Across the rickety bridge that shadows a small creek winding around the building like a moat, The Girl approaches the counter hesitantly, watching the cashier fill up a silicone ball with liquid. The Girl steps closer and asks for one of her own, watching as the liquid inside turns to red. Offering the cashier several dollars, she points to the light blue color and watches the liquid stretch the ball to an enormous size and then change aquamarine with several drops of something else. Dismissed by the cashier, The Girl lifts her prize, now as easy to pick up as a water weenie. She squeezes it, and notices to her left that a friend is standing by. She shows the friend what she has purchased, and watches in her hands as it shrinks into a bagel. With a fingernail, The Girl peels the silicone off it and bites into the soft dough. As she eats it, she retreats down the wooden platform, resting her back and behind on a stone wall. Ivy and moss creeps up the cracks of the stones. When The Girl finishes her bagel, she feels sick to her stomach, as though it is pulsing. She absorbs the nausea and the space around her becomes a carpeted hallway, within the walls of her own high school. Her hair has become bright yellow blonde, and she reads on a corkboard in front of her that the silicone ball she purchased was full of toxic liquid. The Girl reaches to scratch an itch on her right cheekbone, and three red stripes crawl across her face, blood dripping from her ripped skin. She hides it with the hair, but soon the hair is red too. After The Girl washes the blood off, she returns to her hallway and sees another friend. The friend reassures The Girl that her hair is wonderfully silver. The Girl wonders at this, and asks if her hair is not yellow. In a mirror she sees her hair, a dark grey color, with roots of silver, and three red drops forming at her jawline.
