Mia 3: The power of positivity

Mia gulped, cleared her throat, and read her first punishment aloud. “Positive Patty. Pessimism will be penalized. Fabrics hear your tone, and they prefer cheery company. To them, complaints, snark, and sarcasm are akin to scissors across thread. Okay, I’m onto this freaky game. Why would it give me, of all people, this one?”

Shwiiik.

Mia lifted her arm. Skin peeked out of a perfectly straight slice, a few inches in length, along her bottom rib on her right side. “What the hell?” she asked.

Shwiiik.

Mia lifted her other arm and saw the same slit along her bottom rib on her left side. When she lifted her arms, they yawned open a bit wider, showing off a small area on her sides underneath her plain white tank top.

Mia quickly zipped her yap and poured back over the card, understanding it completely after a second read.

“Positive Patty?” asked Faith, yoinking the card out of Mia’s hand and reading it. She laughed and added, “Ha! Finally something to cool the jets of our resident Negative Nancy!”

Sophie nodded in agreement. She had noticed the same thing about the Nancy in their midst.

Faith looked suspiciously at Sophie. To her, it seemed like she picked up the idea a little too fast, almost as if she had prior knowledge of the game or played it before. It wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility that Sophie had looked all the cards up on the internet beforehand.

Mia huffed, “Dude, shut up! I have not been a Negative Nancy. I’m just the only one taking this stupid ass evil game seriously!”

As soon as she was done speaking, instant regret hit Mia as several sounds were heard one after the other.

Shwik. Shwik. Shwik. Shwik.

Four more identical slices appeared, one each above and below the first two. Mia crossed her arms and held the holes shut. They only revealed her bare sides, but she felt more secure holding them shut as if that might stop her shirt from self-destructing.

Mia mumbled under her breath, “Oh, this is just great.”

Shwik.

Another horizontal slice appeared on her left side.

Faith pried her hand away to watch her right side and said, “Hold on, try it one more time.”

“Try it one more time? Are you stupid?” scoffed Mia as she tried to cover up once more, but Faith held her hand away.

Shwiiik.

Before Faith’s very eyes, another horizontal slice opened up on its own, as if a pair of invisible scissors were suddenly closed. She relayed that information to the rest of them, who hummed in appreciation of the new info. Faith let her go.

Mia covered back up with her arms crossed and her hands splayed over the holes. She was now unable to fully cover the eight horizontal slices littered across her sides from mid rib cage down. If you studied closely, you could tell she was braless right now, but Mia planned to get her turn over with, then do some changing in a few minutes before things got worse.

Sophie said, “Y’know, if your tank top were black you’d look like an edgy teen from the 2000’s.”

“Yup!” said Lucy with an enthusiastic nod. ”The sliced-up-shirt look is straight out of an Avril Lavigne music video.” The conversation was unlocking a nostalgic feeling for the fashion of her youth.

Finally Faith had something to nerd out on. If she were wearing a pair, this would be the time for her to push up her glasses and announce “Umm ackshually!” Instead, she settled for just saying the annoying phrase, then relaying her deep musical lore for edgy underground 2000’s bands. She said, “Umm ackshually, I don’t think Avril ever rocked the slices. They look more like something out of The Pretty Reckless or maybe The Agonist back when Alissa White-Gluz was still the lead singer.”

Faith chattered on and on, explaining the difference between goth, punk, and metalhead fashion. She managed to reference Evanescence, My Chemical Romance, and Bullet For My Valentine–bands she considered very mainstream. The redhead, wearing her all black outfit including an underground metal T-shirt, slowly realized that everyone else in the room collectively knew maybe a half dozen songs from everything she had mentioned combined.

The room was quiet. All three other girls looked at Faith like she was speaking another language.

Faith said, “Oh come on guys, you need a little more culture!”

Mia leaned forward, and agonized between her final two cards, either ‘Hands-on Collision’ or ‘One-way Ticket’. She was keeping her lips sealed for the rest of the game if she could help it. She pondered her options a little bit and tuned out the others and their ongoing music discussion.