The Suicide Note of Faith D'Rogotte (completed short story)

"You will be dining alone tonight. Your parents have killed themselves and left you here with me. Trust me, I don't like it any more than you do. But it is what has happened and we must learn to deal with it. Your chambers are on the fifth floor. Take the stairs. The elevator is broken and you could use the exercise."

This was my godmother. She told me this when I was eight. My parents had left me at her house, reading a sweet little novel about a girl and a puppy. When I had been peacefully reading it, sitting on the couch, it had seemed so crucial that this girl had lost her puppy, and I had to find out what was going to happen. But then Ophelia walked in and ruined my entire life with a few simple words. Words that should never be spoken to an eight year old girl. Words that felt like blows upon my cheek. Words that have scarred me deeper than any mortal wound.

Maybe she regrets them, now, wherever she is. If she is anywhere. I cannot say what happens when we die. I am not religious. I have no morals. Not against lying, nor cheating, anarchy, murder, suicide, sarcasm, or any other thing you can imagine. I have indulged in all of these but one. Soon, however, i will have done that too.

But more on that later.

After Ophelia had finished, I ran upstairs. I ran away from the truth. I ran away from her. I had always hated her, but right then it felt as if she alone was responsible for all of my suffering. For every ounce of pain I had ever felt. What I felt for her was much more than mere hate. I loathed her. I despised her. She was a revolting and horrible creature in my eyes. The eyes of an eight year old who saw everything as a perfect fairy tale.

I ran away from her, up the stairs and into my chambers. I couldn't get far enough away from her. Far enough away... That was the first time I picked up a pen outside of school. There were plenty of them in those disgusting, monotonous rooms. Paper as well. I suddenly felt a burning desire to create a world that was not my own. A world full of magical and impossible things that would allow me to escape from all of my terrors. I didn't write for the enjoyment of others. I didn't write with any plans of making money. I didn't even write for my own enjoyment. I wrote because I physically needed to in order to survive. No, not to survive. To stay sane. I don't know, maybe I didn't stay sane. Maybe my sanity was lost long ago in those drab rooms of the fifth floor of Ophelia's house. Or maybe I never really was sane. Maybe my parents knew that. Maybe that's why they killed themselves.

But I hate to dwell upon the many reasons that they may have killed themselves.

When I was eight, and even in the few years that followed, my stories were of princesses and cute animals, the lingering affect of a childhood filled with fairy-tales. But in my teens, I realized that nothing ended in "happily ever after". Even in my fairy stories, after the promise of "happily ever after", the princess would surely grow old and wrinkled, get sick, maybe get depressed and kill herself or murder her husband. Maybe she would get Alzheimer's and forget all about her so-called fairy-tale life.

That's when I decided to hold back nothing when writing my stories. I wasn't one of those writers who hinted at things but was too afraid to actually go into detail. And when I put down my pen to read someone else's story, I was highly critical of that. If you write a story that is meant to be read, you must create an alternate reality that is believable and accepted without question by your reader. In order to do this, however, you cannot hold back any exquisite little detail; no matter how controversial or abhorrent the subject matter.

Obviously I didn't write children's stories. I simply couldn't bring myself to leave out the gory details and scribble that revolting phrase: "happily ever after".

The odd thing was, however, that I had no trouble with lying. I lied constantly. I wrote so much fiction that I began to speak it as well. Nobody knew the deepest secrets of my heart. I led a secluded life. I did have one friend, once. I can't clearly remember her name, but I think it was Charlotte. We were nearly inseparable. However, one day, I believe we were about fourteen, Ophelia walked in on us making out. She made completely sure that I never saw Charlotte again.