The Diamond Ring

By: Newton Tanskul

She was laughing again.
Anyone who said that laughing was medicine was dead wrong. It was more like a drug that took away lives rather than saving them.
I couldn’t take it anymore. Her laughter was screeching my ears. Everyone else seemed to be deaf, because they were laughing with her.
She was the most attractive girl in the whole school. And it wasn’t how well-endowed she was, or how beautiful her hair was when the wind breezed by against it. It wasn’t her deep, sultry hazel eyes either.
So what was it? That, I could not pinpoint. Her personality was disgusting. She acted so cute and innocent just to get all the boys on her side. And when all the boys started to sweet-talk her, trying to touch her, trying to get close to her…
I die a little inside.
I didn’t have her looks. I didn’t have her charm. I didn’t have her friends. It’s never like that. My life was a whole different story.
I had been through a lot of things. Life has thrown disastrous events my way, and I was still alive and strong. That’s what I’d like to believe anyway.
This girl wasn’t making it easier for me. Her name was Melissa. And she must’ve been the queen of all things sour. Sometimes I just wanted to walk up to her and stuff her mouth with a baseball to shut her up. Or when she was flirting with one of the guys, I’d tell him how she has a bad case of something in places he wouldn’t like to hear of. Other times, I just felt like pushing her down the stairs.
I hated her that much.
Well, if you’ve gotten this far you’re probably thinking I’m envious of Melissa. And you’re right. I am. If I’ve learned anything in biology class, then it’s that only the fittest of animals survive in this world. We all thrive in competition. We all have to adapt to our surroundings. That whole concept fits my situation.
And that’s where this gets complicated. Sure, I’m used to life’s cruelty. But I’m like a fish that’s looked up at the sky and wondered how life would be like if it was a bird. Melissa was this flamboyant crowned pigeon that wasn’t afraid to show off its beauty, and I was this little trout that could only hope for a better life than the dark depths of my own ocean.
What made Melissa tick? What made her better than me? She must know she’s tormenting me. When she laughs, she knows I can hear it. She knows I hate it. But she does it just to antagonize me until I die. There must be something that makes her oh-so-desirable…
I’m walking down the hallway one day and I hear a bunch of people gossip about Melissa.
“Dude, Melissa’s diamond ring is HUGE!”
“Tsk, I wish I had that kind of money.”
I don’t know what goes through my head…but I’m sure that this diamond ring of hers is going to garner her more attention than I could ever hope to attain for myself.
That’s when the nightmare begins.
I start wearing my mother’s rather large earrings to school. I’m not so sure why.
Everyone who walks past me stares at them, whispering to each other on how out of place my earrings are. I ignore them and make my way to my locker.
Society is strange. Everyone seems to worship Melissa’s large ring. She’s had it for many weeks now, and the more I see it, the more I grow to envy her.
As if fate was sadistically toying around with me, she’s in front of my locker, talking to one of her friends. Her hands are waving in the air as she talks incessantly. And on one of her fingers…the diamond sparkles all the way across the school corridor, lighting up the entire place, outshining the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. The diamond has its own level of grandeur, it’s like another Melissa. It’s the leader of all the inanimate objects in the world, much like Melissa dominating everyone else with her soulful eyes. I’m not sure if it’s the ring or Melissa herself that kills me more. All I know is that I can’t stand seeing the two of these things together.
It’s as if they’re saying, “The world is ours. And you can’t stop us.”
***
Later that day, I’m sent out of the class for sleeping during the lesson. It’s not my fault the teacher’s fat and boring.
I decide to go to the restroom and fix my hair. I don’t expect anyone to tell me I’m pretty with my hair down, but I go ahead and untie it anyway. My mother always said that I should be the one who’s able to look in the mirror every morning and tell myself that I’m beautiful. It’s got to be me saying that first before anyone else can.
As luck would have it, fate continues to toy with me. Who else do I find in the restroom but Melissa? She’s doing her make-up at this hour, when she’s supposed to be in class. I bet if I did that I’d be labeled as ‘desperate’. But for Melissa…anything she does is justifiable. It’s not fair, but who am I to question such logic?
For some reason, she doesn’t notice me standing at the door of the restroom. She’s lost in her own delusion that the world revolves around her and nobody else. She takes out her eyeliner and starts to apply it ever-so-slowly. And as her hands are moving, my eye catches the diamond ring on the finger. It’s mocking me, scintillating in its own pride.
Melissa’s doing this to make herself look better than me. She knows I’m there. She’s just doing this whole make-up thing to justify her place in society in comparison to mine.
I feel a murderous rage take over me. My vision goes red, and suddenly the restroom isn’t there anymore. It’s just Melissa, applying her make-up, and nothing else but a red background. Maybe if I got my hands on that ring…just maybe…I could be like her. Maybe the world would make so much more sense if it encircled my finger, and not hers.
My vision continues to boil red, so blood-red that I can hear my heart pumping out more blood than it should. Nothing else is on my mind but me wearing that ring of elusive beauty, to acquire a new place in this cruel society; to be part of something I hate with a passion.
And I thought society was strange. Perhaps it was I that was the stranger. It doesn’t matter now. That ring is mine.
A small little voice tells me not to do what I think of doing. But I treat that voice exactly the same way as I treat everyone else and ignore it. Without a moment’s delay, I slowly stagger towards Melissa.
She turns around, a look of surprise on her face, as if she’s only just noticed me. I quickly decide that she’s faking this expression, that she’s probably going to say ‘Oh, I didn’t notice you there, I was busy showing off my superiority’ or something along those lines. But I can’t let her say such a thing. I lunge forward.
Her eyeliner, and all of her make-up, transforms into a crimson red.
***
When I get to my bedroom, I’m holding the diamond ring in my hand. I’m breathing heavily, gasping for breath. I don’t remember how I even got home. I don’t know why I’m trying to catch my breath. But I don’t care. The ring is finally mine.
I’m gripping this circular object of godlike power in my hand. I don’t know why I’m not wearing it. A jumble of thoughts crosses my mind, but I can’t concentrate on them. I collapse onto my bed from an inexplicable exhaustion and fall into a dark, but peaceful slumber.
When I come to, it’s midnight and there are flashing red and blue lights outside my window. Rubbing my eyes from the drowsiness, I get up to look what’s outside. To my horror, there is a police car parked just next to my lawn. Before I can comprehend my situation, two policemen kick down the door of my room and push me up against the wall. They slap on cold, uncomfortable handcuffs around my wrists.
“Alice Everton, you are under arrest for the suspected murder of Melissa Winters. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
Cops…I should’ve known they’d catch on. But I’m not afraid of them. Not even as they call me a sad little girl when they see how dark my room is, even with the lights on. Not even as they forcibly push me down the stairs and out into the cold, snowy night. Not even when they tell my father that I’m going to face severe consequences as they push me into the police car.
Before I know it, they’re driving me to the local police station. They were probably going to lock me up in one of their cells or something, but for some reason, the thought of a jail cell reminds me of my own room. Dreary, depressing, lonesome…but a place of solitude. I figure it wouldn’t be so bad.
The cops are talking about me as they drive, but I really don’t care what they say. I’ve heard it all before. They complain about kids today and the stuff on TV that’s allegedly corrupting our pure, innocent minds. They wonder how people like ‘this girl’ here lives with herself in such a condition. And then they start badmouthing my parents.
These cops sound like the people from school. They’re all the same.
I sit silently in the backseat, wondering what’s going to become of me. We’re nearing the police station—it’s only a matter of time before I’m all locked up.
The car stops at a red light. I notice a pair of bright white lights coming from the right side of the car. The pitch-black shadows of the night make it hard to see, but I could’ve sworn it was a speeding vehicle. A massive one.
The lights get closer and closer, two orbs illuminating the concrete road increasing in size. The lights are so bright they blind my vision. It reminds me of the ring…
And that’s the last thought that crosses my mind before fate plays its last trick on me. A truck crashes into the side of the police car, hurling it into the air, causing it to spin violently in the night sky. The police car crash lands back onto the road, transforming into a huge inferno of destruction.
***
I wake up screaming in the middle of the night. Now I’m really gasping for breath. My body is completely drenched in sweat.
I take a few moments to recompose myself. It had been a dream. I should’ve known.
Thinking back, everything then seemed to have moved so fast…too fast. It was dead obvious it was a dream…those things could never have happened in real life! I’d be a fool to think it had been a reality.
Letting out a sigh of relief, I lie back down onto my pillow. Life wasn’t so bad. Even if modern society proved to be a beast from hell, I had to cherish what I had in the present. Something makes me see life through that new light. It’s as if I had been resurrected with new insight. I had to be happy with what I had.
And in a long time, so far back I can’t even remember, I smile to myself for the first time in ages. Things weren’t as bad as I had thought they’d be. Strange…I can’t seem to put into perspective what gave me this burst of optimism.
I notice something glimmering on the bedroom floor, reflecting the moonlight outside the window. I get up from my bed to examine it.
I smile again and think: The world is mine. And no one can stop me.
I pick up the diamond ring from the floor and put it up on my shelf.