The Light

I take a long drag from the cigarette within my shaking fingers and breath it out unsteadily where it hangs like a cloud in the windless night air. It’s bright tonight. A full moon hangs lowly in the sky and the stars and haze of the Milky Way are clear above. They reflect on the still ocean water like a doorway to a parallel universe. My legs dangle over the jetty and my toes skim the cool water, soothing me and giving me the desire to place my whole body in, as if the salty water could cleanse me, or something.

It’s awfully tempting; pushing myself off the wooden planks and swimming as far to the bottom as I can. Even I knew my present mindset after taking three and half pills this evening would make it difficult for my body to reach the surface alive again. I took another long draw of my cigarette before wiping at the water beneath my eyes.

I’m pathetic. I’m confused. I left a party at one in the morning and found myself wandering to the beach by myself yet being alone was the furthest thing from what I wanted to be. But those party goers weren’t exactly much company. I couldn’t talk to them. I don’t even know how I got involved with them in the first place, let alone living with them. No, I remember now. They were all I had. And how sad is that? The only people who were there for me were acquaintances who had sold me pills a few times while I had been out clubbing. They were the ones to take me in. Not my ‘friends’. Not my family.

The people I live with though, don’t get me wrong, are good people. I guess we found each other because we were all lost but yet we didn’t exactly want to be found either. They didn’t talk much but they didn’t have to for me to know they understood. We weren’t cut out for this so called world. A full time job that eats at you piece by piece. At settling down. At thinking five years ahead every moment of everyday. Of conforming to the social norms of society. Of disappointment. It wasn’t for us.
So I didn’t blame them for resulting to drugs at every opportunity they had. God knows I did the same. But it wasn’t enough anymore. The drugs didn’t distract me anymore. I couldn’t run from myself anymore.

I placed my cigarette butt back in the packet and lied down on my back upon the wooden planks. There was nothing and everything ahead of me. Nothing, yet the entire universe. I stretched my arms out to the side and raised them slightly. At the same time a breeze came, whooshing the smell of salt in the air, giving me the sensation that I was flying. I smiled, staring at the infinite stars and endless possibilities. I felt almost weightless if it weren’t for an uneven plank stabbing me in my lower back. The breeze dropped as did my hands and I turned on my side, shifting so that I lied parallel with the jetty, my arm draped over the edge and my fingers grazing the black water.

If you asked me three years ago what I planned to do with my life, I would have given an undelayed answer of my very detailed five-year plan consisting of studying, moving to Sydney and putting a deposit on a house. Only that never happened. Shit changed. That plan doesn’t interest me in the slightest anymore. I don’t know, maybe I’m just lazy. But I don’t want to live that life at all anymore. And my friends? They were too busy making something out of themselves, to have even a spare moment for me. I didn’t blame them though. If I had my shit together I wouldn’t want to involve myself with someone like me. I’d only be a dead weight, a negative energy draining the room. But I never used to be. I used to be the most positive. I had the ability to cheer someone up within moments. I was fun. I was funny. But then suddenly that wasn’t enough. Writing in my spare time wasn’t going to get me anywhere, everyone’s ideas of me changed and I became inadequate, lost, and earned the title of one of those people who were ‘going nowhere with their lives’.

That’s why he left too. “You’re almost twenty years old and you haven’t nearly got your life figured out”, I replay his voice in my mind, and it hurts just as much as hearing it the first time and not actually the 1000^th. “I’m busy figuring out myself”, I had argued back. I thought that was far more important; knowing who I am, not who I should be. He laughed and within days he left from my life, taking my heart and everything I was with him. I wasn’t myself for a long time. I’m perhaps still not.

My mother of all people though, was supposed to be there for me. She wasn’t. She snorted at the news. “You’re too much to deal with”, she had said, ignoring my swollen eyes and my internal pain that was so strong, I was sure anyone in a 100m radius could feel it. “I’m surprised he stuck around this long”.
And she had a point, though I’d hate to admit. I was too much. Too much of something.
Different perhaps. That was when I realised that the world had turned out to be nothing like I had hoped. And everything after that went spiralling downwards into a bottomless pit I felt like I could never climb out of.

I had turned to my mother for help again when things got worse. I told her how I felt. “You’re a teenager. What in the world do you know about depression? You haven’t experienced anything.” Then she waved me away with her hand and I never brought it up to her again. But I thought that was exactly the point. We hadn’t experienced anything. We were hopeful and we have this optimistic perception of the world we know nothing about. We haven’t built ourselves the walls that adults have to protect them and that make us so much more vulnerable to life and the inevitable disappointment it would bring.  

A tear slid off the bridge of my nose and fell into the water, disappearing with the infinite other drops and sending ripples over the surface. I notice something bright from the corner of my eye, but I ignore it, assuming it to be the moon’s distorted twin. Then it flashes again or glows, I’m not sure but I glance into its direction and find a bright pale light in the water, similar to that of the moon; only the moon’s replica is further out in the horizon and not a metre away from me. I sit up, staring at the light, then glance up at the sky and find no bright stars worthy of that reflection from above. I return my gaze to the light and it has moved two metres away from me, but it continues to sit still. Perhaps the drugs are playing tricks on me.

I reach for the light, splashing my hand in the water fast in an attempt to startle it. The water is disrupted, ripples and small waves are sent in every direction, their edges glowing from the moonlight and when it calms again, the light is gone. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed, so I continue to watch where the mysterious glow had been but see nothing. I consider slipping into the water again, but instead I pat the ocean surface as if bidding it farewell, when something grabs a hold of my wrist and pulls me into the water.

It took me several long moments to realise what had happened. My wrist is free and as I open my eyes, I notice the surface is metres away. I begin to swim for it, irrationally scared, when something grabs a hold of my ankle. I look down and find a giant forest of seaweed, reaching out from the dark bottom and one of the long thin stems has twisted itself around my ankle. I kick my foot free and attempt for the surface again, reaching for the oxygen my lungs have begun to crave but I’m not getting any closer, my ankles once again restrained.

I look down again into the darkness and see several stems attached to my legs. I claw at their slimy bodies and I can feel their residue getting stuck beneath my nails. I am free again so I kick for the surface in panic, my lungs bursting. I aim for the moon I can see on the other side, its brightness giving me a sense of safety. My fingers reach the air and relief floods over me as my head takes its turn but I am dragged down by my legs, then my waist, much faster than before. The seaweed is alive and I scream, watching their fingers reach from every direction of the darkness, grabbing my wrist and curling itself around my neck.

The surface is so far away now. I have stopped kicking and fighting. This was the moment I had been hoping for after all. I let the salt water fill my lungs. I don’t fight it. Even when the small white light emerges through the forest of seaweed, glowing around a figures neck and hovers only inches away from me. My eyes close as I feel a comforting yet shocking sensation on my lips. My last thought is that everything is going to be okay. Maybe I do belong somewhere.

Home - Story by me

The following is a short story I wrote in 2014 when I suffered from insomnia and my bedtime was never before three in the morning.

It was during the not-so brightest period in my life and was inspired by Caress Your Soul by Sticky Fingers.

The reaction from my friends I went to Uni with for a short while after showing them was priceless.
So, I'll warn you now that it isn't the happiest nor positive story I have ever written. If you read it and are at all shocked/disgusted, don't say I didn't warn you.

Here goes:

My fingers were grasped tightly around her wrist. She didn't bother to wriggle or struggle from my pull as she stumbled behind me, but my anger didn't allow me to loosen my grip. I walked fast away from the music and out through the front door, into the chills of the cold night. "Where are you taking me?" She asked, her voice shaking. "Home. I'm taking you home".

I released my hand as we made it to the car parked under the street lights with the other party goers' cars. I walked to the drivers side and jumped in hastily. I slid the key in ignition, turned the car on and slipped on my seatbelt before realising she was still standing on the sidewalk. She stared into the tinted window at me, and I could tell she was contemplating whether or not to get in. Her hesitation jabbed my heart, joining the already hurt and anger that had found shelter there only moments ago.

She stood still for several moments before finally accompanying me. She was quiet the entire trip home; the low mutterings of the radio the only sound, apart from my heavy breathing. I knew her silence was a result of the guilt she felt; she knew she had done wrong. Wasn't the first time so you'd think she'd learn.

I parked into our driveway and walked to her door, opening it and providing my assistance for her to the house. I wrapped my arm around her and held her as she drunkenly walked inside. We avoided the few unpacked boxes in the hallway that had sat there since we moved in over a month ago and I lead her to our bedroom.

She slumped on the side of the bed and stared at the floor. I stood in front of her and watched her for what seemed like minutes before she whispered, "I'm sorry". I couldn't help it. The anger, jealousy and hurt exploded in a rush of adrenaline and she fell to the floor, the back of my hand stinging. Her hair was sprawled around her head as she leant on her hands and knees, her face buried between her arms and leaning on the wood. The strap of her black dress fell loose revealing her olive skin and her scapula bone that created a small bump on her upper back, giving me the strong urge to kiss it. Her body shook with the sound of her sobs and I fell to my knees beside her, feeling now also angry at myself for touching her like that. I always felt crap after I did.

I picked her up and pulled her to my chest, tears forming in my eyes while she cried into my shirt. "Please don't cry", my voice cracked. My fingers tangled in strands of her hair as I pulled her tightly to me, as if I were able to pull us close enough so that we would become insync; one; or tie our souls together for eternity. But she only cried more and my tears began to leak and fall on to the top of her head.

I pulled her away and in front of me, analysing her face and the mascara streaks that stained her cheeks and eyes. A drop of blood had begun to form on the corner of her mouth, and her hair was rustled and half wet from stray tears. Her sobbing calmed and she looked back at me. I slowly leaned in to her face and kissed and pulled away so gently and quickly her mouth where the blood had been a second ago.

"Why do you do this to me?" I asked frustrated, my fingers still intertwined in her hair. She closed her eyes and shook her head, more tears streaming from beneath her eye lids. "No, please stop crying. Please don't cry", I wiped the water from her face.
"We were just talking", she cried. The anger rushed back and I stood up, resisting the twitch of my hand and instead taking it out on our bedside lamp that now lied in pieces on the floor beside her. "Don't lie to me".
"I swear", she pleaded. "I love you".

I closed my eyes at the sweet sound of those words and stood motionless, being torn by the happiness of the statement and the jealousy that was overbearing. I slowly dropped back down to my knees and cupped her face in my hands, forcing her to look back at me. I lifted her face and pulled her lips to mine, kissing her hard with urgency. She kissed me back lightly and I could feel the passion that lacked on her side. I needed her but I knew; I could feel, she didn't need me the same way.

I tore my lips away and pressed my forehead to hers and said, "and I only hurt you because I love you". She nodded and continued to silently cry more, falling back into my chest. I dug my face into her hair and could smell her strawberry scented shampoo that intoxicated me. I slid my hand away from her across the wooden floorboards and gripped onto a sharp piece of the broken lamp that was still warm under my touch from the light bulb. She cried silently and I whispered for the last time, "I love you", my vision becoming blurry from my tears. I muffled her scream with my hand as blood poured from the stab wound in her back and I sobbed into her neck. She stopped moving and I lied next to her; the view and feel of her soothed the pain from the gash in my neck as our blood created a beautiful puddle around us, our blood coming together in a way I knew our souls never could.