Phantasm - Wattys 2017

-4-

She is sixteen now.

She is unassuming. She is invisible.

She has read more than anyone else in her year; Hemingway, Orwell, Wilde, Austen, Brontë. She has that peculiar gift of immersing herself in the pages, of completely disappearing into that other world.

Maybe because she wishes she wasn't here so much.

I watch her differently now. Maybe I am more aware, less blind. She is isolated, she is secretive. She does not talk to anyone who does not talk to her. She avoids social interaction, even with her mother. She spends her time studying, or reading, or painting, which she has come to love.

She does no more crying. Now she is sealed off, airtight, watertight. A capsule. She is an absentee in her own life.

The people in her year are going to parties, drinking, receiving exam congratulations, going out with boyfriends and girlfriends, shopping, eating together.

She eats by herself. She receives her exam results with a faint smile from her mother, she goes out only when necessary, she doesn't drink.

What must it be like to be one of the golden ones? she wonders.

Also, what is wrong with me?

What the hell is wrong with me?

She comes home one night drenched with rain. Her hair is wet, her school uniform is soaked. She walked home by herself, in the dark, but she forgot an umbrella this morning. The house is mostly dark, with only the bathroom light echoing through the door and seeping into the hallway, so I blend in, even though she can't see me. I sweep with her, as she rushes to the bathroom, and stares at her reflection in the mirror, condensation distorting it, bubbling it. The light is cold and sallow. Her hair is wet.

She starts to cry.

She is flowing, she is molten with her loneliness. She recognises what it is, what it always was, that pit in her, that hunger for something she didn't let herself have. Something I didn't let her have. She is crying for her days, for the wasted opportunities. She is crying for the days that could have been. She is crying for me, although she doesn't know it. She is crying because of me.

Because I have always been there. I was the dark shadow. I was the voice that kept persisting. I was the ghost in her mind. I haunted her thoughts. I, who claimed to love her.

The one who emptied her. The one who destroyed her.

I am ice, chipping off, cracking with the weight, suddenly. My gas is solid, tangible, so heavy, what I've done is too heavy. Regret, a human emotion.

Oh, my girl. I can't even speak to you. I can't tell you my regret. I can't tell you how it is thick in my throat, weighing on my tongue, how it chokes me. I can only observe. That is my curse.

You are still crying. I love you so much. It slides down you, in waves, spiderwebbing. All your fears are out there now. You can see them.

And so can I. It makes me hurt so, so much.

Your loneness, longevity. It is shining, it is falling. It is splintering off of you.

I have been so wrong.

I can never fix this.

Dry your tears. For me, for you, please.

All this makes me curl in on myself. My black waves, cloaking me, ripple, that part I hate the most about me. Let me come in on myself, silence my voice, silence my mind. Let me ball up, choking, don't let me come back out again, I'll just hurt her.

Let me swallow myself.

Let me become a black hole.

My vision is blurred. I can see her still standing in front of the mirror, lines smudged like an oil painting. Recover, my darling. Be strong now, without me.

I'm going.

I won't see you soon.