I tried to focus on the music. It was quiet, a smashing pumkins song, bullets with butterfly wings. I liked the song. It was good. Chaotic. Rythmic.
My family washed out the Pretty sounds with their loud, garring voices. Yells that flung spit in your face. Argueing over, god knows what. By now I've stopped listening. And from the start I never tried to join in. They twist and shout with their massive voices, and there massive stances. Trying to assert themselves over the others head. I feel so small next to these agressive extroverts. I wish I didn't have to ever talk, and that I could live in my dark, quiet, apartment forever. Venturing out do complete small individual activities. But family visits. And my family visits more often than is comfortable.
I turned up the volume dial from my stuffy leather seat, passenger side. My brother rode beside me, his hands gripping 10 and 2 with white knuckles. I wish the music could provide some sort of relief or escape. But I stay firmly planted in the minivan with my family.
You're not supposed to say you hate your family, but I do. I don't understand how I survived 18 years in that tiny house with them. Although, looking back I did spend a majority of my time wearing headphones, holed up in my dark room. My sister Ella had her own ways of enjoying herself. Or maybe it was coping. Either way she was a party animal. Most nights she wasn't in the bunk above me, so I was able to sniffle freely whilst my parents yelped at each other from the kitchen. Those nights I wish sleep came easy to me, like my perfect older brother Mitchell.
I turn up the music a few more notches, hoping to drown out brother and mother sqaubbling, input curtosy of the father and sister.
My brother. Sports star, straight A student, who had his entire life together and planned by age 9. Become a medical doctor, have kids by 30, retire by 85 with a boatload of money to do everything crazy he wished to do. Me? I have no life direction, Terrible grades, and dont get me started on exercise. Id love to be in an orchestra playing cello, but with my low qualifications, and even lower statistical chances of making it, I'm left with whatever minimum wage job isn't already taken.
"CAMRIN, TURN THAT TERRIBLE RACKET DOWN, WERE TRYING TO HAVE A CONVERSATION." I reached for the dial, but find myself going against her wishes and continueing my upward spiral. The bass sent a vibration running through the frail machine. I felt a grin playing at my lips.
Our gym teacher used to preach to us about her problems. Having sunk to what most consider the lowest of lows. She wore loose neon tracksuits, and instead of paying a therapist, she complained to her class. Ms. Panouski had dreamt of making it big on broadway, a star in every musical available to see. But alas she landed in the stinky sweaty underfunded basment of a middle school. I feel sort of bad for her. But what I remember her telling us is that we should always choose practical over prefable. Because what we want to do will never happen. And then went on to list the impossibles. Actor, singer, artist, orchestra. She ranted a long while on the topic of orchestra. She told us that that was the most impossible of them all. Because they only switch out every couple decades, and so many people are vying for a spot.
My family had increased in volume to compete with my music, so I turned the dial up even louder. I could really feel the music now. Gliding just below uncomfortable. My party animal sister, was used to the thumping music of every night club in town, as was my mother who despite her denial, was becomng more deaf with each visit. But my father and brother protested.
The car sped up slightly, my brother paying slightly more attention to the volume of the radio, than his presence on the road.
I stared unfocused at the wall of buttons sat beneath the dash. I gripped the volume button, turning it up even more. My mother and sister had joined into the protestion now, my brother swerved out of his lane trying to grab the button. He received a plethera of beeps that were barely recognizable with the booming of the music.
The back seat rolled down their windows with the next scale. And planted their hands over their ears with the next. The yelling was hardly audible. I turned it up even more. A small smile across my lips.
A twisted the knob all the way around, sending the decibles rocketing. I heard faint screams. Probably from the residents of the small car. The back seat drivers clawed to turn it off, restrained by their seat belts that kept a choke hold around their chests. My brother, having messily merged over several highway lanes, released his white knuckled grip from the wheel. He clasped his hand over his ear. Abandoning the slowly veering car. The highway was an ever moving, constant death trap. People screamed to stop. Maybe the turning car, maybe the music, probably both. I saw a line of red making its way down the side of mitchells temple. Blood, drippinh from his ears. He was crying, but I could barely make out anything with my blurry vision and thumping headache, my head pulsed in time to the music violently. I drew my hand away to see a smeared stain of red across my palm as well. I felt myself smile broadley. I have no idea why.
The radio fizzled loudly, an almost haunting song. It warbled and died with the announcers voice. Blood dripped down over the half open car window of the car, crumpled against the cinderbrick wall.
1. Sentence [But on a positive note.
The radio stopped.]
2. Epilouge [Thankfully, the only casualty of the crash was me. My brother isn't as prefect as before, he got a sort of, early retirement out of paralyzation. My sister is waist deep in debt from her astronomical hospital bill, and nobody seems to know were she is. and my father is now a caretaker of my permenently deaf, and wheel chair ridden mother, and my half functioning brother. Going just as crazy as I. every. day. he. walks]
3.It never happened [ "CARMIN," my mother shouted. "YOU DAZED OFF AGAIN." I shook myself from my stupor, casting a smile to my mother. "Thanks mom. I do that a lot." I said. "SPEAK UP CARMIN YOURE WISPERING. " she yelped. I flinched, clenching my fist beneath my thighs.]
4. Make Your own ending [
