Dreams of Californiacation

By Mía Zendejas

Entered in the ORB’s HT25 Short Fiction Prize, judged by Tao Lin.

I don’t want to write about anything. Please stop making me do that. I don’t think you understand what it’s like. Having nothing to say, but everyone trying to make me say it. How would you feel, if I threw you into the water as a child, never having been submerged in a deep end, and you sunk down to the bottom, hearing only one thing — my voice penetrating the H2O, yelling over and over again: swim! Swim! SWIM! 

I don’t think you’d like that very much. So like I said, stop trying to make me do it. I haven’t been to that place in so long, anyway. If I did try to write about it, it wouldn’t be very accurate probably. You might be disappointed. I don’t like disappointing people, so please don’t make me feel guilty today. I know you know what happened there. I know you want me to admit it. But I won’t. There’s nothing to admit to. I didn’t drive the Volkswagen into the ocean. And even if I did, it probably would have been an accident. And you can bet on your fucking life that you wouldn’t hear me trying to get the car to swim! Swim! SWIM! even if I did. 

I only ever moved to Santa Barbara because I fell in love with Nancy. There, I said it. She already knew that somewhere deep down below her triple-D breasts, so it’s also not necessary that I say that. But there it is. I fell in love with Nancy. I met Nancy in Santa Barbara when we were twenty-three. I was there for a conference at UCSB. Nancy was working at this vintage store on State Street, and I used to be into pretending I cared about buying second-hand to save the environment or some shit like that. She was wearing a silk lingerie-looking dress over a t-shirt, which meant she probably cared about ethical fashion, too. Perfect. Two people who are kidding themselves. I went over to the stack of records that were priced high so that young people can feel like they are buying something ancient. I saw her look up at me over her circle-framed reading glasses. I’m in. I decided to play the dumb fuck. Knock the records down, make a scene. She’ll come help me clean them up — she’ll have to, it’s her job. I tumble the records down. She looks up over her glasses again. She keeps reading her book (The Second Sex by Simone de Buvouusihdiuefhnd). Fuck. Now I have to clean all this shit up by myself. I pick up a jazz record by someone whose name I don’t recognize. I hand it to her.

Oh my god, I love person whose name I don’t recognize. 

Oh, really? Me too. I was so excited when I saw person whose name I don't recognize in the pile, that I accidentally tipped over the crate and all the other records fell out. Sorry about that, by the way. I know I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that and pretended it didn’t happen, because now maybe I’m responsible for paying for any damages, which —

Yeah, I saw that. Don’t worry about it, I’m sure it’s fine. 

Oh, you saw that?

She closed her book and smiled. That will be $45.16, please. She handed me the receipt. It had her number scribbled onto it. 

It didn’t take long before she offered me a set of keys into her apartment. It overlooked the ocean. It was a pastel blue, with rotting white fencing surrounding the shared deck in the backyard. I hated living in LA anyway. The only good thing about being a graphic designer for some tech company is that I worked from home — I only ended up in LA because I had fallen in love with Samantha.

My therapist in LA was useless. She literally looked at me after I told her that I was having a trauma response every time I ran into Samantha after what happened and asked, “have you, like, tried this thing called yoga?” Fuck. 

Yes, I’ve fucking tried everything in God’s name, ThAt’s WhY i’M TalKinG To YoU. She started crying after I said that. I don’t know why. I might’ve been talking too loud. Then, with tears streaming down her face and sniffling, out from her unmoving injected lips came, Aroma sound bath?

That’s the last time I saw her and her bejeweled mesh mask — it was black. I don’t really miss her that much because she had so much plastic surgery done that not only could you see it through her mask, but she looked like Chuckie, the doll. And I’m sure you agree: Chuckie is already terrifying. 

I was happy to be out of LA — and farther away from Samantha’s lying ass. That was therapy in itself. I hope my therapist is doing okay, though — and I hope she stopped wearing see-through white skirts and a G-string to her practice. Not because it’s a slut shaming sort of thing, don’t get me wrong, I love a G-string, alright. That shit does it for me — but I just mean how can anyone really take you seriously? 

​I wasn’t meant to stay in Santa Barbara after Nancy and I weren’t fallen with one another either, p.s. But where else in Southern California was sleepy enough to where there’s not much else to do but write? The main part of town is only one street. Don’t be fooled by the fact that it’s called State Street. It’s not as big as a state, it’s tiny and full of tourists or rich old white people who have retired and are, well, sleepy. 

Except I haven’t been writing and now I’m going insane. 

​Don’t get it twisted, it wasn’t always like this. The dread. Santa Barbara was charming, all fun and games.

I was mesmerized by the cliffs, too, don’t worry. I’m not ungrateful. I understand there’s something sort of enchanting about the way desert landscape meets the sea. Orange rock and electric purple flowers blooming out of that grass that looks sort of like playdough seaweed. Yellow, yellow sand. 

I was digging my toes in the sand when it all went down. Soaking up the sun. Bringing my notebook to the beach, trying to finish that book. Of course. Until I saw something I knew I couldn’t even say to my therapist. I saw

Well, it’s just that I —

I saw Samantha and Nancy kissing.

I’m going to kill myself.

I don’t remember thinking that, but I saw those words written in my notebook days later when the hospital gave me back my belongings. 

The worst part is… I kind of liked it. Oh my God — and then I wanted to smash my head on one of those orangey-brown rocks because there were bigger problems going on. Get your shit together, I said, smacking my boner into softness again. Is this why? IS THIS WHY neither of them ever got an orgasm? Fuck. I mean, there was that one time where Nancy was slapping the cupboard when I had her pinned up against the kitchen counter. But now that I think about it, there was something performative about the slapping and that’s a little too dramatic for the chick who never ties the laces of her high-top Converse. The time on the kitchen counter wasn’t even real? Tears started welling in my eyes.

ON THE BEACH! Sweaty and tan and shiny from sunscreen — how the fuck did Samantha get all the way up here anyway? I couldn’t even get that bitch to drive ten minutes to the local Trader Joes. You’re a trader HOE, Samantha! A traitor hoe! 

Watching them was scorching my eyeballs more than that time I surfed all day and the sun burnt the white around my irises, more than that time I got so baked that the ginger grandma at the Teppanyaki grill screamed when she saw the volcanic eruption from the blood vessels in my eyes. I was inside of them; did they not understand? Me. Me oozing into them. Did they not see? By being with each other, in some way, they were fucking me all over again.

Of course. My heartbeat slowed. They missed me. That’s why. They missed me. They couldn’t have me anymore, so they were having each other. The only logical explanation. If my therapist knew this she’d agree, too. She’d nod her big head full of bleached extensions and go, Yes, it makes sense, it is because you are one with the Universe and today there is an eclipse, so of course something dark, very very very dark happened to you today.

I texted my therapist pretty quick. Searching her name on my phone was easy — I put a bunch of magic wand emojis next to her name. We need to talk. She sent me back the sparkle emojis. This was her way of saying, “Yas! I am in line with this energy.” 

Oh, Nan. Oh, Sammy. How could you do this to me? I loved you! 

Revenge. Revenge. Yes! Geminis can’t be satisfied without revenge. But how?

It was hard to decide which one should take the hit because they were both traitors in this situation. But because Nancy was the reason I was in Santa Barbara, the reason I still lived there, the reason I haven’t written a new word into the manuscript in years years years years, the reason I’m watching something that belongs to me be taken by something that belongs to me — she needed to go down hardest.

Nancy adored her convertible yellow bug I think more than she adored me. She never shut the fuck up about the damn vehicle. 

I ran to the parking lot. I abandoned my notebook and pen. I didn’t give a shit that this was the only place my next bestseller exists — more important things were on this Pacific Ocean horizon.

Yellow bug, yellow bug, yellow bug. Buzz buzz buzz. 

This bitch still leaves her keys on the back tire and the top down! Unbelievable.

I start the car and IMMEDIATELY hear the Bluetooth aux adapter plugged into the cigarette lighter say in a British accent, Waiting for pairing. Paired.

I queued up “Californication” by the Eagles on loop and pressed my bare foot on the gas.

I drove right through the plastic yellow gates, top down, cool wind in my hair. Luckily, the tide was high so I didn’t have to drive far into the sand — the little Beetle can’t take shit. The Sex Wax air freshener was doing somersaults around the rearview mirror. The smell of coconut filled the air. I hit the gas pedal at full throttle.

The Beetle and I dove into the Pacific at 100mph. And tidal waves couldn’t save the world from Californication! The Beetle flew into the whitewash, sinking, sinking, but my voice reigned above the thick, acidic salt.

The only one who noticed was this kid in a blue rash guard wearing a lime green bucket hat. When I came out of the water, my jorts sticking to my knees and seaweed tangled around my throat, the little fucker whispered something to me. He wanted my ear. He exhaled a little too hard into it, and he said, I heard you yelling. I heard you scream, swim! Swim! SWIM!

He tiptoed a few inches away from me, his big bug eyes blinking benevolently before he begged, Who were you talking to?

MÍA ZENDEJAS is a Mexican-Puerto Rican writer from Southern California. Her prose and poetry have appeared online and in print in the Malibu Poetry Anthology, Currents Magazine, Expressionists, and the Sigma Tau Delta Review. 

Art by Cordelia Wilson