Stephiraptor
12-05-2014, 07:29 PM
“Where the Moon Doesn’t Shine”
Inspired piece from given theme of "a broken lightbulb."
The room was dark and I strained to see even a few feet ahead of me. I ran my palms along the wall to find the light switch and pointed it up. The room remained pitch black. I stayed still, letting my eyes adjust. Then, I was finally able to recognize large shapes of the objects in the room.
The bed, with its sheets and covers probably thrown about in disarray, remained against the wall opposite me. The wooden laptop desk sat patiently a few feet from the bed with its chair on the other side of the room, on its side. To the right of the desk, a cold breeze flew in from the open window, casting a gloomy chill throughout the room.
My eyes finally adjusted as it picked up the subtle highlights of the full moon’s rays shining on all of the object matter in the room. The placement of everything told a story that only a special few could recognize.
He couldn’t take it anymore; he had to get out. He slammed his door and locked it shut, ignoring the pleas of his birth mother behind it.
“Get away from me!” he screamed and kicked the door at full force to produce a loud and startling bang which threw the woman off the door and she retreated into her own bedroom.
He tore apart his sanctuary, seeking the perfect irreplaceable items. He swept up his old book bag with his left hand and stuffed necessities into it with the right. He climbed across the bed, flattening himself out along it and reached in between the mattress and the box spring to retrieve his diary. Because of his erratic behavior toward his family, noticed by the therapist during their family sessions, he was told to keep a journal to write down his frustrations in an attempt to cease the outbursts.
He shifted himself back off the bed and to his desk, picking up his laptop, a couple sheets of paper, and a notebook. Then he peeled one single sticky note off the stack of its clones, stuck it to the desk and scribbled down a few words in plain, black ink.
Finally he went to the window, pulled the curtains away and the blinds up and pushed the heavy wooden frame skyward. A look of thoughtfulness crossed his face as he realized he had almost forgotten his prized possession. He dropped his things and half-sprinted to the fake plant that his mom had bought and forced him to keep in his room to make the atmosphere somewhat livelier. He dug his hand into the potting soil with the plastic green plant. He fingered around in the dark, cool dirt until he felt the smoothness of a silk cloth. He snatched it up and pulled it out with ease. He gaped at the thin, silk pouch in awe and caressed it tenderly with his thumb. He snapped out of his daze quickly as a wave of anger flashed through him. He pulled a notebook out of his bag and threw it at the ceiling light. It shattered immediately.
Now satisfied, he threw his stuff out the window and jumped out after it.
I walked forward cautiously, but I jumped when I heard a loud crunch beneath my feet. I picked my shoe up and found a broken light bulb lying in scattered pieces in the middle of the floor. I automatically looked up to see only the cap of the same light bulb still screwed into the light socket. Avoiding the shattered glass on the floor this time, I walked to the desk. I flipped through the meaningless papers and notes searching for anything significant. About to give up, I spotted the corner of a yellow sticky-note. I slowly moved away the paper that sat on top of it to reveal a newly written note in his handwriting.
I LOVE TO SIT WHERE THE MOON DOESNT SHINE
The sentence was random and didn’t make sense. Anyone reading it, including his own mother, would have no idea what he meant or what he was trying to say. I picked the note off the desk, balled it up and put it in my jeans pocket. Anyone who didn’t know him would think this was just a random and maybe crazy code of some sort. But it was just that: a code. But the code was only made for the person who knows him the best: his best friend, who also happens to be his sister. That person was me.
Journal #46
Sissy got in a fight with Mother today. Mother said Sissy was not doing well in one of her classes in school. Sissy said her teacher was being unfair and wouldn’t offer her extra credit. And Sissy said she would make up the work she missed tomorrow. Mother didn’t like that. She said it was Sissy’s fault for being behind in her class and said she was slacking and not focusing on school like she should. Then Mother said something that really upset Sissy. She said Sissy couldn’t go out with her friends tonight. Sissy got all watery-eyed and yelled “why.” She said it wasn’t fair and she should be able to hang with her friends. Mother brought up her grade in that class again, and said that’s why. Sissy was still upset and crying and begged Mother to let her go, but Mother still said no. Sissy gave Mother a mean look and stomped all the way upstairs to her room.
The whole time I was sitting in my chair in the living room reading yesterday’s newspaper and Sissy and Mother fought in the kitchen. I heard everything they said and Sissy was right and Mother should’ve let her go out to play with her friends. Mother was unfair and mean to my Sissy. Mother will have to deal with me because she made my Sissy cry.
I took one last glance around his room, soaking in the last moments he spent here. I patted the note within my pocket then exited the room and crept down the stairs. Mom was in her room, sobbing because of the fight she and her son had had about a half-hour ago. I tiptoed through the house, into the living room and to the front door. I snatched my light jacket out of the coat closet and stuffed my cell phone into the pocket. Then I opened the door while stealing a glance over my shoulder making sure my mother wasn’t watching, and finally slipped through the doorframe and shut the door gently behind me.
Journal #32
Today Mother and Sissy and me had a party. It’s my birthday. Mother spent two hours making me a cake and when it was done and ready to eat, it said my name on it and had 24 candles on it. I counted them. Mother and Sissy sang the Happy Birthday song to me and then Mother told me to make a wish and blow out the candles. I wished that Sissy would always be happy. And then I blew out all the candles.
The warm summer air surrounded me and the cool wind caressed my sides as I ventured north. I jogged about a mile and found myself standing in front of a set of trees. I located the main path through the forest and started walking along it. In about ten minutes, I came across a tree with a large red X carved into its trunk. I ran my finger within the ridge of the carving.
“This tree,” he said, “will lead us to our secret place.”
“But how will we remember which tree it is?”
He pulled a pocket knife out of his jeans and snapped it open. He flung his good hand, holding the knife, into the tree trunk and tore a long, deep diagonal line into it. He pulled the knife back out, and repeated his action but carving into the trunk in the opposite direction, overlapping the first one.
“An X?” I asked.
He bit his lip, mumbled something to himself, and said, “Hold on.”
He held his knife up in front of his face, examining it closely. He ran his thumb over the side of the blade, then over its point, testing its sharpness. Then he applied quick pressure and blood oozed out of his thumb. I gasped as he stared amazed at the red liquid staining his hand.
“What…” I stood speechless at his self-destructive action.
He put his wounded thumb up against the carvings he made and ran it along them. The blood soaked in and nestled itself into the bark, making the X now a deep red.
I stared at him still confused; my eyebrows lowered slightly at him. He pulled his eyes away from his creation in the tree trunk and turned to face me.
Holding out his hand to me, palm side up, he said, “Your turn.”
“What?” I glared at his hand, incredulous about what he could be asking. “No, I don’t-” Before I could finish my thought, he moved swiftly: He snatched my hand from my side, squeezed my small fingers tightly within his so my finger tips were turning red from the pressure, and sliced my thumb open as he had done to his. I gasped as my fresh blood oozed involuntarily down my palm.
He sighed, as once again, the sight of blood entranced him. Except this time, it was my blood. I felt something change in him while he stood motionless and speechless. There was something different about him examining my wound he had just inflicted upon me. I could feel a sort of longing from him… a kind of love… not a love you would show toward a loved one or a pet, but an obsessive love. A forbidden love.
He finally tore his gaze from my hand, now dripping with thick, red fluid, and met my eyes with his own. My eyebrows wrinkled as I tried to read his expression further.
He looked at me like he used to look at his pet turtle that he had when we were children. He loved that turtle in a way that no one would understand. No one could understand why he decided one day to separate the turtle from its shell. “Out of love,” he said. “I had to set it free. Because I love him.”
He tore his gaze from mine and back to my hand that he still had in his own grasp. My blood was already starting to dry and the wound was clotting, as to stop the blood flow. He noticed this too. He squeezed my thumb, which began a new flood of fresh thick, warm fluid.
Then he pulled my hand up and offered up my blood to the man-made X in the bark, which accepted it thirstily. He gazed, amazed, at our blood melding together into the fresh bark.
After a long moment, his gaze returned to my thumb. Het met my eyes again as he brought my hand up to his face and inserted my thumb into his mouth, sucking and cleaning the blood gently from my wound. Finally, he released my hand into my own possession and I remained silent, somewhat confused and disturbed by the whole exchange.
“This X will lead us to our secret place. You will not forget it now.”
Of course I had not forgotten. I fought the grotesque memory crawling up my throat, caressed the ridges of the X one last time, and walked to the right of the tree onto a path only two people knew about.
“The doctors say it’s an anxiety disorder.
My feet carried me by memory into a small clearing. In the side of the mountain was the small opening of a cave. The way the moonlight hit it was like seeing heaven right before my eyes. The rocks on the mountain sparkled like crystals beneath the full moon’s rays. The light shined on the opening like a guiding light telling me exactly where to go and that this is the right place to be.
I stepped closer to the large hole in the mountain and saw inside the darkness hiding within it: where the moon doesn’t shine. I walked into the blackness of the cave not knowing what to expect. I noticed his bag on the ground so I knew he was here.
I stood in the dark in silence, waiting.
“Christy,” came a voice from the ceiling.
“David?” I answered into the vast emptiness of the cave. The echoes of the two names bounced off each other.
“Christy, you came.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
I looked up to see him, sitting on a ledge next to the ceiling, staring at me. I couldn’t help but feel a little uncomfortable.
“David,” I started, “you need to come back home.”
He scoffed and I heard him scuffling above me. He jumped off the ledge and landed next to me. A crack echoed through the small space and we both looked down. He had smashed the bulb in his lantern. It didn’t phase him.
“I’m not going back there, Chris. If I do, something might happen.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I left because of Mother,” he murmured in a low voice, looking down, avoiding my searching eyes.
“Why?” I urged.
Journal #51
Sissy is so excited. She’s in her room getting dressed up all fancy. Mother has her camera out and ready to take lots of pictures. I can’t wait to see her in her dress, her makeup, and her jewelry. A knock at the door.
“I’ll get it!” Mother yells.
“He’s here?!” Sissy screams from her room. “Tell him to hold on! I’ll be ready in a second.”
Mother opens the door and a boy from Sissy’s school walks into my house. He’s the same boy that has come over a couple other times to hang out with Sissy. Those times that he was here, I couldn’t hang out with Sissy because she said she wanted to hang out with him alone.
She and Jason ran into her room, she slammed the door behind her, and the lock within the doorknob clicked into place.
“Christy!” David yelled. He turned the doorknob but found it locked. “Christy let me in!”
“No, David! Jason and I want to be alone. Now get off my door and leave us alone!”
“LET ME IN!!” David screamed, pounding his fists on her door, rocking it violently. She and Jason feared the door would give and he would break through.
“David, get off my door right now. I don’t want to deal with you right now!”
“No!” he shouted back childishly.
“Mom!” she screamed, “Get him out of here!”
Their mother scurried up the stairs, locating David fuming in front of Christy’s bedroom door. “David,” he addressed him softly, “you need to leave them alone. They want to have some time to themselves to be together. Come downstairs with me, dear, let’s go sew a blanket for Christy.”
“No, Mother! I want to be with Christy!”
“David, go downstairs now!”
David screamed a deathly noise at the top of his lungs, stormed down the stairs and out the front door.
When we fought I didn’t think that I was yelling at Sissy, but later I would hate myself for doing that. It’s Jason’s fault. It’s his fault I yelled at Sissy.
Jason and Mother are talking about stupid stuff. I’m shutting them out, waiting for Sissy to be done and walk down the stairs. I hear noises coming from upstairs. I lean up and see her walking down the incline. Her dress is purple and black. I can see her white, round, beautiful shoulders. Her tiny painted toes are peeking out of her new black heels. A black bow is hugging her waist and cutting her body in half perfectly.
My heart is beating fast as I look at her. Sissy is so beautiful. But she’s looking at Jason. Not me. She’s smiling at him. She should be smiling at me.
He doesn’t deserve Sissy. Nobody deserves Sissy. Sissy will be mine. Only mine.
“I left because of Mother,” he murmured in a low voice, looking down, avoiding my searching eyes.
“Why?” I urged again.
“Because she’s a witch!” he exploded. “I’m tired of her bossing me around. I’m tired of her yelling at me. And I’m tired of her yelling at you too.”
“David, she’s our mother. She can do that if she wants. Plus, she’s not that bad. She loves us.”
“She doesn’t love me…” he whispered to himself. He reached into his bag and pulled out a silk cloth darkened with potting soil. He rubbed it gently with his thumb, as a nervous habit.
“What’s that?” I asked curiously and with a little concern.
A tiny smile broke his lips. He looked up at me and held out the tiny silk bag in his hands.
I grabbed it tenderly, using my pointer finger to dig into it, searching for its treasure. I pulled out a delicate, many-years-old decrepit four-leaf clover.
“What….” I was confused for a moment and then the memory hit me. “This can’t be…”
Two small children were playing in the field beside their elementary school. The sister, age seven, and the brother, eight years older than her, were on their hands and knees, few feet from each other, scouring the grass for that rare four-leaved clover.
“I found it!” the girl suddenly exclaimed. “David I found it!”
He jumped up off his knees and sprinted over to her. She held the clover out to him to see. “You can hold it if you want.” She said with a smile.
“It’s awesome, Sissy,” he replied, returning the childish smile.
He admired the rare weed in his fingers and the girl said, “Keep it.”
He looked at her face questioningly. “Really?”
“Yeah, I want you to have it. So you’ll always remember me.” She smiled at him again and the smile reflected on his face as well.
“David… is this-?” I couldn’t bring myself to even ask the simple question.
“Yes, Sissy. I kept it.” He smiled at me and I began to feel even more unsettled. “Ten years, Sissy. See? I kept it safe all along. All these years. That means I care about you. It means I love you.”
“David…”
“Mother doesn’t care about you like I do. Neither does that boy that comes over to play with you. They don’t care about you. They don’t love you. But I do! I love you!”
I started backing away from him, because his hand motions were growing wild and I was growing afraid.
“I won’t let Mother yell at you anymore, Sissy. I’m going to stop her. She won’t bother us anymore. Everything will be okay. We can be happy!”
I hesitated for a second before I spoke. “David, I am happy. Everything is fine. Mom is fine. There’s nothing wrong, and she’s not bothering me. Everything is already okay.”
“No!” he shouted at me, I flinched. “Everything is not okay!” He took a deep breath, calming himself and spoke again with a lower voice. “Sissy, you and me are gonna run away. We’re gonna get a house and live together and love each other-”
“David, no! Stop it right there, you are my brother! We can’t do whatever it is you’re thinking. It’s just gross!”
David immediately shot a death glare at me.
“Sissy, I love you. You have to do what I say.”
“No, David stop. You’re not thinking right. This is crazy.”
“Crazy? Sissy, you think I’m crazy?” He whipped his arm around his back and pulled out a familiar blade. “Let me say this again: I. Love. You. And if you want to be happy, you will love me back and do what I say.”
My heart beat rapidly within my ribs. Then a thought slashed through my mind: My cell phone. I slowly eased my hand into my jacket pocket and used my memory of the keys to dial 9-1-1 without having to pull it out to look at it. I pressed CALL and withdrew my hand from the pocket.
“David, I’m sorry. Now please calm down. Put the knife down, David, or give it to me.” I bravely reached out my hand to him, palm up.
He was taken aback. “I’m not giving it to you! You’ll just take it and never give it back!” The knife flew through the air and a sharp pain jolted though my fingers. He had sliced through two of my fingers. I screamed in horror and in pain.
“This is your fault. I wouldn’t have cut you if you had just loved me back and shut up.”
“David… What went wrong? Why are you like this?” I begged him, while applying pressure to my slowly numbing fingers.
“It was supposed to be you and me, Christy. But Mother got in the way and that stupid boyfriend of yours. But they’ll be gone soon. We won’t have to worry about them.”
“Don’t you touch our mother. And don’t you touch Jason either. I love him, you better not touch him!”
“See, that’s the thing. You love him, when you should love me.” He leaned toward me, towering over me. Then we heard a siren coming from the woods outside the cave. A police motorcycle zoomed into the room. I jumped backward so the outfitted man could drive right between David and me.
The officer jumped off the cycle, whipped out his gun and pointed it smack-dab between David’s eyes. “Son, drop the weapon.” He said with authority.
David glared at the man, then shot that same glare at me.
“Get her some help.” He motioned to another officer and he rushed over to me to check out my hand. One look at the blood and he called for an ambulance on his radio. “Meet us in the clearing,” he told the radio. “C’mon, dear, we need to drive you over there first.” He helped me onto the motorcycle and got on behind me. He revved the engine and I stole one last glance at my brother. His glare had not left my face and I could see the crazy fire burning in his eyes. I looked away and looked toward my life without him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This still needs work. I would love any and all feedback from you all :)
Thank you for reading!
Inspired piece from given theme of "a broken lightbulb."
The room was dark and I strained to see even a few feet ahead of me. I ran my palms along the wall to find the light switch and pointed it up. The room remained pitch black. I stayed still, letting my eyes adjust. Then, I was finally able to recognize large shapes of the objects in the room.
The bed, with its sheets and covers probably thrown about in disarray, remained against the wall opposite me. The wooden laptop desk sat patiently a few feet from the bed with its chair on the other side of the room, on its side. To the right of the desk, a cold breeze flew in from the open window, casting a gloomy chill throughout the room.
My eyes finally adjusted as it picked up the subtle highlights of the full moon’s rays shining on all of the object matter in the room. The placement of everything told a story that only a special few could recognize.
He couldn’t take it anymore; he had to get out. He slammed his door and locked it shut, ignoring the pleas of his birth mother behind it.
“Get away from me!” he screamed and kicked the door at full force to produce a loud and startling bang which threw the woman off the door and she retreated into her own bedroom.
He tore apart his sanctuary, seeking the perfect irreplaceable items. He swept up his old book bag with his left hand and stuffed necessities into it with the right. He climbed across the bed, flattening himself out along it and reached in between the mattress and the box spring to retrieve his diary. Because of his erratic behavior toward his family, noticed by the therapist during their family sessions, he was told to keep a journal to write down his frustrations in an attempt to cease the outbursts.
He shifted himself back off the bed and to his desk, picking up his laptop, a couple sheets of paper, and a notebook. Then he peeled one single sticky note off the stack of its clones, stuck it to the desk and scribbled down a few words in plain, black ink.
Finally he went to the window, pulled the curtains away and the blinds up and pushed the heavy wooden frame skyward. A look of thoughtfulness crossed his face as he realized he had almost forgotten his prized possession. He dropped his things and half-sprinted to the fake plant that his mom had bought and forced him to keep in his room to make the atmosphere somewhat livelier. He dug his hand into the potting soil with the plastic green plant. He fingered around in the dark, cool dirt until he felt the smoothness of a silk cloth. He snatched it up and pulled it out with ease. He gaped at the thin, silk pouch in awe and caressed it tenderly with his thumb. He snapped out of his daze quickly as a wave of anger flashed through him. He pulled a notebook out of his bag and threw it at the ceiling light. It shattered immediately.
Now satisfied, he threw his stuff out the window and jumped out after it.
I walked forward cautiously, but I jumped when I heard a loud crunch beneath my feet. I picked my shoe up and found a broken light bulb lying in scattered pieces in the middle of the floor. I automatically looked up to see only the cap of the same light bulb still screwed into the light socket. Avoiding the shattered glass on the floor this time, I walked to the desk. I flipped through the meaningless papers and notes searching for anything significant. About to give up, I spotted the corner of a yellow sticky-note. I slowly moved away the paper that sat on top of it to reveal a newly written note in his handwriting.
I LOVE TO SIT WHERE THE MOON DOESNT SHINE
The sentence was random and didn’t make sense. Anyone reading it, including his own mother, would have no idea what he meant or what he was trying to say. I picked the note off the desk, balled it up and put it in my jeans pocket. Anyone who didn’t know him would think this was just a random and maybe crazy code of some sort. But it was just that: a code. But the code was only made for the person who knows him the best: his best friend, who also happens to be his sister. That person was me.
Journal #46
Sissy got in a fight with Mother today. Mother said Sissy was not doing well in one of her classes in school. Sissy said her teacher was being unfair and wouldn’t offer her extra credit. And Sissy said she would make up the work she missed tomorrow. Mother didn’t like that. She said it was Sissy’s fault for being behind in her class and said she was slacking and not focusing on school like she should. Then Mother said something that really upset Sissy. She said Sissy couldn’t go out with her friends tonight. Sissy got all watery-eyed and yelled “why.” She said it wasn’t fair and she should be able to hang with her friends. Mother brought up her grade in that class again, and said that’s why. Sissy was still upset and crying and begged Mother to let her go, but Mother still said no. Sissy gave Mother a mean look and stomped all the way upstairs to her room.
The whole time I was sitting in my chair in the living room reading yesterday’s newspaper and Sissy and Mother fought in the kitchen. I heard everything they said and Sissy was right and Mother should’ve let her go out to play with her friends. Mother was unfair and mean to my Sissy. Mother will have to deal with me because she made my Sissy cry.
I took one last glance around his room, soaking in the last moments he spent here. I patted the note within my pocket then exited the room and crept down the stairs. Mom was in her room, sobbing because of the fight she and her son had had about a half-hour ago. I tiptoed through the house, into the living room and to the front door. I snatched my light jacket out of the coat closet and stuffed my cell phone into the pocket. Then I opened the door while stealing a glance over my shoulder making sure my mother wasn’t watching, and finally slipped through the doorframe and shut the door gently behind me.
Journal #32
Today Mother and Sissy and me had a party. It’s my birthday. Mother spent two hours making me a cake and when it was done and ready to eat, it said my name on it and had 24 candles on it. I counted them. Mother and Sissy sang the Happy Birthday song to me and then Mother told me to make a wish and blow out the candles. I wished that Sissy would always be happy. And then I blew out all the candles.
The warm summer air surrounded me and the cool wind caressed my sides as I ventured north. I jogged about a mile and found myself standing in front of a set of trees. I located the main path through the forest and started walking along it. In about ten minutes, I came across a tree with a large red X carved into its trunk. I ran my finger within the ridge of the carving.
“This tree,” he said, “will lead us to our secret place.”
“But how will we remember which tree it is?”
He pulled a pocket knife out of his jeans and snapped it open. He flung his good hand, holding the knife, into the tree trunk and tore a long, deep diagonal line into it. He pulled the knife back out, and repeated his action but carving into the trunk in the opposite direction, overlapping the first one.
“An X?” I asked.
He bit his lip, mumbled something to himself, and said, “Hold on.”
He held his knife up in front of his face, examining it closely. He ran his thumb over the side of the blade, then over its point, testing its sharpness. Then he applied quick pressure and blood oozed out of his thumb. I gasped as he stared amazed at the red liquid staining his hand.
“What…” I stood speechless at his self-destructive action.
He put his wounded thumb up against the carvings he made and ran it along them. The blood soaked in and nestled itself into the bark, making the X now a deep red.
I stared at him still confused; my eyebrows lowered slightly at him. He pulled his eyes away from his creation in the tree trunk and turned to face me.
Holding out his hand to me, palm side up, he said, “Your turn.”
“What?” I glared at his hand, incredulous about what he could be asking. “No, I don’t-” Before I could finish my thought, he moved swiftly: He snatched my hand from my side, squeezed my small fingers tightly within his so my finger tips were turning red from the pressure, and sliced my thumb open as he had done to his. I gasped as my fresh blood oozed involuntarily down my palm.
He sighed, as once again, the sight of blood entranced him. Except this time, it was my blood. I felt something change in him while he stood motionless and speechless. There was something different about him examining my wound he had just inflicted upon me. I could feel a sort of longing from him… a kind of love… not a love you would show toward a loved one or a pet, but an obsessive love. A forbidden love.
He finally tore his gaze from my hand, now dripping with thick, red fluid, and met my eyes with his own. My eyebrows wrinkled as I tried to read his expression further.
He looked at me like he used to look at his pet turtle that he had when we were children. He loved that turtle in a way that no one would understand. No one could understand why he decided one day to separate the turtle from its shell. “Out of love,” he said. “I had to set it free. Because I love him.”
He tore his gaze from mine and back to my hand that he still had in his own grasp. My blood was already starting to dry and the wound was clotting, as to stop the blood flow. He noticed this too. He squeezed my thumb, which began a new flood of fresh thick, warm fluid.
Then he pulled my hand up and offered up my blood to the man-made X in the bark, which accepted it thirstily. He gazed, amazed, at our blood melding together into the fresh bark.
After a long moment, his gaze returned to my thumb. Het met my eyes again as he brought my hand up to his face and inserted my thumb into his mouth, sucking and cleaning the blood gently from my wound. Finally, he released my hand into my own possession and I remained silent, somewhat confused and disturbed by the whole exchange.
“This X will lead us to our secret place. You will not forget it now.”
Of course I had not forgotten. I fought the grotesque memory crawling up my throat, caressed the ridges of the X one last time, and walked to the right of the tree onto a path only two people knew about.
“The doctors say it’s an anxiety disorder.
My feet carried me by memory into a small clearing. In the side of the mountain was the small opening of a cave. The way the moonlight hit it was like seeing heaven right before my eyes. The rocks on the mountain sparkled like crystals beneath the full moon’s rays. The light shined on the opening like a guiding light telling me exactly where to go and that this is the right place to be.
I stepped closer to the large hole in the mountain and saw inside the darkness hiding within it: where the moon doesn’t shine. I walked into the blackness of the cave not knowing what to expect. I noticed his bag on the ground so I knew he was here.
I stood in the dark in silence, waiting.
“Christy,” came a voice from the ceiling.
“David?” I answered into the vast emptiness of the cave. The echoes of the two names bounced off each other.
“Christy, you came.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
I looked up to see him, sitting on a ledge next to the ceiling, staring at me. I couldn’t help but feel a little uncomfortable.
“David,” I started, “you need to come back home.”
He scoffed and I heard him scuffling above me. He jumped off the ledge and landed next to me. A crack echoed through the small space and we both looked down. He had smashed the bulb in his lantern. It didn’t phase him.
“I’m not going back there, Chris. If I do, something might happen.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I left because of Mother,” he murmured in a low voice, looking down, avoiding my searching eyes.
“Why?” I urged.
Journal #51
Sissy is so excited. She’s in her room getting dressed up all fancy. Mother has her camera out and ready to take lots of pictures. I can’t wait to see her in her dress, her makeup, and her jewelry. A knock at the door.
“I’ll get it!” Mother yells.
“He’s here?!” Sissy screams from her room. “Tell him to hold on! I’ll be ready in a second.”
Mother opens the door and a boy from Sissy’s school walks into my house. He’s the same boy that has come over a couple other times to hang out with Sissy. Those times that he was here, I couldn’t hang out with Sissy because she said she wanted to hang out with him alone.
She and Jason ran into her room, she slammed the door behind her, and the lock within the doorknob clicked into place.
“Christy!” David yelled. He turned the doorknob but found it locked. “Christy let me in!”
“No, David! Jason and I want to be alone. Now get off my door and leave us alone!”
“LET ME IN!!” David screamed, pounding his fists on her door, rocking it violently. She and Jason feared the door would give and he would break through.
“David, get off my door right now. I don’t want to deal with you right now!”
“No!” he shouted back childishly.
“Mom!” she screamed, “Get him out of here!”
Their mother scurried up the stairs, locating David fuming in front of Christy’s bedroom door. “David,” he addressed him softly, “you need to leave them alone. They want to have some time to themselves to be together. Come downstairs with me, dear, let’s go sew a blanket for Christy.”
“No, Mother! I want to be with Christy!”
“David, go downstairs now!”
David screamed a deathly noise at the top of his lungs, stormed down the stairs and out the front door.
When we fought I didn’t think that I was yelling at Sissy, but later I would hate myself for doing that. It’s Jason’s fault. It’s his fault I yelled at Sissy.
Jason and Mother are talking about stupid stuff. I’m shutting them out, waiting for Sissy to be done and walk down the stairs. I hear noises coming from upstairs. I lean up and see her walking down the incline. Her dress is purple and black. I can see her white, round, beautiful shoulders. Her tiny painted toes are peeking out of her new black heels. A black bow is hugging her waist and cutting her body in half perfectly.
My heart is beating fast as I look at her. Sissy is so beautiful. But she’s looking at Jason. Not me. She’s smiling at him. She should be smiling at me.
He doesn’t deserve Sissy. Nobody deserves Sissy. Sissy will be mine. Only mine.
“I left because of Mother,” he murmured in a low voice, looking down, avoiding my searching eyes.
“Why?” I urged again.
“Because she’s a witch!” he exploded. “I’m tired of her bossing me around. I’m tired of her yelling at me. And I’m tired of her yelling at you too.”
“David, she’s our mother. She can do that if she wants. Plus, she’s not that bad. She loves us.”
“She doesn’t love me…” he whispered to himself. He reached into his bag and pulled out a silk cloth darkened with potting soil. He rubbed it gently with his thumb, as a nervous habit.
“What’s that?” I asked curiously and with a little concern.
A tiny smile broke his lips. He looked up at me and held out the tiny silk bag in his hands.
I grabbed it tenderly, using my pointer finger to dig into it, searching for its treasure. I pulled out a delicate, many-years-old decrepit four-leaf clover.
“What….” I was confused for a moment and then the memory hit me. “This can’t be…”
Two small children were playing in the field beside their elementary school. The sister, age seven, and the brother, eight years older than her, were on their hands and knees, few feet from each other, scouring the grass for that rare four-leaved clover.
“I found it!” the girl suddenly exclaimed. “David I found it!”
He jumped up off his knees and sprinted over to her. She held the clover out to him to see. “You can hold it if you want.” She said with a smile.
“It’s awesome, Sissy,” he replied, returning the childish smile.
He admired the rare weed in his fingers and the girl said, “Keep it.”
He looked at her face questioningly. “Really?”
“Yeah, I want you to have it. So you’ll always remember me.” She smiled at him again and the smile reflected on his face as well.
“David… is this-?” I couldn’t bring myself to even ask the simple question.
“Yes, Sissy. I kept it.” He smiled at me and I began to feel even more unsettled. “Ten years, Sissy. See? I kept it safe all along. All these years. That means I care about you. It means I love you.”
“David…”
“Mother doesn’t care about you like I do. Neither does that boy that comes over to play with you. They don’t care about you. They don’t love you. But I do! I love you!”
I started backing away from him, because his hand motions were growing wild and I was growing afraid.
“I won’t let Mother yell at you anymore, Sissy. I’m going to stop her. She won’t bother us anymore. Everything will be okay. We can be happy!”
I hesitated for a second before I spoke. “David, I am happy. Everything is fine. Mom is fine. There’s nothing wrong, and she’s not bothering me. Everything is already okay.”
“No!” he shouted at me, I flinched. “Everything is not okay!” He took a deep breath, calming himself and spoke again with a lower voice. “Sissy, you and me are gonna run away. We’re gonna get a house and live together and love each other-”
“David, no! Stop it right there, you are my brother! We can’t do whatever it is you’re thinking. It’s just gross!”
David immediately shot a death glare at me.
“Sissy, I love you. You have to do what I say.”
“No, David stop. You’re not thinking right. This is crazy.”
“Crazy? Sissy, you think I’m crazy?” He whipped his arm around his back and pulled out a familiar blade. “Let me say this again: I. Love. You. And if you want to be happy, you will love me back and do what I say.”
My heart beat rapidly within my ribs. Then a thought slashed through my mind: My cell phone. I slowly eased my hand into my jacket pocket and used my memory of the keys to dial 9-1-1 without having to pull it out to look at it. I pressed CALL and withdrew my hand from the pocket.
“David, I’m sorry. Now please calm down. Put the knife down, David, or give it to me.” I bravely reached out my hand to him, palm up.
He was taken aback. “I’m not giving it to you! You’ll just take it and never give it back!” The knife flew through the air and a sharp pain jolted though my fingers. He had sliced through two of my fingers. I screamed in horror and in pain.
“This is your fault. I wouldn’t have cut you if you had just loved me back and shut up.”
“David… What went wrong? Why are you like this?” I begged him, while applying pressure to my slowly numbing fingers.
“It was supposed to be you and me, Christy. But Mother got in the way and that stupid boyfriend of yours. But they’ll be gone soon. We won’t have to worry about them.”
“Don’t you touch our mother. And don’t you touch Jason either. I love him, you better not touch him!”
“See, that’s the thing. You love him, when you should love me.” He leaned toward me, towering over me. Then we heard a siren coming from the woods outside the cave. A police motorcycle zoomed into the room. I jumped backward so the outfitted man could drive right between David and me.
The officer jumped off the cycle, whipped out his gun and pointed it smack-dab between David’s eyes. “Son, drop the weapon.” He said with authority.
David glared at the man, then shot that same glare at me.
“Get her some help.” He motioned to another officer and he rushed over to me to check out my hand. One look at the blood and he called for an ambulance on his radio. “Meet us in the clearing,” he told the radio. “C’mon, dear, we need to drive you over there first.” He helped me onto the motorcycle and got on behind me. He revved the engine and I stole one last glance at my brother. His glare had not left my face and I could see the crazy fire burning in his eyes. I looked away and looked toward my life without him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This still needs work. I would love any and all feedback from you all :)
Thank you for reading!