Aaron's Writing Prompts - 1. Prompt 300: Black Diamond

Sterling was sick to death of this mall. The mall was pretty damn sick of them, too, judging by the way all the managers glared daggers at the five of them from behind their glass storefronts, as if daring them to set foot inside, daring them to stuff their sagging, oversized Ed Hardy jeans with their worthless merchandise and make a run for it. And that’s precisely what they would do. They weren’t exactly unpredictable.

Five black teenagers dressed like thugs rarely failed to intimidate, and Sterling, the youngest of the group, loved it. He loved to see the passive fear in their light-colored eyes, the wrinkling of bright pink lips as they carefully toed the line of prejudice. Terrified at the prospect of offending them. Loathe to be labeled a racist. He loved the communal feeling of superiority when they barged into the white woman’s territory, their voices a cacophony over the pervasive thud of pop music that played everywhere. He loved when they colonized three tables at the food court, their feet propped up on the seat cushions, taking up as much space as they could, and all but the black security guards judiciously averted their eyes. He loved to force a reaction.

But every day it was the same. It had been two years since they began this almost daily routine, earning them the label of “mall rats” at school, where the words were always spoken with awe. There they were kings for their mall escapades. There, this was perceived as a brave foray into the white beyond. But today, as they made their rounds, Sterling could not shake the feeling that they were exactly what the hard-won title implied—rats. Scavengers in this familiar-but-strange utopia. Animals beneath the feet of the nice, civil young mall-goers in khaki slacks and pencil skirts and cheerleading uniforms. He gritted his teeth. Why was he suddenly so angry?

“Hey, y’all, I’m about to bounce. I got some shit to take care of,” he began suddenly, interrupting whatever conversation had been taking place around him. He had been so distracted lately. Three of his friends bade him a congenial farewell, but DeAndre, his neighbor, stopped him,

“Hey bro, you a’ight? You bein’ a stranger these past few days.”

“I’m straight. These braids be too tight or some shit.” That earned a laugh from all of them. Up until a few days ago Sterling had been sporting a rather substantial afro and his sister had spent two days braiding it for him. He liked the groomed appearance much better.

He took off at a brisk walk for the other end of the mall, not quite ready to go home. He just needed some time to think. His friends could be so distracting.

He peered around as he walked, feeling inexplicably nervous. Accompanied by his friends, the judgmental shop owners made him feel powerful—enlightened, even—but alone he withered beneath their forbidding stares. He hunched his shoulders moodily and quickened his pace.

He wanted somewhere quiet. That was all he needed to clear his head. After a brief moment of consideration he veered off suddenly into a jewelry shop near the exit. He knew this place sold only the finest gold and gems and thus should be relatively empty.

The place was dark and cool like all the other jewelry stores, the only illumination coming from spotlights on the glass jewelry cases as well as pretentious floor lights scattered randomly throughout the room. He didn’t see an attendant, so he wandered up to the nearest case and let his eyes rove over the wealth behind the glass. He let his hand rest on the polished silver reinforcing the glass and traced it absently with his fingers.

“See anything you like?”

Her voice startled Sterling out of his stupor and he immediately jerked his hand off the case as if he’d been burned.

She laughed jovially at having scared him, revealing two rows of perfect white teeth.

“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you! I thought you saw me over there polishing the case.”

She was young, attractive white girl, quite similar in appearance to most of the other mall employees. Her shoulder-length caramel hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail at the nape of her neck and her nose was covered in a smattering of golden freckles. Her eyes were a soft and unreckoning brown and her name tag read “Candace.”

“Uh, that’s okay,” he stammered, still recovering from the shock. “I’s just looking around.”

“Hm,” she responded, her lips pursed. “Were you looking for something for a special occasion? Never mind, I can tell you’re trying to get rid of me so you can browse in peace. It’s just so boring in here all the time, you know? Take your time.”

Sterling was perplexed by her demeanor. She wasn’t suspicious of him at all and she actually afforded him more than a simple imperative sentence. He liked her. She was pretty. He wished she would talk to him again but he wasn’t even sure how to address someone like her. Somehow he sensed “hey you” was not going to fly.

Several more minutes passed in silence wherein he wandered aimlessly case-to-case, watching Candace mill around behind the counter. After a while she suddenly turned, a gold band in her fingers inlaid with a single, glittering black gem.

“This is a black diamond,” she informed him. “It’s the rarest kind. Do you know that it actually comes from outer space?”

Sterling looked up from the ring to Candace’s face and found her eyes sparkling with fascination. Were all white people impressed by random information?

“Uh…No, I didn’t know that.”

“It does. Well, no one has proven that conclusively, but some science guy proved that the carbon in these diamonds actually came from cosmic dust. The cosmic dust became solid over time and fell to the earth as meteorites. So they’re actually called carbonado, not diamonds, since they weren’t formed the same way as all the white diamonds. But I think they’re just as beautiful, and they’re a hundred times as rare. They aren’t even from this planet!” she exclaimed.

Sterling couldn’t shake the feeling that she was telling him all this for a reason, but why he could not guess. Was she making fun of him? She knew he couldn’t afford a black diamond. She should know just by looking at him. Hell, he couldn’t afford anything at this mall, let alone a diamond, black or white.

“… That’s cool,” he began slowly. “Why are you telling me this?”

She shrugged.

“Like I said, I get bored. I also like to think I have particularly good taste in jewelry. Old ladies think so, anyway. That’s why I got this job. I dunno, I just thought you might like it. It seemed perfect for you and I think they’re really interesting.”

“They are,” he affirmed, hoping she would be encouraged to talk to him more. It really was beautiful. Although it didn’t sparkle like other gemstones, it was a perfect, infinite black, so dark it seemed it could swallow you.

“Aren’t they?” She sighed wistfully and held the gemstone close to the light. “Natural black diamonds, although they are the rarest and most beautiful, are by far the most difficult to cut. Pretty ironic, right? They fracture very, very easily. But if you’re careful and you cut them just right, well. You can see how beautiful the end product is for yourself.”

Sterling thought of his friends and then of himself. He looked up at the girl in confusion.

“Just some fun little facts. Let me know if you’d like to see anything else. I have tons of useless information about all these gems.” She smiled brightly, replaced the ring in its case, and went about cleaning.

Sterling lingered in the shop for a while longer. His eyes kept straying back to the black diamond, raised above the gems surrounding it on a little satin pedestal, unapologetic and black and resplendent among the sea of glittering white.

“It wasn’t useless, miss Candace. You should tell more people ‘bout those diamonds, I think. Thank you.” And with that, he left, feeling alone but somehow less empty.

Sterling did not return to the mall for a very long time but when he did he walked with his back straight and his head high, and he searched hopefully for Candace in the dark depths of the upscale jewelry store, but he found her replaced by a smiling young man instead, and he hoped fervently that she was well.