Status: The end. Thank you all so much for reading.
Wrists
same .
My room has the best view of the outdoors; I could see almost the whole world from there. It was simple to open the windows and let the cooling air blow my translucent curtains up into the air, allowing it to float. My window had a perfect scenery painted: the field of green grass and tall trees blooming with flowers around the side of my family’s house; our delicate, elderly neighbor trimming the ends of her hedges that were lining up against the fence separating our lawn from hers; the rolling hills in the distance, holding some of the nicest homes I’d ever seen in our town. If nothing else relaxed me, this view normally did the trick.
Nothing different ever happened on the afternoons I didn’t have college, my sister didn’t have school, my parents didn’t have work. I’d lock myself up in my room, open my windows, sit on my king-sized bed, covered in my baby blue duvet, and open up a random book I picked up from the tall stacks sitting on my carpet. A cup of black coffee or green tea would always be cupped in one hand, while my book of choice was held in the other.
In the mornings I could smell my mother cooking breakfast—she commonly cooked scrambled eggs with a side of waffles or buttermilk pancakes—she would call my sister and my father down to eat it. I could hear the scraping of their silverware against my mother’s favorite china plates, which would briefly die out and morph into the joyful sounds of their laughter. The thought of joining them scared the demon in my mind so terribly that I wouldn’t go down there at all, at least until they were all cleaned up and gone to do their own tasks.
Only then would I creep downstairs, boil 5 eggs, 2 of which I eat (only the egg whites—I hated the yolk), and then throw out the rest. I would make myself another cup of green tea, sip it, wander the kitchen, opening the cabinets and gazing at all of the choices, only to close the cabinet door and creep back upstairs into the world I’d built head to toe: my room.
My sister, if she was in the mood, would enter my room, ask me a couple of questions (normally consisting of, “You doing okay in here?” “Reading books again, you bookworm?” “Gonna ever leave your room?”), stare at me for a good while, as if she was watching a close friend disappear into the ocean, never to be seen again, and then leave my room, quietly closing the door behind her. She could be respectable at times; quite a nuisance at others.
Life was the same as always; nothing ever changed. Sometimes I wondered if one day the normal, everyday life would snap in half, and something spontaneous—and most likely unwanted—would happen. Half of myself wanted it; my other half was shaking me roughly by my shoulders and insisting I liked things this way. And maybe I did—no one bothered me; I didn’t bother anyone. I was just here, a friendly ghost, trying to stay on every one’s good side. I didn’t want to cause any trouble, I just wanted to faint into the background, where no one would notice me, wrongdoings or not.
It seemed the un-aggressive side of my got its wish. It seemed like a normal day when I walked down to my college’s coffee shop to buy myself a tall cup of black coffee. The cashier gave me that long stare, a polite smile, and watched me go as always. But then he came to me, suddenly, and I couldn’t get back on my feet properly before he shoved me back down.
Nothing different ever happened on the afternoons I didn’t have college, my sister didn’t have school, my parents didn’t have work. I’d lock myself up in my room, open my windows, sit on my king-sized bed, covered in my baby blue duvet, and open up a random book I picked up from the tall stacks sitting on my carpet. A cup of black coffee or green tea would always be cupped in one hand, while my book of choice was held in the other.
In the mornings I could smell my mother cooking breakfast—she commonly cooked scrambled eggs with a side of waffles or buttermilk pancakes—she would call my sister and my father down to eat it. I could hear the scraping of their silverware against my mother’s favorite china plates, which would briefly die out and morph into the joyful sounds of their laughter. The thought of joining them scared the demon in my mind so terribly that I wouldn’t go down there at all, at least until they were all cleaned up and gone to do their own tasks.
Only then would I creep downstairs, boil 5 eggs, 2 of which I eat (only the egg whites—I hated the yolk), and then throw out the rest. I would make myself another cup of green tea, sip it, wander the kitchen, opening the cabinets and gazing at all of the choices, only to close the cabinet door and creep back upstairs into the world I’d built head to toe: my room.
My sister, if she was in the mood, would enter my room, ask me a couple of questions (normally consisting of, “You doing okay in here?” “Reading books again, you bookworm?” “Gonna ever leave your room?”), stare at me for a good while, as if she was watching a close friend disappear into the ocean, never to be seen again, and then leave my room, quietly closing the door behind her. She could be respectable at times; quite a nuisance at others.
Life was the same as always; nothing ever changed. Sometimes I wondered if one day the normal, everyday life would snap in half, and something spontaneous—and most likely unwanted—would happen. Half of myself wanted it; my other half was shaking me roughly by my shoulders and insisting I liked things this way. And maybe I did—no one bothered me; I didn’t bother anyone. I was just here, a friendly ghost, trying to stay on every one’s good side. I didn’t want to cause any trouble, I just wanted to faint into the background, where no one would notice me, wrongdoings or not.
It seemed the un-aggressive side of my got its wish. It seemed like a normal day when I walked down to my college’s coffee shop to buy myself a tall cup of black coffee. The cashier gave me that long stare, a polite smile, and watched me go as always. But then he came to me, suddenly, and I couldn’t get back on my feet properly before he shoved me back down.
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