The Other You

It’s calm and early, no movement to disturb the dusty air. Paint slowly peels itself off the walls with cracks from top to bottom. Patches of grass and weeds grow around fallen furniture. Light seeps through an unstable window half bolted up creating scars of light on the opposite wall. Air is stale and cool for there are no bodies in sight to warm it, no sounds…a stone breaks the air’s seal and glides straight through the only piece of uncracked glass in the room. The tilted picture seems to fall forever finally being speared by the pointed pole of a broken bed head. Sounds of metal rain fill the room as the rest of the glass hits the ground. A crunch of footsteps grows louder until a door is kicked off its last hinge, creaking as it lands onto a pile of loose gravel, as the figure’s shadow casts it shape across the room in its new light.

This used to be my room, before they took me away. It was beautiful here once but no one would live here after me, no one would ever want to. I know nothing, nothing of why, no one tells me why. They took me to a better place, well so they said, it was a simple looking place, loads of rooms, all boring, all white, everything white, it must have been everyone’s favorite colour, but mine. I’ve learnt to not question, a waste of time, a waste of effort for no answers. I’ve learnt not to worry about all the things I don’t know, that involve me. Sometimes I can’t help but question, in my mind. I get called Jake sometimes and not just to my face but when I overhear conversations, about me. I would assume they can’t say Jack, but most correct themselves too easily.

Glass splits into the tiniest matter as it lies between Jack’s boots and the cool concrete, the first creak sends an echo through the room as Jack steps onto the wooden floor boards, he wanders over to a rusty bed, half collapsed he wouldn’t sleep on it again. He stands in front of it and looks at the painting that’s been skewered and runs his fingers around the flaking frame.

It just appeared one day, this picture, when I asked my mother where she got it, she just looked at me and said, ‘the other you got it’, whatever that is supposed to mean. It was the day this painting appeared that I started to notice things and people start to change around me. When the worst things happened I was never there, at least I never remembered being there, but people acted like it was my fault. There were gaps in my memory that I couldn’t explain, and they started to increase.

The silence that haunts the room aches so much that every sound is amplified and repeated. So when his body hits the ground and shakes violently it made everything stare as an earthquake of motion and sound vibrated through the walls. It was dark by the time movement once again stirred. Eye lids fluttered and groans pushed through sealed lips. An old light still squeaked as it swung on its last screw and crumbs fell neatly in pile from the empty ceiling.

I always wake up on the ground even after all efforts so he wakes nicely, but this time it ain’t any ground. I hate this room, it means I’m in this town, it means, I’m hated. I dread this place, and finally someone must have heard me, because I woke up differently one night, a place all white and bright lights. Their voices like babies and all dressed in white, must have been their favorite colour everyone’s favorite colour, but mine. Sometimes I feel sorry for Jack, such small mental capability, but then I remember he is me, but he can’t work out I am him. I only had to read his diary and flick through photos I don’t remember being in to slowly work it out. I don’t keep a diary, and no one wants a photo with me.

Like sounds from a horror movie, the floorboards creak louder and the walls groan as Jake picks himself up and stares in front of him, he runs his fingers along the flaky gold frame then touches the tip of the spear that tore through the canvas.

I do remember this, I stole it one day from the library, I knew they’d stop me before I could walk in the doors, but I’ve learnt to be invisible, and I snatched it easy. I thought the picture was ugly but it looked special and I though mum would like it, she didn’t say, she said if I stole she didn’t want it in the house. I hung it up instead; I still don’t think she believed me though. At least Jack liked it, I owed him something I guess, if I made his life to depressing he might kill me, it would be my own fault if he did, but he didn’t, well, hasn’t yet.

A slow sudden breeze makes scraps of newspaper tumble backwards across the room. Jake shoves his hand into his trouser pocket and pulls out a colourful bendy pen, its Jacks. He bends down slowly and quickly grabs a torn page of newspaper flipping past. Ripping off a small mostly blank corner he scribbles some words, careful not to poke through the paper. He bites onto the note and uses his free hands to unclip a safety pin holding a rip in his trousers together. He stands up tall and straight and turns to a broken mirror. Careful not to prick his skin he pins the paper to his jacket and stares at Jack in a thousand different places within the frame of the mirror. Placing himself on the floor boards against a sheltered wall he fades into unconsciousness. Jack is the one to wake.

Let me guess, a day, a week, a month? A year, I wish. The new date whacks me as it hasn’t even been a full day, and just when I hoped my comas were getting worse. I never remember hitting the ground, or what I dream of in between. Sometimes when I wake it’s as if I never slept at all. When no one is around I wake up on the hard surface on which I collapsed, so how am I sitting? No one else has been here. No one would ever come here again. No one lives around here, anymore. It does hurts to stand and then turn to see myself, in a thousand pieces and…Jake, the other you.