridge
of his nose and waiting for the weather patterns to change: for the
tempest of temper to pass. He recognises Mrs Plodd as a creature of
mercurial moods.