Status: Completed.
Escapist
i am nothing
No one understood the pain she harbored. It wasn't easy to put on a happy grin and walk around like everything was fine because things most certainly were not fine, so she simply chose not to. Why hide what can’t be seen anyway? But she didn't know what else to do. Harper held too much pride in her small 5'3 frame to ever consider letting someone in on the turmoil that she struggled through every day. Nearly everyone that she encountered failed to see through the facade that she put on. And that seemed to be what hurt the most; the fact that no matter how many nights she lied awake listening to their screams, crying or drinking herself to oblivion, no one could see the truth. And maybe that wasn't her fault – some people are just blind to the truth. But Harper didn't think that way. She couldn't blame others – all she could do was blame herself for seeming so invisible.
Screams echoed through her house, male and female, paired with the smashing of plates and glass against stained, wallpaper covered walls. If she listened carefully, Harper could just make out the sounds of Everybody Loves Raymond playing from the TV in her living room that just minutes before had occupied her father's attention. And if she pressed her ear up against the wall just above her small bed like she did sometimes at night, she could faintly hear the hum of the woman in the apartment next door as she sung her baby, who often kept Harper up at night with his insistent crying, to sleep. Sirens screamed from outside her open window and shouts from people shuffling along the street below drifted in and mixed with all the other sounds of her imperfect life as it crashed into her full force.
Unable to sleep, Harper slipped out from under the thin sheets of her bed and grabbed the sweatshirt hanging over the back of her desk chair, slipping it over her head, the sleeves falling down her arms. It was her brothers and as much as she now despises even the thought of him, it's the only jacket she has aside from the feather down coat her mother bought her last winter at Good Will. With the grass still green and the leaves just falling off their branches, it was too soon, too warm, for such a heavy coat yet. Grabbing a pair of worn out converse, Harper tucks the laces into the sides and under her feet, too tired to tie them properly and slips her hood up over messy, brown hair. The sound of glass shattering and her mother's loud screams makes her jump and freeze in her movements, her breath catching in her throat. It's silent for a moment but within the next second, her father is cursing, his heavy footsteps shaking the rickety walls of their apartment as he stomps around.
Harper sighs in defeat and grabs two bottles from the stash under her bed, the liquid within them taunting her. Slipping out the window, she climbs down the fire escape, skipping the last few steps and opting to simply jump to the alley way below. There's nothing appealing about the area in which she's grown up in. Dirty people, those who you avoid on any normal basis, are the only ones who walk the streets, the words coming out of their mouths proving just how much they represent the scum that lies beneath the shoe of any other person.
Slipping the bottles into the front pocket of her sweatshirt, Harper makes her way down the alley and towards the back of the apartment complex. There's a ladder leaning against the building on its side, hidden by old trash cans and small, overgrown plants. With a grunt, Harper lifts the ladder up and places it upright against the dirty red bricks of the building. One by one, she ascends the rungs, the creaks the rickety screws make don't faze her – if she was to fall, she could only hope that she'd never have to wake up. Of course, who could be so lucky?
Stretching one foot out and taking a small leap, she lands onto the fire escape of one of the top floor apartments, using her hands to hold steady onto the black medal. Looking up, she grabs onto the loose piece of the water drainage pipes hanging off the side of the roof and hauls herself up, her feet reaching up to balance on the railing of the fire escape bars. There's a final small leap and some stretching as her arms work to pull her body over the side of the roof before she's finally standing on top of the roof shingles. Moving further ahead, she jumps down onto the flat, concrete top of the building and heads towards the old beach chair that she set up a few months ago. Her visits up here have become ever more recurrent and tired of having to stand or sit on the cold ground, she placed a chair here, just at the edge of the building where she can watch people shuffle like bugs below and drink herself away.
From where she sits, she's able to see over the top of all the buildings within her city. A few cars drive below on the streets, honking and speeding around street corners. People walk down the sidewalks or linger on the street corners and smoke puffs up from alley way slits where the homeless have gathered around a lit garbage pail for warmth. There's nothing endearing or pleasant about her city. It's filthy and all those who walk the streets are no better. Despite the living trash that walks the streets below, the view was exhilarating from here, with the cold wind blowing through her hair and the busy noises of the city filling her ears. The sky surrounded her in a pool of darkness, the height of the buildings adding to the thrill of the night. She didn't grow up here; this wasn't her home until some years ago when her father lost his job. Before moving into her apartment, Harper and her parents along with her brother lived in a decent, three bedroom, one and half bath home. The area was nice, not all streets and sidewalks, but trees and actual yards. She had her friends and her only pet goldfish named rightfully Goldy. Her brother had his friends and though her parents sometimes struggled to pay their way, they lived a happy life. But that was almost 10 years ago and the memories of that time seem like a past life, something so distant and nonexistent at this point. With the few cars that actually pass below and the distance in which she sits, there's almost no noise and that alone makes Harper uncomfortable.
She' never known silence – it's a foreign concept. For the last eleven years of her life, she's only ever heard yelling or crashes or people stumbling down the stairs. She hasn't known sobriety since she could remember and as that thought passes through her mind, she lifts the bottle of Svedka Vodka to her lips, taking a large gulp and relishing in the familiarity of the burning as it slips down her throat. There used to be a time when she’d only take a few sips and feel at peace, knowing that she still had her alcohol. But after a while, she didn’t want to just feel peace. She wanted to feel nothing. Harper wanted life to disappear and let herself become lost in the addiction. Feeling nothing at all became the only way she stayed sane, if you could even call her that.
As her eyes grew hazy and her judgment blurred from the alcohol, Harper began to forget about all the troubles she’s faced that morning, the previous weeks, and the future problems she knows will come. Her parents fighting, her brother who left her the day he turned 18 to face her life alone, the job at the diner she is forced to work under the watch of a tyrant for a boss, her stomach screaming for a decent meal and her addiction to any alcoholic drink is all forgotten.
And that is why she drinks and why she began drinking at the tender age of thirteen. It started off with sipping the small bottles of Everclear hidden in the depths of her mother's purse. Half out of curiosity and half out of the want to feel like what her mother described.
“When you drink Harper, everything around you becomes less important. That’s why mommy drinks. I just want to forget everything. Now, do me a favor and fill this glass for mommy.”
And before she could blink, Harper herself was finishing off full bottles of Jack Daniel's on her own in a matter of hours. Harper never found enjoyment out of drinking - in fact the taste of it used to make her cringe. Even today as she relentlessly drinks herself to the point of no return, the taste is something she doesn't enjoy. But after years of it, her taste buds have recognized the bitterness and it no longer affects her like it used to. After years of abusing the substance, the effect it has on her has wavered and it takes so much more to finally feel its effects. And as she finishes bottle after bottle, letting the empty glasses fall to the concrete sidewalks below in millions of little pieces, the shame and regret begins to take over, only making her want to drink more.
A loud sound of thunder hits her ears; she turns her blood shot eyes to the sky, waiting for the rain that was no doubt soon to come. When finally a single drop falls from the darkening sky, followed by several others, she looks back down towards the city, where the streets are beginning to empty as people rush to escape the quickly moving in storm. She stretches out on the chair, her feet nudging the empty glass bottles and they fall, clanging together. Their echoing sound makes Harper sick to her stomach, but instead of crying or letting hate and regret consume her, she giggles. It's a foreign sound and there's nothing funny about her situation, but in her hazy state, her mind fails to comprehend how serious her life is. She does what she can to make it through every day in one piece, but her habits make it exceptionally difficult. She's tried to stop, but her efforts would halt the moment she let her mind wander. And by then it was too late. By then, she knew no one could help her – she knew she’d never get better. She knew how wrong it was, but so was everything else in her world. Nothing was stopping her from complying to the the voice in the back of her head that constantly nagged her to drink more. More, more, more.
She breathes in the crisp air through her chapped lips. It tastes raw in her mouth, poisoned with smoke and dirt, making her lungs sting at the bitter invasion. Thoughts bounce around and plague her mind as she drunkenly ponders what her brother was doing at this moment and what he would think of her actions, her decisions, her regrets. She has so many regrets. So many things she's done wrong, things she wishes she could go back in time and change or keep from happening at all. But life doesn't work that way. She knows it doesn't, yet she stills enjoys closing her eyes, shutting out the world around her and pretending that it does and that all her wishes of change were possible. After a while though, keeping her eyes shut simply wasn't enough and that's where the alcohol came into play once again.
But no matter how much she forces herself to drink, the voice in the back of her head still remains and it has only become more vicious over the years. It takes over her body and soul little by little and with each passing day, it consumes what little bit of her mind she still struggles to control. It continuously demands more from her; more drugs, more alcohol, more power. It has so much power for something that only exists inside her mind. Sometimes she imagines what it would look like if it was real – a dark shadow that hides in the corners and only comes out at night, where it's harder to see, harder to fight off. Harper knows what it's doing to her. She can feel the deterioration within herself but she listens to it anyway and complies with its demands. All she's ever known was alcohol, addiction, spite, fear, power, hopelessness. She's become empty and there's no one to help her fight off the voices. Her parents couldn't love themselves or each other, let alone love Harper or her brother. All she had was him and then he left without a word, silently in the night. He left her to fight off her demons alone and has yet to return to see the damage he’s influenced. He's never tried to save her like he saved himself.
She has nothing left to live for, nothing to die for, nothing to contribute to the world. She's just another speck of dust floating through life, doing nothing for anyone and causing more harm than good. She’s the scum of the earth. She's the person she used to cower away from while walking down the street, holding her mother's hand as a little girl. She's the person who people don't take a second glance at. She’s the person no one worries about and no one even knows about. She's the person she never wanted to be and who she's feared all her life. And because of that she'll remain on this roof, drinking until she's numb or until her hearts stops, whichever comes first.
Screams echoed through her house, male and female, paired with the smashing of plates and glass against stained, wallpaper covered walls. If she listened carefully, Harper could just make out the sounds of Everybody Loves Raymond playing from the TV in her living room that just minutes before had occupied her father's attention. And if she pressed her ear up against the wall just above her small bed like she did sometimes at night, she could faintly hear the hum of the woman in the apartment next door as she sung her baby, who often kept Harper up at night with his insistent crying, to sleep. Sirens screamed from outside her open window and shouts from people shuffling along the street below drifted in and mixed with all the other sounds of her imperfect life as it crashed into her full force.
Unable to sleep, Harper slipped out from under the thin sheets of her bed and grabbed the sweatshirt hanging over the back of her desk chair, slipping it over her head, the sleeves falling down her arms. It was her brothers and as much as she now despises even the thought of him, it's the only jacket she has aside from the feather down coat her mother bought her last winter at Good Will. With the grass still green and the leaves just falling off their branches, it was too soon, too warm, for such a heavy coat yet. Grabbing a pair of worn out converse, Harper tucks the laces into the sides and under her feet, too tired to tie them properly and slips her hood up over messy, brown hair. The sound of glass shattering and her mother's loud screams makes her jump and freeze in her movements, her breath catching in her throat. It's silent for a moment but within the next second, her father is cursing, his heavy footsteps shaking the rickety walls of their apartment as he stomps around.
Harper sighs in defeat and grabs two bottles from the stash under her bed, the liquid within them taunting her. Slipping out the window, she climbs down the fire escape, skipping the last few steps and opting to simply jump to the alley way below. There's nothing appealing about the area in which she's grown up in. Dirty people, those who you avoid on any normal basis, are the only ones who walk the streets, the words coming out of their mouths proving just how much they represent the scum that lies beneath the shoe of any other person.
Slipping the bottles into the front pocket of her sweatshirt, Harper makes her way down the alley and towards the back of the apartment complex. There's a ladder leaning against the building on its side, hidden by old trash cans and small, overgrown plants. With a grunt, Harper lifts the ladder up and places it upright against the dirty red bricks of the building. One by one, she ascends the rungs, the creaks the rickety screws make don't faze her – if she was to fall, she could only hope that she'd never have to wake up. Of course, who could be so lucky?
Stretching one foot out and taking a small leap, she lands onto the fire escape of one of the top floor apartments, using her hands to hold steady onto the black medal. Looking up, she grabs onto the loose piece of the water drainage pipes hanging off the side of the roof and hauls herself up, her feet reaching up to balance on the railing of the fire escape bars. There's a final small leap and some stretching as her arms work to pull her body over the side of the roof before she's finally standing on top of the roof shingles. Moving further ahead, she jumps down onto the flat, concrete top of the building and heads towards the old beach chair that she set up a few months ago. Her visits up here have become ever more recurrent and tired of having to stand or sit on the cold ground, she placed a chair here, just at the edge of the building where she can watch people shuffle like bugs below and drink herself away.
From where she sits, she's able to see over the top of all the buildings within her city. A few cars drive below on the streets, honking and speeding around street corners. People walk down the sidewalks or linger on the street corners and smoke puffs up from alley way slits where the homeless have gathered around a lit garbage pail for warmth. There's nothing endearing or pleasant about her city. It's filthy and all those who walk the streets are no better. Despite the living trash that walks the streets below, the view was exhilarating from here, with the cold wind blowing through her hair and the busy noises of the city filling her ears. The sky surrounded her in a pool of darkness, the height of the buildings adding to the thrill of the night. She didn't grow up here; this wasn't her home until some years ago when her father lost his job. Before moving into her apartment, Harper and her parents along with her brother lived in a decent, three bedroom, one and half bath home. The area was nice, not all streets and sidewalks, but trees and actual yards. She had her friends and her only pet goldfish named rightfully Goldy. Her brother had his friends and though her parents sometimes struggled to pay their way, they lived a happy life. But that was almost 10 years ago and the memories of that time seem like a past life, something so distant and nonexistent at this point. With the few cars that actually pass below and the distance in which she sits, there's almost no noise and that alone makes Harper uncomfortable.
She' never known silence – it's a foreign concept. For the last eleven years of her life, she's only ever heard yelling or crashes or people stumbling down the stairs. She hasn't known sobriety since she could remember and as that thought passes through her mind, she lifts the bottle of Svedka Vodka to her lips, taking a large gulp and relishing in the familiarity of the burning as it slips down her throat. There used to be a time when she’d only take a few sips and feel at peace, knowing that she still had her alcohol. But after a while, she didn’t want to just feel peace. She wanted to feel nothing. Harper wanted life to disappear and let herself become lost in the addiction. Feeling nothing at all became the only way she stayed sane, if you could even call her that.
As her eyes grew hazy and her judgment blurred from the alcohol, Harper began to forget about all the troubles she’s faced that morning, the previous weeks, and the future problems she knows will come. Her parents fighting, her brother who left her the day he turned 18 to face her life alone, the job at the diner she is forced to work under the watch of a tyrant for a boss, her stomach screaming for a decent meal and her addiction to any alcoholic drink is all forgotten.
And that is why she drinks and why she began drinking at the tender age of thirteen. It started off with sipping the small bottles of Everclear hidden in the depths of her mother's purse. Half out of curiosity and half out of the want to feel like what her mother described.
“When you drink Harper, everything around you becomes less important. That’s why mommy drinks. I just want to forget everything. Now, do me a favor and fill this glass for mommy.”
And before she could blink, Harper herself was finishing off full bottles of Jack Daniel's on her own in a matter of hours. Harper never found enjoyment out of drinking - in fact the taste of it used to make her cringe. Even today as she relentlessly drinks herself to the point of no return, the taste is something she doesn't enjoy. But after years of it, her taste buds have recognized the bitterness and it no longer affects her like it used to. After years of abusing the substance, the effect it has on her has wavered and it takes so much more to finally feel its effects. And as she finishes bottle after bottle, letting the empty glasses fall to the concrete sidewalks below in millions of little pieces, the shame and regret begins to take over, only making her want to drink more.
A loud sound of thunder hits her ears; she turns her blood shot eyes to the sky, waiting for the rain that was no doubt soon to come. When finally a single drop falls from the darkening sky, followed by several others, she looks back down towards the city, where the streets are beginning to empty as people rush to escape the quickly moving in storm. She stretches out on the chair, her feet nudging the empty glass bottles and they fall, clanging together. Their echoing sound makes Harper sick to her stomach, but instead of crying or letting hate and regret consume her, she giggles. It's a foreign sound and there's nothing funny about her situation, but in her hazy state, her mind fails to comprehend how serious her life is. She does what she can to make it through every day in one piece, but her habits make it exceptionally difficult. She's tried to stop, but her efforts would halt the moment she let her mind wander. And by then it was too late. By then, she knew no one could help her – she knew she’d never get better. She knew how wrong it was, but so was everything else in her world. Nothing was stopping her from complying to the the voice in the back of her head that constantly nagged her to drink more. More, more, more.
She breathes in the crisp air through her chapped lips. It tastes raw in her mouth, poisoned with smoke and dirt, making her lungs sting at the bitter invasion. Thoughts bounce around and plague her mind as she drunkenly ponders what her brother was doing at this moment and what he would think of her actions, her decisions, her regrets. She has so many regrets. So many things she's done wrong, things she wishes she could go back in time and change or keep from happening at all. But life doesn't work that way. She knows it doesn't, yet she stills enjoys closing her eyes, shutting out the world around her and pretending that it does and that all her wishes of change were possible. After a while though, keeping her eyes shut simply wasn't enough and that's where the alcohol came into play once again.
But no matter how much she forces herself to drink, the voice in the back of her head still remains and it has only become more vicious over the years. It takes over her body and soul little by little and with each passing day, it consumes what little bit of her mind she still struggles to control. It continuously demands more from her; more drugs, more alcohol, more power. It has so much power for something that only exists inside her mind. Sometimes she imagines what it would look like if it was real – a dark shadow that hides in the corners and only comes out at night, where it's harder to see, harder to fight off. Harper knows what it's doing to her. She can feel the deterioration within herself but she listens to it anyway and complies with its demands. All she's ever known was alcohol, addiction, spite, fear, power, hopelessness. She's become empty and there's no one to help her fight off the voices. Her parents couldn't love themselves or each other, let alone love Harper or her brother. All she had was him and then he left without a word, silently in the night. He left her to fight off her demons alone and has yet to return to see the damage he’s influenced. He's never tried to save her like he saved himself.
She has nothing left to live for, nothing to die for, nothing to contribute to the world. She's just another speck of dust floating through life, doing nothing for anyone and causing more harm than good. She’s the scum of the earth. She's the person she used to cower away from while walking down the street, holding her mother's hand as a little girl. She's the person who people don't take a second glance at. She’s the person no one worries about and no one even knows about. She's the person she never wanted to be and who she's feared all her life. And because of that she'll remain on this roof, drinking until she's numb or until her hearts stops, whichever comes first.