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lovejuno26 · 5 months ago

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Advice for the Living, From Dead Girl:

Read as published in the UNSWeetened online journal 2024 under the Warmth prompt at: https://www.arc.unsw.edu.au/publications/unsweetened-literary-journal/unsweetened-online-2024/advice-for-the-living-from-dead-girl or, read below:

Advice for the Living, From Dead Girl, Magazine #143, April 1995.

1. Busy Bathrooms and Pre-Drinks

Q) Heya, Dead Girl! Love your column, your advice is always soooo good, so I thought I’d ask you. I have a friend who’s throwing a massive rager this Saturday, and normally when we go to parties we head to hers for pre-drinks and prep, so now we’re all debating who should host the prep party before hers. Candance has the nicest bathroom, but Lickory’s parents leave their drinks out in an unlocked cabinet, but I have the most make-up and the cutest clothes so if they wanna borrow them I think they should come to mine. soooo who would you recommend take charge for pre? also do you have any easy pre-party cocktail recipe recs? Thnx in advance!

A) The slide of girl body across girl body. Flighty beings passing each other in a hazy rush of thrown clothes and mascara. Every girl in this room carries themselves with the relaxed ease of someone getting ready to put on an old, familiar performance. Even then there’s the buzz of excitement under their thin skins. Blush for one, big lashes for the other, in the mirror I do my eyeliner thick and black, we all put on the outfits for our favorite roles. Picked over time, experimentation from younger years disappearing into familiar routine, until the day we grow bored of this particular role, and its script. When that day comes, we’ll change skins, but we are young and the now feels like a forever. The bathroom I apply my lipstick in was not always familiar to me. The first time I’d fumbled around it, embarrassed, but with frequent visits her place becomes a little bit mine and I remember it’s details now as well as I do my own. Where the birth control pills are kept, and the medicine for headaches, and the tampons. In plastic cups we pour out lemonade and vodka. Cheap and easy. She hands me hers when I ask for one, goes to the kitchen to make herself another. I’m always careful with my lipstick stains on cups. I place it right over hers. Dead Girls’ Advice: Fight for what you want, but drinks always taste better from a friend.

2. Bonfires

Q) Whatsuppp Dead Girl, the boys put me in charge of the bonfire at the Montgoms’ beach party next week, but I have like no idea how to make a bonfire. Can’t swap jobs with the guys coz I have no money for drinks and I sure as hell ain’t stayin’ sober to be DD. Got any advice on how to make a big ass fire and not die? No offense.

A) The details of the car ride there are forgotten in girl giggles and the hoots of boys in the front seats of the massive truck, but we all know when we’re there. From a distance the glow is soft but when we’re tromping down towards the party, we can feel the heat simmer against our skin. Almost a threat. Sweat from dancing and the summer and the fire. The drinks come from coolers brought by someone or the other, but by the time they reach our hands they are warm with body heat and the fire. Someone paranoid mentions vaguely the dangers of having a bonfire in the middle of the woods but their friend tells them to stop being a baby. Throws in a few large logs, pre-cut and prepared. Douses the base of the fire in kerosene. It flickers in the liquid then grows when it realizes it is being fed, flames reaching towards the burning stars in the sky. There is something alight in the center of the dancing throng and it makes us party harder, there is something alight in my center when I look at her and it makes me drink more. Dead Girls’ Advice: Wood and fuel and hope and pray.

3. Whiskey

Q) Dead Girl, please help me! I snuck out a bunch of stuff from my parent’s alcohol cabinet a couple of weeks back for a friend’s hang thinking they’d never notice, but my parents just said they’re having a surprise Family gathering or something and they’re gonna bring out the fancy stuff. Dead Girl, I drank all the fancy stuff!!! Do you know anything that tastes kinda like fancy liquor? vodka, whiskey and white wine in particular. Please reply ASAP!!!!

A) The heady rush in my head has a price and it’s the burning feeling of alcohol down my throat. Each shot of whatever I’m being passed makes me cough. I drink another anyways. And another, and another. I know what whiskey tastes like, and tequila, sometimes when I’m invited to family dinners at her place, her parents will pour me a half-glass of wine. They want to raise us sophisticated, besides, we’re all almost adults now. At this point not even God could distinguish the brown sloshing liquids from each other, but if they can get me wasted, their going down. Cheap stuff, expensive stuff, warm or cold, with enough in you and a desperation for more, so you can’t tell the difference. The lightweights are already throwing up. She’d brought me cinnamon donuts once, when I was hungover, and it tasted like bread, but she’d said the carbs would be good for me, so I ate the whole box. I still threw up. She rubbed the space between my shoulder over a toilet bowl, so nowadays I always drink too much. Dead Girls’ Advice: No-one can tell the difference far enough in, and cinnamon tastes a little bit like everything good.

4. Touch

Q) ok, so here me out Dead Girl. Last week I hung out with this really cute guy from my science class. He’s been my lab partner since winter (his partner dropped out and mine threw up on the frog we were dissecting). We’ve hung out before a bunch of times since then and he’s always been really nice but this time something was… different? He was a lot nicer and more gentlemanly, opening doors and paying for stuff. You should’ve seen the way he looked at me. He was also wayyy more touchy like pushing my hair out of my face and linking arms while we walked around, and he even held my hand on the way home! I swear he wanted to kiss me before he left but he didn’t, and ever since then he’s been keeping his distance and barely talking to me. Should I bring it up with him, or am I just reading way too much into innocent touches?? It’s all I’ve been thinking about recently, please give me some advice so I know what to do.

A) Everyone is here, everyone is loud and everyone’s a little drunk, so the music goes all the way up, and the wild dancing starts. Bodies against bodies, boys and girls and a thin shine of sweat reflecting in the strong firelight. At some point in the night, she comes back to me and we’re dancing. Her warm skin against mine, the wild thump of my heartbeat, blood rushing to my face. She’s my best friend, so I know about her crushes, and the boys she’s kissed, the ones she fucked, the one she took in the backseat of his car an hour ago. But her chest is against my back, her breath against my ear, her hands burning imprints into my waist, and she’s playing a cruel game, but she makes me feel warm, so I let her. I know the truth, but I don’t want it, so I let her keep her lies and she lets me keep her touch. Dead Girls’ Advice: Let it happen.

5. Adrenaline

Q) Hey Dead Girl, need some advice. Ages ago me and a bunch of my buddies went skydiving and it just lit something in me, I got hooked on the adrenaline rush. Took up climbing, skiing even skateboarding (I can do some rad flips on that thing). Recently a buddy of mine bought his second motorbike, so I bought his old one off him. Took it for a spin got hooked immediately. I’ve always been a safe driver but it’s different here on the bike, the rush is crazy good, and a few risks never hurt anyone but my parents have started getting really stressed. They’re always on my ass about it and are even talking about confiscating her I know I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie but how do I get them to keep their cool so I can keep my bike.

A) At the end of the night, we all clamber back into the same big truck. The boy at the wheel is clearly tipsy, but he’s the least far gone. We let him stick his keys in the ignition and tell ourselves it’s a quiet road anyways. I hesitate, remembering vague warnings from teachers and mothers, but she climbs in, so I do too. We’re driving a little too fast with the windows down and the wind in our hair, screaming along poorly to late night hits on the radio. She looks at me and grins when our song comes on, her eyes on me make a thrill run down my spine, she takes my hand at the chorus and my voice grows hoarse as it struggles to make space for my heart. Everything is too much and too fast, but it feels good. The way my stomach flips and my organs swerve wildly, the way my lungs compress on themselves as my ribs crash downwards in a rushed and surprised exhale. It’s because I am feeling like this that I don’t notice. I see her brows furrow and then her eyes widen, and then the car is wrapping itself around a tree. The iron crumpling, the glass shattering, my heart seizing, and her scream. Dead Girls’ Advice: If it’s worth it, it’s worth it. Through thick and thin.

6. Blood

Q) Dead Girl, Are you real? Do you feel? Do you bleed?

A) Red is a warm color, and it is warm everywhere on the tarmac. She is lying near me. I’m reaching for her, and I think she is reaching for me. Everything hurts in a faraway sort of way, and I can’t feel her but her warmth mixes with mine. Dead Girls’ Advice: Everyone knows warmth.

7. Gasoline

Q) Oh my god Dead Girl I JUST got this brand-new car for my birthday and it’s literally the coolest thing ever but like paying for it is sooo expensive and I literally barely made enough for Rego this month!!! Don’t even get me started on how much gas costs like… fuel prices these days are like… stupid insane. Do you think I should not use my car for a while? But like… ugh, I canNOT take public transport again. Help me Dead Girl!?

A) My head hurts, and there’s a strong smell coming from the car. “Is that gasoline I smell?” It’s a quote from her favorite movie. I remember it because even now I want to see things through the lens of her. Things are always better that way. Nothing is good about this, but my fingertips are almost brushing against hers. Dead Girls’ Advice: Make the choice and die with it.

8. Fire

Q) Confession time Dead Girl. I know you aren’t what you say you are, everyone thinks you’re so nice and helpful, but I know better. Reply to this with your phone number and pick up when I call, or I’ll burn the place on 21st and 6th down. Talk to you soon Dead Girl.

A) Something sparks and a warm light illuminates her, but I can’t see her face, so I don’t know if she’s alive. I have to know. I try to get up, but my body won’t listen to me anymore. I wish I’d told her to get out, I wished I’d made her stay with me instead, I wish I’d told her the truth about what I felt, back when I was so sure I still had time. I make one last desperate move as the small engine spark becomes something bigger, becomes a real regret. I manage to at least wrap my hand around hers. Everything is so warm, but I feel so cold. Dead Girls’ Advice: I know fire better than you, and I know loss better than you too. Yellowpages, 1997 (2nd Revised Edition) P#0415825710 Switchboard Operator 87 in Coleeon, to STD Call 133.56.78 Area Code 83. Near 14th and 4th. Don’t threaten Dead Girls. They’ve got nothing to lose.

9. Cold.

Q) Hey Dead Girl, heard this is your last article for this magazine. You have no idea how sad I am to hear that; I’ve been reading this magazine for years and you quickly became one of my favorite writers. I trek from my apartment to the gas station or grocery every 2nd Saturday to buy it. I have no idea what I’m going to do without your advice every month. Please update us if you start an advice column in another magazine. Or if you decide to try out the new internet thing all the kids are using. Gonna miss reading you here, but still NEED your advice. Please don’t stop writing!

A) Cold, cold, cold, even as the world around me burns. I wonder if I’m going to hell, people always say girls like me go to hell. I hope she isn’t there too, I hope she follows. Then I stopped thinking, or hoping, or feeling anything at all. She was all alone now. I’m sorry. Dead Girls’ Advice: I’m sorry.

10. Warmth.

Q) Thanks for everything Dead Girl, it’s been a good run, any last piece of life advice for your loyal readers before we say farewell forever? – Much love, your editor.

A) When I woke up again, she wasn’t there, and it was a small consolation. Everything here is dark and foggy and cold and naturally, dead. I was a little warmer than the other’s though. Because she wasn’t here. I looked everywhere and she was gone, but the memories of her kept me warm, and I imagined what it’s like for her back where she is. I hoped it was good. I hoped I got the chance to hear all about it one day. My heart didn’t beat, but it felt, and it hoped, so it existed, so I am warm. Dead Girls’ Advice: Keep the memories forever. Even after all the pain they still glow warm.

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