Unhinged » murder ff

Chapter Nine

  Once again my emotions turned jagged and my insides tight. I cried out to those in reach, "I love you, please help me. Come sit with me; hold my hand. Eat chips with me. Call me friend. Look into my eyes, connect, because I'm falling."

I waited, wide eyed, heart in my mouth, hoping for kindness. I needed a hug, even if it is just words. I need soothing like a child. Instead they balk, "This isn't a great time. So much on at work and Destiny is away on a trip. Let's just say I'll call you when I have the time."

"But I need help now, I'm lonely. I feel so abandoned. Just come, just help me. Won't you please, please help me? Say I can come see you; we'll just be together. I need you, need company. It would help so much." And then there are hot tears, ones they will never see, falling fast and thick onto my sweater. I felt the wetness of my skin and each drop as it emerges from open eyes.

"You know, sweet angel, I've always appreciated your spark and zest, you're a go-getter, a survivor. I like that, you're gonna be just fine."

That's when I knew. That's when the penny drops. Though I was all grown up, I was a kid in time-out again. So I knew what to do that is familiar in a way that is traumatic. I swallowed down the pain, eating it up into my belly and wearing a passive face, a tentative smile and acting meek. Ashley can't see it, but the acting out took me to where I needed to be. "Yes. You're right. I'm so sorry, I'll be ok. I have some exciting new projects coming up. Give my love to Autumn." It worked. She was satisfied - still thinking I'm errant, not quite right, but at least showing a will to fit the mould. 

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    That was all I could think about - the time I had figured out my emotionless tendencies, and I had been so desperate for reassurance. Emotion was such a funny thing to me now - it hardly ever came up in conversations, but it did in my head. I pondered to myself, asking what could've caused such a lack in emotion. I walked slowly and steadily down the sidewalk, staring down at the cracks in the concrete.

Emotional pain has a biological purpose, to teach, to educate us away from unhealthy patterns and relationships. I'd pushing back against pain for so long, medicating with friendship, with romantic notions, yet it returned in my weaker moments, devastating my mind. To keep repeating this pattern would only prolong it, keep the pain underneath when in truth it must rise. Today I made a new choice, one to welcome it as a friend, to let it teach me what it must. Though I would be weaker in the moment, I would be stronger afterward. I would let it in through my doors, sit at my table, talk until I am wiser even though each word is a silver blade. They say only the strongest of warriors choose their battles, that was mine - let me earn my name.

Your emotional pain seeps out in your words and it hurts to hear them, hurts to read them. I sense what is inside that troubles you, yet also there is so much goodness there too, bravery, tenacity. You hold on like a fighter, every morning rising at the ringing of "the bell." All I can offer you is a brighter horizon, a hope that one day you'll be free of all this. One day there will be choice, freedom and security of food, shelter on a healthy Earth. So we all hang on.

Once again, I zoned out, my footsteps becoming faint...

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I recalled how my body jarred with each blow, how the pain seared through my skin and took away every feeling of safety I'd ever had. My father put his all into each strike. His sinewy arm would recoil and snap back to my naked behind, the impact delivered by an object rather than his own hand. Maybe at first I'd shed tears, I didn't recall. Crying wasn't allowed. If I buckled he would tell me to stop, or he'd give me something to cry about. He meant it too. And this is the man I'd loved most in the world, the one who bought me ice-cream and a snow white rabbit. He was the man who would lift me upon his shoulders or fling me around by an arm and a leg in the back yard while I grinned so much. I guessed these things came from his own childhood, from alcoholic parents. I believe he did his best in his own way. He was my hero and my monster, but now I'm all grown up I couldn't live that way anymore. I couldn't take love from one who hurts me, I just couldn't.  

It was no better having my parents stuck in a bad relationship. There were nights I lay in my bed listening to the sound of fighting. My mother would shout, my father would begin laying into her and the screaming would start. She cried, he seethed, and I pushed my face into the long toy snake my three year old body was wrapped around. I would think to myself how when mother left I would leave with her, flee the violence. Then one day she did leave... and I remained right where I was with just a toy to comfort me.

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    I had tried to throw him out of my head. But he kept coming every night. I didn't know if I should have called it a nightmare. Because I always woke up before I got to see the part where I killed him. Maybe I could never get rid of it, or maybe I didn't want to. It was the only part of him I could hold on to. And every time I'd see him I'd revise through all the other options I had- shoot him in the hand, create a diversion, or let him kill me. But I had done none of them, and what's done is done. I couldn't ever change that. I let him haunt me every night, so I could still have part of him and hope that one day he will forgive me. 

I shook my head - it was bad to think these thoughts. Yet I have never felt so much rage as when pushed into passivity against my will. That's what they expect though, you'll find that. Show your anger and they'll drug you into compliance. That isn't the only emotion you aren't allowed here, you'll see. They aren't used to natural people anymore, haven't seen one in so long, except the new "recruits." Most in here are drugged to the eyeballs, poor sods. I just act the good little worker-bee and they don't bother to medicate me. Should I ever see an exit though, even the tiniest glimpse of freedom beyond these walls, I'll let my anger flood out all at once. This rage I keep inside will be my ticket to freedom. I'd invite you to come, but most likely you'll be too addicted to the meds by then to survive out there. 

Bumping into someone with sudden anger in my fast-paced steps, I shoved them out of the way, and when I looked up and saw who it was, anger boiled up inside of me like a teapot reaching boiling point. Blood shrieked in my ears, and it was all happening so fast before I knew what was happening.