Blank Stars

chapter 14

The night proceeded as I had expected it to, there were a string of monstrous dreams in which my mother and father were killed, tortured, murdered by the strange man who had been the subject of my paranoia lately. Throughout the night I jolted awake, my heart pounding against my chest and my body would be slick with sweat. I lost count of how many times this happened, but I stopped trying to sleep when I saw the sun peeking over the horizon. When I got up, I was exhausted, even although I must have been sleeping restlessly I felt as if I had just ran a marathon and the two things weren’t exactly equivalent. I stumbles out of bed and crouched down next to mum’s diary, the only thing that could cure these nightmares would be the truth. I needed to find out what was happening, I had so many questions running around inside my head. Who was this man? What did he want? What had my mum found? And most of all, what was I expected to do?

I picked up the book but dropped it as I remembered my sweat soaked hands, wary to smudge the already faint writing, I went to take a shower. I stood in the bathroom, looking around to check that there was a towel there that I could use. I peeled off my clothes and turned on the torrent of water, stepping under it. My body stung under the heavy abuse of the water. I was too exhausted to change any of the settings even when I could see my skin turning a blotchy red under the heat. The pain was comforting, it reminded me that now I was truly awake and I didn’t have to fear my nightmares now. Or at least I hoped not, I was silently pleading with my mum’s dead being that she had just been paranoid. That what she had seen was merely a coincidence and I really had just imagined it all.

I slipped my hand over to the shampoo and dumped it onto my hand, not really aware of my actions but doing everything from memory. These were actions which were so ingrained into my being that I began to wonder if I knew any other way of doing things. I pushed my straggly hair out of my face before lathering the shampoo into it, letting the actions distract me from my own mind. I felt a little like a zombie, doing things without actually thinking about them, they were simply urges, instinctive movements, things that I had no control over. I rubbed my eyes with the side of my hand as a bit of acidic shampoo threatened to burn them out of their sockets. 

I stuck my head under the water, letting my arms hang at my sides as the water washed my hair clean. I tousled it gently, feeling for any lingering particles of shampoo. Brushing the few remainders out I smoothed my hair, I could feel it cascading down my back and water dripping from it like a diminished waterfall. I listened to the sound of water and began to feel agitated. I don’t know why I did but it was like a nagging sensation in the back of my mind telling me that something wasn’t right. I tried to concentrate on the water to drown out my paranoid thoughts but it wasn’t working. I turned off the water and listened to the silence, there was still dripping water from my hair and body which was more irritating than calming. 

I stepped out the shower, feeling angry now. I never did understand my emotions but now they weren’t even mine anymore, I was theirs. I stopped in front of the bathroom mirror and stared at my jade eyes, slightly hazy from the condensation in the mirror. I scanned my face, and saw strands of hair sticking to my face, disorderly and messy. I had found the source of my agitation. I pushed it back and studied it in the mirror, it wasn’t going to be tidy at its current length. Right now it was down to around my waist, I pulled at it gently, feeling frustrated at my inability to change it. It was then that I glimpsed the gleaming pair of scissors next to the sink. I reached out a hesitant hand and clutched onto them. I raised them with a shaky hand while brushing out my hair with the other. I stopped my hand at my shoulders. I lifted the scissors to the position and gingerly cut it. I watched the strands of hair falling, slowly, to the ground, they cascaded around my feet and I looked back up to the mirror, seeing the neat line that had been left in my hair. I felt my hands steady as I viewed my new image, or part of it. I quickly cut the rest of my hair into a similar length and then reviewed my work in the mirror.