Maria Oh Maria

4th L E T T E R

I'm Scared

Dear Maria,

I didn't have a good sleep last night. How could I? The nightmares are coming back Maria. But this time the demons got a new recruit.

Mrs. Perci. . . Not the sweet odd one who gives cookies, but the one who always stares at me from the window at night. This time her face was even more weird, even more twisted. Her lower jaw was bent upwards revealing the yellow set of cracked teeth while her long grey tongue hung from the corner. And her eyes were even more bulged open, I swear if she were to shake her head once they would have fallen off, dangling on the mercy of a thin red wire from her sockets.

Or maybe they would have fallen right on the rocky ground on which we were all dancing. There would be blood and flesh piling on the floor, or there would be just a few red drops dripping and nothing more.

There were so many things that possibly could have happened and I really don't like how much I want to find them out.

The roses are crimson red. I still keep roses in my room. They used to be your favourite, they are my favourites now.

I didn't tell Mama anything though she was concerned and asked me why I was screaming. She asked if I saw a bad dream. I nodded.

She asked what it was about...

The grinning men were putting finger on their lips. I couldn't help it. They were telling me to keep shushhhh.

Maria, I cannot explain in mere words how much I hate school. And it hasn't even been a month since I enrolled but here I am giving myself a fake cold with some fake coughs followed by a series of loud raw sneezes. At least Mama and Papa bought that, or at least I think they did.

But I really hate history, the old stuff and those dates and years really make my brain run Olympics. And English, ugh! Whenever teacher asks me "What wast the reasoneth of macbeth's doom?" My head becomes foggy and my scalps feel itchy and I cannot help but simply say, "I has't nay idea."

Geography, Physics, Chemistry and all those troublesome subjects aside, Math is kind of okay.

I like maths or I should say I have grown to like it recently. I like toying with numbers. I adore how those baseless numerals turn into the mass of some object or the area of some geometric shape, a picture in the air just after a good period of brain storming.

I like how "calculating" the subject is. To the others in my class Maths seems like a ferocious nightmare. But to me, it appears as a cunning cobra. Gradually approaching a little jumpy rat, taking each inch in count. Quietly, steadily, slowly sliding, calculating the time and the distance and all the possibilities, thoughts so complicated and ominous and then when the final calculations are just about to end, the rat would scan the area now more aware of the unknown fear. Every muscle would halt in hesitation. A single drop of sweat would bullet down the forehead, around the edge of the eye, the cheeks, slowly caressing the skin as that the numbers would suddenly get weird or the table of 8 would be missing steps. 8x1= 8, 8x2=16, 8x3=24.....what next?

The whole calculation is jeopardized, the question itself now laughs at our face.

Until a single string of the brain would find the missing step, wrap itself around it's foot and drag it back in the stair like an escapee back in prison.

And then, like a sudden flash, the rat is dead, lifeless, cold and finished just like the defeated test paper.

But I don't enjoy math in classroom as much as I do in here. It would be better if I could study in another classroom where there won't be any shadows.

I don't like how they sway, creep around so visibly on the walls and sometimes on the floor just inches away from my foot.

I hate those shadows, mostly the ones that touch me. Especially that one who touches my shoulders and my stomach. And that tall one who hangs upside down from the ceiling right before my face, it blocks my view of the board. The stink blocks my nostrils, the claws block my breathing pipe and everything turns darker until the teacher calls me out for spacing out or faking chokes in class.

Maria, I don't want to go to school anymore. Maria I'm scared.

Your affectionately,

25 15 21 18 4 5 1 18 19 9 19 20 5 18