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| Depression is inevitable, but sometimes when we wake up from our failed attempts to end it all, we have to wonder why even suicide is a chore.... |
SUBMITTED BY: elizadeth
SUBMITTED ON: November 22, 2008 |
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| TYPE: |
| Story |
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| GENRE: |
| Horror |
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| DEDICATION: |
| Growing Up Sad |
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| STORY: |
Flowers
By Elizadeth Hetherington
I remember how it used to feel to rest complacent and relaxed in the silence of the basement. My brothers would be spending time together, growing as a unit. I was the reject, seemingly backwards in progress. The laundry room was comfortably dark and unusually cool. I loved it. My back was flat against the cement of the floor where I’d frequently take my time to think of whether or not there were ways to fix the morbid thoughts of my teenage head. Too often, however, I’d prove unsuccessful.
I was nearly ninety four degrees by the time I heard the dreaded footsteps of authority. My heart rumbled a little in slow disgust, but he found me. With little energy I looked up and saw my father hovering over my body. The scene struck a familiar chord in the heavy metal symphonies of my head. “Baby?” he called. It took him nearly no time to grab one of the freshly cleaned blankets from the laundry shelf. He covered my naked body with caution before he made any attempt to hold me. My actions were numbed, and I could not battle his care. “I know things are tough for you, sweetheart. You have to believe me, okay? Things will get better.” My eyes searched for reasons to open, but I couldn’t fight my instinct. I needed to be dead. “Alex? Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, dad,” I said shamefully. In my mind I thought about many things slowly. His deep blue eyes watched me with so much regret and concern. In the worst of my times, he never ceased to prove that he loved me. He was, of course, my father. There would be no man in the world that would try to save me the way he always had. “I’m fine, dad. I just need some time alone.” He seemed doubtful, and he held me in his arms fearfully. For a moment I was afraid he’d never leave me and I’d die in his arms, but eventually, he did leave me on the condition that I redress and return to the main level. I agreed only moments before the pills started to take over.
In the broken old oak chair dad kept in the laundry room, I sat and pulled my black shirt back onto my flat chest and my pajama bottoms onto my short skinny legs. I was inadequate and childlike. I was sixteen years old and I couldn’t persuade the most antisocial of middle school boys to give me a serious glance. I spent every day struggling for acceptance, but none would ever come. In my burden, four older brothers succeeded at every one of their accomplishments, albeit sports, art or love. I was the reject again.
It’s not like I’d never tried. I had. I sought counseling at school only to find that my problems weren’t serious enough to consume valuable school time. I wrote letters to prison inmates begging for some reflection of what I should be grateful for. The mere fact that I was sixteen, or photo of my sick appearance seemed to cause uneasiness from the confines that held them and they told me only that being a teenager was hard. As a last resort, I’d even taken time to seek a deeper grasp on religion and the meaning of life.
Flowers, the church ladies told me, were beautiful. Three of them were more than happy to take me into their parish and speak to me about the goodness of God. I couldn’t find it, though. I’d spent far too many years being overlooked by the greatness of my brothers. I had too much experience finding myself motionless and sad on the basement floor to see what they were talking about, but when they told me about all the reasons life was like a flower I showed respect by listening and accepting their theories for another visit. That, of course, was many weeks ago.
Today was the last straw. Every day was a new humiliation or defeat. My arms tingled while temperature continued to escape my body. I loved this feeling. I felt it again. It was the feeling that life had finally grown and blossomed, and my flower was poisoned and ready to wilt the last tidbits of existence away. The empty pill bottle rested next to the washing machine and I slowly motioned to grab for it for one last adventure, but to my satisfaction, time elapsed and I fell forth to my fatality.
Death is more beautiful than any old memory ever was. Those trips to the ocean were meaningless and embarrassing, but death was eventual and comforting. My mind no longer wandered; my heart no longer beat. The most amazing part was that I no longer felt the pain of being so odd, or the disappointment of failure to grow. I was nothing—which was the only thing I was comfortable with being. In a state of nothingness there was no frustration or wonder, and I was at peace.
“Baby?” I heard. Even with my eyes closed, I can still recall the feeling. It felt like the ocean spray in the juvenile slices to my wrists. My neck hurt slightly, but I moved my head in until I could focus. There he was; my father, my hero. Once again, I failed. He always had a different perspective, though. He slid his fingers through my long blond hair and apologized for letting me be alone. I was exhausted, disappointed and humiliated, but he only smiled. He was the one person who was glad I botched yet another attempt at the glorious afterlife. I hated him in these moments, but I didn’t fight his instruction for recovery. It was so hard to tell the truth to someone who had sacrificed so much for my being.
He was a smart man, Dr. Allen Thomas, M.D. In his position, he routinely performed operations in our Florida area as well as the occasional travel demands. Sometimes when he was off giving lectures about transplant, stem cells and cloning, I’d be home alone without a soul to care whether or not I lived. When he returned to me, however, it was heartbreaking to confess that his intelligence was insulting, or that his money had deprived me of a grasp of some of life’s most essential lessons. I was inadequate, but the only part I could never hide from was his concern. I rested for days while he monitored my mental state. I told him lies, I wiggled my hips when I stood and he was satisfied. For a moment, I might have even convinced myself.
It was a week after the overdose, yet another cold Sunday morning. The voices in my head still warned me that I wasn’t meant for the world, and they were so convincing. I saw reality hidden in the clouds in front of my watery eyes. I knew what I needed to do, and I needed to die. I rested naked on the basement floor and thought about many things. I was impaired and useless in the world. I knew it. This time I wasn’t going to be saved. This time I’d do it right, where surgery and medicine would never revive me despite his best actions. I pulled myself off the floor and listened to suggestions.
I crept to the little window and it showed me a hint of daylight. I lifted the dusty gray shade and peeked to the other side of the glass. The west side of the house was shaded and by the modest window stood a little purple flower pressed against the glass. Flowers were merely emotionless creatures of the Earth, I deduced. If I were to become nothing more than a flower, I’d surely live without notice. The voices continued to call and I left my sibling pressed against the dusty glass of the laundry room.
I slithered naked and dirty into another room of the basement; my father’s workshop. In his spare time, he frequently built scale models of old cars and buildings. I lacked these ambitions and skills. While my father and brothers found it easy to twist and bend to display that natural wonder of humanity, I ducked and scurried away just to avoid the bruises of rejection. Pain was what I knew and I knew that we needed to separate, pain and I. I wanted my death again. I reached past a remake of an old Buick and took a shiny silver scalpel in between my short little fingers and pulled it towards me. Clumsily, I dropped the terminal instrument and watched it roll under a table against the wall. I sought another sharp tool for the incision across my throat, but an alternative was unfound.
On my knees I was naked, cold and suicidal. I lunged forward to grab underneath the wooded table base, but I could not grasp anything but the sawdust from creating said work piece. I stood for a moment and wiggled the table slightly to loosen it from the wall, and a large black storage container fell forward from the base creating a loud crash. Even when I was alone, I was embarrassed by my actions. I listened with caution for the ten male feet that may have heard the commotion, and happily, I heard no threat. I went back to my knees to pull the tub back to the stand, but it was far too heavy. Instead, I’d only loosened the lid and fell forward in defeat.
My eyes seemed to freeze in an open state as I looked down on my findings. She was pale and complete, her eyes were closed and her black shirt was stained with a smell of decomposition. The skin of her face was like the flower, purple and shiny. Her long blond hair was so much like my own that I grabbed myself just to make sure I was real. I covered my mouth in disgust. I could see the history making use of overlooked logic.
The doctor came forth. “Get out of here!” It was too late, I was beyond agitated. Naked and furious, a woman is a frightening animal. I took hold of the little scalpel and screamed my objections to his cloning assignment. In the tantrum, I pulled another tub from the shelf and a suffocated version of me scattered on the cement. Tears flowed down my face and I hated him more than ever. “You don’t understand, Alex. I can’t lose you. I did this because I love you so much.”
“I’m not even Alex!” I took a hold of one of his models and threw it at him hatefully. “How many are there?” He kept trying to apologize. “How many!”
“Eight,” he said. “But I only keep the ones I can use for my research. Alex, you’re a miracle of modern science and my pride and joy. Don’t take this away from me. I don’t care whether or not the world finds out, but I can’t let you take yourself out of this world. I don’t care if I have to clone you a hundred times; I’m not going to let you down.” I grabbed a pile of wood and threw it at him. He only held up his hands to dodge the attack while I grabbed another tub. There inside was the foulest odor yet, but I remembered the time I tied myself to the bottom of Abbey’s Creek half an acre from our front door.
“I don’t want to live, dad,” I said with hostility. “Love me or not, I need to decide what’s right for me, and there’s not a single thing in this world that makes sense to me. I want to die!” He walked toward me holding up his hands to disarm my scalpel. I held it to his face, but he took it away. He put his arm around me and I pushed him onto the oily carcass of my suffocation attempt. I shook my head at him. “You know? When you can’t find your own path and your own presentation, it’s nearly impossible to succeed. I remember it now, dad. I remember why I first slit my wrists.”
“Please, Alex. I know you’re depressed,” he offered. My hand reached back to the table and pulled a wood carving knife from the table and pressed it into his throat. Blood seemed to be thanking me as it escaped his gaping cavity.
“Four brothers, dad,” I shouted with anger. “I know where your pride truly lies. Life isn’t a contest to grow and duplicate the things that you once loved, it’s the chance to appreciate the things in the dark that remind you of your own mortality.” I wanted to pick that stupid flower more than anything. I couldn’t focus on him bleeding to death right in front of me; eight voices called to me and told me what to do. “Stop it!” They didn’t stop. I covered my ears and walked away from the office and up the dirty steps.
I first saw my brother Albert reading a book. He saw the arterial splatter over my bare breasts and looked away in shame. I then saw Alfredo and Almond watching the television. Their blond hair varied in style, but their faces were welcoming and handsome. Together, they looked at me in my nakedness and I know what they saw—the flower. The way these boys looked at me was revealing as I was a mere creature of the Earth without emotions. Of course they had to have known, for they were spawned of the same science. Finally, I found Alan. “Is he dead?” he asked me. I took his hand and the five of us walked together to Abbey’s Creek. Four identical, emotionless humans of the Earth watched me drown, and at last I felt at peace.
**as featured in issue IV of GASP Magazine**
(for more information on the works of Elizadeth Hetherington, please go to: www.scarycheerleader.com) |
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COMMENTS:
Rated on: November 24, 2008 9:52pm by cryptkickerI've read this several times now. You've done such a great job of leading the mind down the path of your story.
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