I pray to my maker.

Whether it's some all-mighty being in the clouds or humans themselves, I pray that I find safety and familiarity. Maybe, just maybe something will go perfectly right.

Standing on Mr. Dev's porch, I stare at an onslaught of magic that haunts the air as lightning does right before a storm. Transfixed, I stare ahead at the most heavenly light show in the universe, jaw slack and face pulled tight in both a grin and a frown. I might be overthinking the beauty of the scenery providing I haven't been out of the human realm but without a doubt, it's gotta be damn well close.

The galaxy spills out of the guts of what looks to be an antique telephone booth, the black and grey coloring of the object fizzing in and out of existence like a still image on a fifties tv set. The glass, mostly unhinged from its post on either side of the door is riddled with dead vines that move with stars drifting from shades of purple, dark turquoise, and blinding whites.

Sick to the stomach from fish that I couldn't throw up, I swallow my cowardliness and put one mint green converse in front of the other. My brain begs for the sound of music that had once been the drug that I could overdose on without consequences but now it's gone and I'm without a guitar to make my own.

I don't know if this funky little contraption belongs to the maker of this world, Mr. Dev, or the grey-haired woman. I don't know if they're all the same person to make my life a hotter hell but whatever it might be I know that it's just for me like a freshly filled prescription. In this simulation of mystery and loneliness, I've found another challenge of failure or triumph that could lead to anything.

"Keep moving." I coax myself, silencing the fear that transports me back to 1978 when the shy and naive Ivy Wilson became a household name and image, lost to the hot white lights and short television interviews. Now all that's left is an ugly distorted image of someone who wanted all they couldn't have, a washed punk star who can only be found hidden away in archives of music magazines and stories of minor players in a huge scene of a civil rights activists.

I cast a glance over my shoulder. Mr. Dev is nowhere to be seen but his flat waits in the distance like a safe haven. No. I pull my mind away from such weak thinking and keep my eyes on the glowing box ahead, reading off the only legible words, a bold "TELEPHONE" blinking in sync with the twirling stars.

I blink. Again. The sign reverts to copying the flashing beads to my blinks. I take a few steps forward and the sign mimics them, glowing bright neon yellow on every step. I stop. It stops. I walk again and just as expected it does the same.

"Copycat, I see." I tease.

The booth sign remains dark as I stand in front of it. I take in the breathless scenery the inside has to offer of everything and anything all at once, the universe and all the planets above my head, the wilderness of a jungle below my feet, and a war between the calm of a winter night and the ferociousness of a summer day hanging on the air. The stars of a million colors rise, crystalizing into a greater scene that only dreams can birth.

And here a little old nobody gets to be a part of it.

I step inside and just like that the door slams shut before I can stop it. My palms slam into the glass, rattling what I thought was loose but now holds stronger than stone. Screaming and clawing at an outside that disappears into the foliage that stretches from the dirt floor to the low-hanging balls of light. I rush to cover my ears as a lion roars and ten pots clash from somewhere far and close all the same. A horde of wild horses run around me in circles but I can't see them.

The sky falls but it's still there. A hundred people scream but they are nowhere to see seen. No matter how many times I twist and turn around the boxed area, not a sound reveals its owner.

For minutes.

Hours.

Days.

I fall to the dirt floor, keeping my hands tightly over my ears. For what feels like weeks, every creature and object on planet earth sings to me and I'm forced to listen.

The cosmos die above my head, exploding into smaller beams of light before fading into nothing. I blink. The vines draw up, leaving nothing but a cold and empty area much more like a jail than a telephone booth.

The sounds stop with a loud clang and the door opens.

I take a step out into nothingness that shifts to a world so familiar that I don't have to think about it.

My childhood home, the place I see whenever I close my eyes and think of the darkness that could have brought me to where I am now in life. Here surrounded by four ugly pink walls. I look down at a child chewing on a pencil eraser, my name printed on top of a piece of paper in messy handwriting.

Me.

She stops chewing and takes a sip from a can of orange pop while Jimi Hendrix croons on the stereo system, his astounding voice soothing the pain that once cursed my ears only a few seconds prior. I dart my eyes from the hideous polka dot curtains to the comforter decorated in Garfield faces reminding me of what would be my current obsession. Only young me is home, tucked away safe in the winter months where our mother would much rather spend nights with one-week lovers.

But of course, she wasn't my mother and I was a burden that should have never been born.

Words that she never said but my real mother used as a weapon without hesitation.

"Maybe if I read it again it'll make sense." My younger self whispers, running her fingers through her pigtails that she'll one day dye green to look like the cool kids. The ones who'll screw her over in the worst ways possible.

She fixes her pink horn rimmed glasses and starts to read a riddle that I can't help but remember as the thing that made homework a battle. "A man calls his dog from the opposite of the river. The dog crosses the river without getting wet, and without using the bridge or the boat. How?"

Younger me returns to chewing on her eraser again and I'm left to think of what could be the answer to homework from however many years it was since my fifth-grade year. Did I ever figure this question out? I don't remember. Maybe?

I run through my thoughts, acknowledging that this riddle has to have something with this world. I think of water, drifting to every body of water I've been near in my lifetime. One sticks out to me, the one that causes a cold chill to rush over my body at even the mention of a lake or river. One nameless Minnesota lake, a drunken senior party, and a dare to cross halfway and come back during the holiday season.

I pulled my fur-trimmed coat tight and huffed a breath of frozen air out before taking a step on nature's bridge. A belly full of cold pizza and sugared-down wine coolers was where all my courage lay.

Stupid friends cheered me on from the sandy shore, pushing me along a frozen lake under the moon and stars. I would make it back safe and dry only if-.

"-if a beer bottle wasn't thrown at my feet."

I say it out loud. My younger self doesn't budge, without a clue that her older self is right behind her. The person with more answers than that for homework.

"It was frozen," I say.

She doesn't move. A minute later she goes to the window to shut off the snow-covered city below her window to which she stands stunned, watching birds stand on solid puddles. A grin grows on her lips and she rushes back to her desk, pencil in hand and the curtains long forgotten.

I thrashed that night, the cold waters rushing down my throat until I was able to crawl on the nearest ice sheet, clinging on to dear life. The friends who watched enjoyed every bit of it, getting a kick out of every beg for help until I somehow was able to screech out.

I look at my younger self again, the youth and ignorance that she has I would do anything to have again.

I was so happy and carefree.

Now more than eighteen years later I'm stumbling from one destructive act to another, telling myself that I'm not responsible for my horrible actions and that everything is the fault of anything and anyone but me.

I smile despite everything.

"The river was frozen, Kiddo." I whisper. "In life, there will be a period where the river freezes and lets you cross, that's why you gotta boogie through it while you can."