Post by DNA on Feb 11, 2011 23:54:32 GMT -5
* all the world's a stage,
and all the men and women merely players
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[/blockquote]February tenth, 2011.
11:12 PM:
Jagged fingernails etched into the black paint of a large school theatre, chipped edges.. so broken. Torn. Short. Gross.. Usually, they were so long, strong, thick, beautiful. Not a one was equal to the one next to it. One thumb's nail was long, though whop-sided, one side being longer than the other. The other thumb's nail was practically non-existent. But you did not have to see the actual lack-there-of. There was a shining line of red where the keratin was supposed to be. The fragile skin blooded and bruised in the spot. The owner of said ugly keratin, or lack-there-of keratin, did not mind scratching the, now broken, skin of his battered thumb against the harsh material that laced the theatre walls. In fact, the child did not care much at all."Tell me why I.. wait through the night.. Why do I leave on the light?" he whispered in a gentle song, voice just as broken and humbled as his fingernails, "I can't get through this alone.."
Picture this: a seven-year-old androgynous boy is holding his arm out toward his fat-ass father's throat. Remember, this is a seven-year-old child. Don't forget the fact that he is androgynous in that he looks like a girl. His body just doesn't fit with his sex. Now that we have gotten that cleared up, let's paint a bigger picture. The happy family is in a small kitchen, just as humble as all of their ugly appearances, and on the walls is an old wall-paper. Greens, blues, oranges, yellows.. all dull and faded. Aged with cracks. A stain of brown from where a glass of wine had once been thrown at the wall. The tiles covering the floor were not any prettier. They were just as old as the cracked wall-paper, only there was a giant spot on the floor where two tiles had been taken up and never replaced. This is right in front of the sink, which is right next to the washing machine. The tile-less spot is dotted with spots of brown, gray, and black. This is water damage from the broken sink's bad plumbing. Of course, it doesn't help that the sink is filled so close to the brim that nasty food water is dripping over the silver edges. (Don't get it all wrong. DNA's memory was not picture perfect. He could not remember if the center-piece was a vase of flowers or a stack of bills. It was probably the bills. His father had always complained about the bills that he had to pay.) The retarded, androgynous boy and his hideous father were standing in front of the stove. And was it yet mentioned that the androgynous boy is holding out an open knife to the dad? That the androgynous boy's mentally challenged mother is sitting under their rounded kitchen table? That the bruises on his mother's shoulder were bright blue and yellow against her skin? She was the only beautiful one there. The androgynous boy had always wanted to be beautiful like her. But now was not the time. He had to be the protector. He had to watch after her, here and now.. And in his juvenile, high-pitched voice, the androgynous boy called out, "You better not touch 'er. 'Cause I'll cut you." He had learned violence from all of the R-rated movies. All of the nights when his mother had threatened to stab his father. Similar occurrences as this.. This was not a first that the androgynous boy had caught glimpses or simply heard screaming from.. such quarrels. This was merely the first time he had taken a side."I miss the mountains.. I miss the dizzy heights. All the manic, magic days and the dark depressing nights.. I miss the mountains. I miss the highs and lows... all the climbing, all the falling, all the while the wild wind blows- stinging you with snow. Soaking you with rain. I miss the mountains. I miss the pain.." He was singing once again. This time, however, he was breathing a bit deeper.. and... stairs. God, he had reached the stairs. "I miss.. my.... life.."
Imagine a boy that is in the second grade. Now, he had already gotten enough crap from the kids at school because of the way he looked. Not only was he androgynous. No. He was a little chubby, too. And for some reason, he simply could not keep from getting sick all of the time. Throwing up in the mornings, in the afternoons. His mother and father hated having to pick him up from school so often. Who could blame them? Such a troublesome little shit.. but none of it mattered much to his mother. Not at all. She had a new hobby, and, yes.. It did take up most of her time. Call to the witness stand-- the Internet. Yes. The world-wide web that connected and gave people a reason to sit on their asses all day long. Well, the chubby, androgynous boy's mother had made some.. special friends over the Internet. And she spent each and every day talking to them. She did not eat. She hardly ever slept. (She didn't wish to be in the same bed as the fat man that she was married to. You know, the one that she had made two children with? Yes. That one.) It had not been long before she began meeting with these new friends that she was meeting over the Internet, and oh, did she love meeting her new friends.. In fact, she spent all of her days making certain that her new friends kept in touch with her. This left the fat-ass father to take care of the androgynous boy and his older brother. This man that smashed car windshields when he spilled his coffee. This man that threw bottles of wine at walls. This man that hit his children in the face (or "identity" as the mentally-ill mother would sometimes say). Yes. She was having an affair. Or several affairs. They were not exactly sure how many of the men she met with were actually sleeping with the mother, but they knew of at least one.. That, however, would be an entirely new problem to be addressed at another time. On this particular day, the androgynous boy had been attempting to cook for his mother-- give her something to eat. Of course, his attempt at cooking was simply putting a lot of chips in a bowl.. and as he snuck into the computer room (they had only one computer back then), he called out to her in a soft voice. He merely explained that he had gotten her something to eat.. but when he actually came to face her, she looked.. angry. For no true reason that the boy would understand at that age. She merely called out hateful words and threw the bowl at the stupid boy. He had done something wrong, he figured.. he simply did not know what it was that he had done. Not a week later, she was hospitalized in a rehabilitation center. The boy would never be so embarrassed as he had been the day that the police came to get her. The entire neighborhood was silently standing about. Watching. Judging."Sing a song of forgetting, a song of the way things are not. Sing of what's lost to you.. of times that you never knew," his lips uttered each note, soft, hushed, desperate.. and as he sang, he climbed up the stirs leading to the theatre's stage, nearly on all fours. He was feeling just a bit.. down. Perhaps. Except that now he had gone to the next step. The cross-over between depression and insanity. He had fallen so far now that he could do nothing but smile. And sing.. but that was no different from anything else that he ever did. Sing. He did enjoy to sing. "Sing of not remembering when- of memories that go unremembered, and then.. sing a song of forgetting again."
Daniel's expression was sunken, dark-blue eyes glaring at nothing in particular. Just staring forward at the back of the giant theatre. The sound of his own shrill voice echoing against the back wall and bouncing back to smack him in the face.. the bags under his eyes running a soft gray against his pale skin. If only his body had not felt so very heavy, he would have been standing to sing strongly, proudly.. as any good actor would do. He could not do it, though.. He could not make himself do it. If only his mouth had not been filling up with saliva. If only the tips of his fingers had not been dragged to the ground by gravity. He would have been trying to be strong. But he was not strong. He was weak. Small, stupid, useless, annoying. There were a lot of words to describe him, but strong was not one of them. And now. Now.. Now.. his stomach was hurting. He felt as though he would throw up. Give him ten minutes... and he would be throwing up. As for the moment, he simply wanted to sing. He wanted to sing because everything else felt like he was burning. His heart was beating so quickly. But deep down, his yearning for music- for song.. that was going still. That, at least, was strong. If he was going to kill himself. If he was going to die.. He was going to go doing what he loved more than anything else in the world. Singing was his life. If he couldn't be happy doing anything else, then at least the last thing he would ever do.. would make him happy. That was not irrational, was it? Was it horrible to die doing something you love? After everything he had been through. After hating himself for so long. After so many attempts-- he deserved at least that much. Right? Die happy? He deserved to die happy, at least. Even through the tears, he was smiling. And still, he was singing. Singing softly. To no one in particular."Do you wake up in the morning and need help to lift your head? Do you read obituaries and feel jealous of the dead? It's like sitting on a cliff-side not knowing when you'll dive. Do you know? Do you know what it's like to die alive?" It was all so sad. All so depressing. All so.. beautiful. In its own right. Daniel had died on stage before. This was no different. No different. God, he felt so shabby. So ugly. So tattered and torn. And somewhere-- Fucking SOMEWHERE.. There was a mentally-ill mother who was happy with her new husband. Away from the son that made her want to have another child- just to be able to raise that new child right. And somewhere, there was a fat-ass father having sex with a woman that could satisfy him without having to be beaten to stay in line. Where he did not have to worry about a son who was always sick. They did not have to worry about a child who was nothing more than another fucking burden on their shoulders. But here. Here. Daniel was dying. Reading their hateful letters over and over again. Hearing their yells and screams in his head. Realizing that he would not be loved like every child should have had the right to be loved. But, gladly, it would not be too long. "You don't know. I know you don't know. You say that you're hurting; it sure doesn't show. You don't know.. It lays me so low when you say 'let go' and I say 'you don't know'."
He couldn't sing much more. His mouth was filling to the brim as his stomach began to churn, angry, not accepting the foreign chemicals that had been forced into it.. and after merely sitting there for several minutes, he stood, shakily, and ran to get an offstage trash can, vomiting into it as his entire body shook. That was it. If he threw up too much, he would not die. If he didn't die.. then he would have to continue living. Obviously.. but it meant more than that. He didn't want to live. He wanted to die..
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* the pen is mightier than the sword[/color] 2048 words
* such stuff as dreams are made on[/color] using quotes from william shakespeare
* get thee to a nunnery![/color] Sammy (ilu) is tagged
* what's in a name?[/color] template made by LAURIE?! of CAUTION 2.0
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