Untitled (Suggestions Welcome)

Shannon glared savagely at the tangerine tinted April Fool's Day sun sinking like a stone in the Atlantic behind the half-dressed trees. As the sky slowly darkened to the deep indigo of a pair of jeans, fresh from the mall, Shannon averted her gaze from the view out her bedroom window in favor of the ceiling, through which the faint strains of AC/DC's 'Thunderstruck' were drifting placidly. The lazy current of notes only intensified the nasty expression on her pretty, freckled features, framed by long, straight strawberry blond locks. Hearing her brother, Curt, playing the tabs to her favorite song upstairs in his respective bedroom made her all the more impatient.1

    Shannon stared at the digital clock resting on her bedside table, willing the numbers to speed up. The face of the clock stared unsympathetically back at her, projecting its luminescent, poison green message: 6:28 P.M.2

'Okay,' Shannon thought. 'So I have to wait two minutes. Two minutes = 1/30 of an hour = 120 seconds. One hundred twenty seconds is not so long, is it?' This question she asked aloud, although nothing but the intro notes to 'Sweet Home Alabama' by Lynyrd Skynyrd replied.3

    Shannon chanced another glance at the clock. It message was hardly more optimism inducing: 6:29 P.M.4

    She rose from her seat on the bed, and stood before her door, poised like a sprinter ready to run at the sound of the starter's pistol. Before she twisted the doorknob, she managed an approving but fleeting look in the mirror mounted on her door. Her lips, small but full, were offset by a slightly larger than average nose with a slight bump in the middle, giving it a disproportionate, broken appearance. Her eyes, so much unlike Curt's cold, pacific blue-gray ones, were the exact same shade of aquamarine as she had once seen on a travel brochure advertising Baja California. Shannon hadn't been fond of her eyes up until she had turned thirteen, two years ago, when she became critical of her complection. All through the compiled hours spent staring into the mirror, eyes staring into eyes, the obsession had ended on a good note: loving the way her eyes contrasted the rest of her face. 5

    Wrenching her eyes away from the mirror, she looked with jubilation at the clock: it was six-thirty on the dot. Tearing through the living room where her father was watching the History Channel, up the stairs, and down the hall, Shannon arrived, breathless, at the closed door. Paper rock 'n roll posters plastered the door, and Led Zepplin, Metallica, Nirvana, and the Drive-By Truckers stared out at her  from various poses of musical strain. She gently rapped the door three times with her knuckles. When she didn't hear any movement from within the walls, Shannon pounded as if the door was a tent stake she was trying to drive into particularly hard ground.6

    Slowly, deliberately, the door swung open to reveal Curt, with a slightly dazed look in his eyes. He gazed down at her from his height of 6'5' with a look on his face that plainly asked why in the world she was intruding on his guitar-playing time.7

'Hey, Curt Cobain,' she said, using the nickname she had given him as a fourteen year old. 'It's six-thirty, and MY turn.' She craned her neck to try and see over his shoulder and into the depths of his lair, but to no avail.8

'It isn't time already, is it?' he asked, almost desperately.9

Shannon tapped the face of her watch.10

'Six-thirty. Hand it over.' She stuck out her hand as if she were pulling a gun on him and screaming at him to giver her all his money.11

Slowly, almost angrily, Curt strode into his room and removed from his pull-out couch their most prized possession: a 1969 Gibson electric guitar. The iridescent, spaghetti-sauce red finish glinted in the faint glow of Curt's hanging chili pepper lights.12

'Here,' he practically groaned.13

'Thanks, Curt Cobain,' she said, taking the guitar and holding it delicately by the neck.14

'Yeah, whatever.' Curt sounded as if he didn't care, but she knew her eighteen year-old brother did. Shannon beamed a smile at him as he shut the door.15

    Walking cautiously, as if she were carrying priceless Egyptian emeralds and golden scarabs instead of the recently restored guitar she and Curt had purchased from a garage sale for their combined savings of $689, Shannon returned to her room.16

    Once there, she plugged the guitar into her amplifier and flopped down on the bed. Casually, she strummed out the lead guitar part of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.' Nirvana morphed into Led Zepplin, which dissolved into Metallica. Soon Shannon was sitting upright with a look of utmost concentration on her face. The chords to Lynyrd Skynyrd's 'Free Bird' unraveled off the strings, producing notes so rich that if they were gold, both she and Curt would be intergalactic dictators with 24-karat crowns. She sighed deeply, inhaling air scented with the fast fading chords of well-played music. 17

'Shannon! Shannon, are you doing your geometry homework?' The urgent voice of her mother floated through the crack under her door. Shannon suddenly wished that she, like Curt, had at least tried to board up the cracks by the windows and under the door.18

'Yeah, Mom.' Lying playfully like that was easier if you weren't making eye contact, so even though they were still speaking through the door Shannon buried her face in her favorite pillow.19

'Alright then, get busy. Present it for inspection when you're finished.' Both homework and room inspections were done randomly by her parents as a result of Curt's slipping grades and Shannon's unsanitary room. Complain as they had, the regulation had not been lifted.20

    Try as she might, the labyrinth of geometry remained untranslated. Groaning, she picked up her cordless phone and dialed her best friend's number. Relief was obvious in her voice when Katie picked up, as opposed to her strict parents.21

'Hey. What's up?' Shannon asked nonchalantly.22

'Shannon! How are you?' Katie asked, out of habit more than anything else.23

'Do you have your math homework done yet?' 24

'Yes, you should know that by now. Homework time is from four to five.'25

The one downside to Katie was her controlling, overly strict parents. They were intense Christians, and only let Katie play pre-approved, faith-inducing music. Shannon and her family, on the other hand, had only a loose grasp of religion.26

'Thank God.' Shannon could practically see Katie wince. 'Can I copy your answers for three through seven?'27

'Yeah, let me just get them.' Katie spoke with a sigh in her voice, but Shannon knew it was pretended. She had helped Katie out of too many chemistry test situations for her to be reluctant.28

'Thanks.'29

While Katie diligently called out the answers, Shannon copied them down , feeling preoccupied.30

'Thanks again. Gotta go, though. See you tomorrow.'31

'Bye,' Katie said.32

    Shannon glanced at the clock. It was only nine o'clock, but she felt exhausted, and her fingers complained openly about their workout. She changed into sweatpants, but then felt too hot, so just put on a pair of knit shorts. Leaving her homework on the stove where someone would be sure to find it, she called ''Night,' to no one in particular.33

'Goodnight, honey,' her dad replied. 'See you in the morning.'34

    Once in her room, she flopped onto the bed and lay on her back for a moment, thinking.35

'Curt Cobain?' she called through the ceiling.36

'Yeah? What do you want?' her brother inquired.37

'I'm keeping the guitar tonight.'38

'Whatever.'39

'Well, goodnight.'40

''Night, wannabe.' He had originally called her 'rock-star wannabe,' but had shortened it.41

'I love you too,' she giggled, and flipped the light switch.42