Prologue

In the hallway of the mausoleum Adeline is standing next to me. She scraps against a brass memorial plaque with her bat gray nails.
With God in Joy, and the Beauty of Youth.'
Those words were written on Elki's arm the day I met her. She is standing near the glass stained window, on watch.
The silence feels like syrup on wool.
Barbed wire surrounds the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, we've smashed a window of an abandoned shop on Ness, one with graffiti that looked like eczema, and climbed out of the warehouse window, where you descend unto the Armenian graves. Hunter is still waiting for us there.
'When Barbara La Marr died, they called her the girl who was too beautiful to live.'
'What does that mean? We are doomed? You little sunshine, you.' Bama is sitting under grave of Valentino, shaking the last drop of Red Bull into her mouth.
Underneath the tangled hair Adeline's eyes pierce into Bama.
Bama looks like she hasn't eaten in days, or like she had some bloodletting done. She throws the can against the wall. Adeline says something, it sounds like sacrament, and storms out of the hall.
Elki walks towards Bama, lifts her up and kisses her.
For a second I am surprised. But then I get it, only a kiss can smother all that hope and vulnerability.
I walk over to the window, taking over the watch. A fly keeps bumping into the window.
Then the limousines arrive at the cemetery. They stop on the right bank of the lake.
'I don't want to.' Says Bama with a pinched voice.


LA is like bubblegum and I am blowing a huge bubble. Does it matter if it will implode, sticking to my face? I'm drunk. We are all drunk.
My name is Mona. All that matters is that these are my friends.
Everyone has something to say about girls like us. You can enter your own opinion here...
Not so long ago, I still wished people would understand me, now the thought just makes me tired. And I get it, it's hard to get others and really believe in the shit you are telling yourself. Try it.
It's a dream, offset by a black border, waiting to turn, always a nagging nightmare lurking.
You grow up, rubbish all around you, and you try escape it. Even though you know its not going to happen. It's like washing blood out of your hair with that Tsubaki shampoo that smells like rotten oranges. You can keep waiting for that pink waterfall to turn clear, but it'll never get clean.


When it's over, we walk outside. Adeline is waiting for us, sitting on the headstone. We plant the seeds, a Korean custom. Sharon Rose, a powerhouse plant with meddlesome roots, they will enclose the box and maybe even penetrate it. Next year it will bloom, a Technicolor blaze fed by darkness.

Elki keeps holding on to Bama's hand.
Elki, she's a poppy in a field of genetically modified wheat. I will miss her.
When I look up a peach colored sky has braided itself through the palm trees. The dry wind that is blowing all these days must have started a fire somewhere.
On the news they warned the owners of the hill houses. They plotted escape routes for them, but most of them stood in their front gardens, transfixed, holding on to their garden hoses. Too proud, and year in and year out, by miracle, they managed to save their homes. But when the fire comes at you from several directions at once, when it gets hold of your roof, when it enters and the facade begins to smolder ...
You think you're the boss, but once the spark skips and spreads it will turn all your illusions in a useless pile of ashes.