Light up the Sky

“Now, Michael, I would like you to draw yourself – is that alright?”

I kept in mind what Frank had told me just minutes before I stepped into this brightly lit, white, room and nodded my head. ‘Say as little as possible, and don’t make eye contact’ he had told me.

The woman, who told me her name was Lynn, handed over a piece of paper and a pencil. I needed a rubber, I would make so many mistakes – I needed one.

I couldn’t draw, and that much was obvious – Gerard was the artist in our family, taking after out Grandma and I could do nothing artistic or creative, I would need a rubber.

“Erm… c-can I have a rubber? P-please,” I asked quietly, not making eye contact with the counselor and keeping my gaze tightly on the desk space that stood in front of me.

“Of course,” she picked one of those out of her pencil case that lay on the desk and handed it over to me.

I said my thanks with a nod and thought about what I was going to draw – how did I see myself? I thought that was pretty obvious, I was a Mistake, wasn’t I? I saw myself as a Mistake… how to draw that… I saw myself as alone, I saw myself in a world of black – and I wanted to keep it that way.

I started by covering the whole page in pencil – not leaving any white gaps, just filling the whole page in lead. I looked up quickly, stealing a glance at the counselor and noticing how she was staring at my piece of paper with a confused look on her face. I sighed before picking up the rubber and holding the paper out flat, I may have been a Mistake but I wanted to keep the paper crinkle free. I placed the rubber in the centre of my page, and started to rub out the outline of my body. A big, fat blob was how I drew the middle of my body, with stubby legs and a head on top; my arms came out at a curve as they had to curve around my rounded stomach to fit properly.

Once I had finished I placed the rubber back down on the desk, next to the pencil, and leaned back in my chair – still not making eye contact with Lynn and staring at my ‘art work’. It was awful, but I think it got across how I felt about myself and the world that I lived it.

I could tell that Lynn was speechless, one; for the fact that she wasn’t saying anything, and two; she just raised her eye brows when I looked up at her.

“…wow…” she muttered. “We have a lot of work to do here, Michael.”

It was my turn to become even more speechless; work? I didn’t need help! I didn’t want help! She wasn’t going to ‘work’ on me and I wasn’t going to let her – I didn’t need it, I liked the way I lived my life. It was just how I needed it.

I shook my head, not wanting her to ask me why I was but I wanted to get my point across – I didn’t want her help! Could she not see that? That I liked to be the way I was, that this was the ‘healthy’ life style for me – this is how people like me are made to live their lives, this was how I needed it. This was perfectly normal!

“Why are you shaking your head?” She asked and I stole another glance at her, to see that she was looking straight at me.

Our eyes met and I instantly recoiled my gaze, Frank had specifically told me not to make eye contact, he had told me just how much they could tell from your eyes – and I didn’t want them to know anything about me. They didn’t need to, it was none of their concern.

“No reason…” I muttered, shrinking back down into my lightly cushioned seat and crossing my arms over my chest.

She leant forwards on her desk and I could see the desk move ever so slightly as she did so, her arms rested on the table and her hands crossed in the middle of her arms – I could feel her gaze on me and I sunk further into my seat. I hated people staring at me…

“There must be some reason,” she said gently, almost too kindly and I shivered.

It was a horrible, gentle kind of nice and I didn’t feel as if I deserved to be talked to like this – plus, it was making me feel sick, the way she was so kind to me. No one was ever this kind to me, excluding Gerard.

“No, there isn’t,” I replied and kept my gaze on the desk – I didn’t want to risk looking back up, in the fear that she would, once again, meet my gaze with her own and see more into my ‘soul’, as Frank had put it.

‘So that’s say as little as you can get away with and don’t make eye contact – they can see into your soul if they see your eyes, it’s just wrong…’ he had recapped over his ‘teachings’ to me as he lead me towards my counselling room.

I was going to stick with what Frank was telling me; and I know I shouldn’t have, but there was something there that just wanted me to trust him - that was making me trust him. It was so wrong of me to do so, I had never trusted any one –as far as I could remember- and I certainly wasn’t going to be trusting Frank! Why would I want to trust the grimy and sickly looking boy?

I just couldn’t see why he did that to himself, could he not see what he looked like? Was he blind, or something? Is that what it was – he was actually blind? But that didn’t make sense… he had managed to lead me here perfectly well, he didn’t seem blind to me. But then, why could he not see how disgusting he’s made himself look? I bet that before he stopped eating, before he did this to himself, he was a handsome boy who had a lot to live for – he was probably a really attractive boy, with his two facial piercings, who had all of the girls swooning over him.