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She was a relic of decomposition - a symbol of falling-apart; all glued together and cracking at the seams. Sullen on the surface: froth on her lips and feet up like she owned the place. Crumbling within. Her bored-mouthed poker face yawning at their conversation and poking fun at their response, disguising the blood-shot traces weaving through her eyes from yet another night without sleep. Together and composed, the world steers away and leaves her, afraid of breaking the ice-cold casing and letting something loose; abandoning her with only loneliness for company.
Loneliness and the dirt on her shoes.
The dirt was there the night she ran from him – chocolate-brown earth encasing her clothes and flying through the air like burnt-out fire-flies as she stumbled through the grass, heart thump-thumping in her throat.
Things had started off so well that day too. But then things always did – lulling you into a false sense of comfort, tricking you, preparing you unawares for the trap and the pounce of one disaster or the next.
They’d been together through most of that day – riverside walks and lunch by log fires; watching the sun set and gazing up at the lights that twinkled above and set her heart bursting full of bubbles and helium balloons. He’d hold her hand whenever someone approached and it’d make her smile – his gesture of possession that made her feel desperately wanted and safe. “She is mine. You can’t come near.” Ready to defend her with his every last breath.
Later that evening they were back in his home, her giggling at silly films and he at how many she’d yet to see; talks about the future and the past and laughing together hysterically.
And then the laughter stopped.
As sudden as its sound had crinkled through the air, it disappeared. The twinkling faded and a strange sort of darkness fell upon the place – the kind that can’t be seen but can be felt so strongly it can almost be touched.
And then it began.
Those hands that had once held so strongly and safe began to wander in the darkness, becoming monsters on her skin. Cold tree-branch fingertips gripping her bones and brushing against her flesh. Hands that were possessed, owning her body like something to be broken and crushed. Hands that grew legs and walked themselves wherever they wanted to be; that grasped at her wrists and put her fingers on places they were too young and naive to be, forcing her back when she pulled herself away. Hands that clawed at her chest and ran their race to her stomach, filling her with a sudden urge of sickness, crossing their finishing line in places they had no right to be. Hands that bounced back boomerang style again and again, however many times they were thrown away. Hands that knew what they liked and did what they could to her body while she felt herself separate and float away.
She watched from somewhere on the roof while the rest continued - while he did whatever it was that made him happiest – and heard a voice somewhere below thanking her while he stood and walked away, the bathroom door closing behind him with a spine-tingling click.
She watched from above as the body that once belonged to her fumbled her watch free from its wrist and began scratching away at the surface with its sharpest metal point, desperately trying to release the hand and the memory of where it had just been. She saw the blood appear and felt herself lowering from the roof with its first sight, each drop drawing her closer to that body until rejoined and united with the physicality and its deepening sense of filth, covered with the dirt of what had been.
He returned from the bathroom about then, setting her heart pounding with the kind of fear that had a place only in books and movies. He saw what she was doing and returned suddenly to the boy he’d once been, trying to make her stop while she closeted her wrist away. The darkness began to recede. The room was light again, the twinkling returned and shimmered, never quite the same, but in a different colour or shape that filled her with a heavy-hearted sense of unease. He helped gather up her things while she wrestled with this new light that couldn’t quite reach within and struggled to tie up her tears in paper hankies. He waited for the first sign of calm and quietly asked her to leave.
It was all her fault, he’d said, pushing her through the door and onto the street. She was too emotional and he couldn’t handle it; too sensitive and he just wouldn’t deal with it all. No mention of that monster that had been in the room with them and the things it had done.
And so she ran.
Ran from the fear and the pain, casing her filth in the dirt of the earth, desperately fleeing the impending sense of blame that threatened to drown her. On and on she ran, shadows of memories chasing her up alleys and over fields in the dark, never quite making her escape.
She hadn’t truly stopped running since then; her legs often still, but something inside constantly panicking through its race. She was sombre and strong outside, but inside things never quite ceased – the fear and the memories hanging in the air and haunting her every dream, taunting her with how easy it had been, how simply the monster had come and gone without giving her a second of a chance.
The terror still shadowed over her, lingering like some ghost in the dark, filling her with paranoia at every step or approach. Those chest-tight knees that asserted self-assurance to the world, secretly protected her from the monsters that she sensed - her turret-tower defence against whatever may come. Shutting herself alone in fear, yet fearing being alone.
And so she continued.
On and on she ran through life, risking no connections and fraying at the seams, disguising herself under masks of black-coat-eyes and pouting lips. On and on she went, keeping to the distance of the world and clinging to her tight-rope with every step she could take. On and on in silence, lips locked tight with a far-flung key, tying her secrets in knots inside her tummy. On and on she continued, dressing herself in make-believe and facing her every day. On and on.
Because what else was there to do? |