Stonewall

"And we felt that we had freedom at last, or freedom to at least show that we demanded freedom."

Stonewall no more.

Do you remember a time when you used to hang out in Archies Gallery? I used to. That was before we had coffee shops- a period which coincided with the time when we never had enough money to hang out in coffee shops. So we used to meet at the local Archies Gallery, and giggle over the cards. Yes, we were very unimaginative. But shops were entertaining back then, and secretly admiring a Tom Cruise poster while pretending to be asexual was still not completely lame.
I was reminded of Archies Gallery for one particular reason. I remember, on the morning of my thirteenth birthday, I went there to buy return gifts for my friends. I bought colourful pads, pencils and stickers, and little paper bags to put them in. Because I had bought quite a lot of stuff, I got something free. The guy probably gave it to me because no one else would buy it, but I loved it, nonetheless. It was a keychain, but I transformed it to a badge and kept it attached to my duffel bag for a long time afterwards. I wasn't too young to appreciate irony or irreverance, and to my unformed sense of humour, the keychain/badge had both. And it allowed me a little irreverant shrug of the shoulder each time people asked me if I really felt what the keychain/badge said. I'd say, "I just thought it's funny" and feel so incredibly cool. Honestly, I was a dork. And keep that thought to yourself.
Anyway, the keychain/badge said this- "I Miss Michael Jackson".

I was watching Aliens, when I noticed something. Ripley’s cat, which is a tabby, is called Jonesy. Now, why is that significant? It’s because tabbies are orange-ish red in colour. And Jonesy is the name of my favourite character in Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher. And Jonesy was a redhead. The movie adaptation happens to be one of my favourite movies. As is Aliens.

I needed a compass.

My father gave me a compass. It has a brushed steel casing, and the interior is black, with white and green lettering. I always knew that west lay to the right of my house, and east was between the house with the screaming baby (there has always been a screaming baby, even though they have lived behind us for almost a decade) and the pink house which has been under construction forever. Oh, I actually knew where north for what it was, and not just as a point between east and west. This was because my neighbour, a Feng Shui enthusiast. stopped me in the middle of the road when I was in my tenth standard, and told me to position my study table so that it would face the north. But north lay in the corner between the door and the wall, so that never happened. That was the first and the last time I ever spoke to him. He died last month. This month, they painted his house for the first time since I moved to Saltlake. Which was, what, fifteen years ago?
Anyway, I am going to make a survival kit of sorts, and the compass goes in first. I will carry the kit around with me at all times. You know, just in case apocalypse struck.