Silent Treatment

I looked down the well. It was dark I couldn’t see how far down it was, I smiled for the first time in a long time. I wondered if I jumped into it how long would it take me to reach the bottom and die. It seems like a death I would want, you could not tell for sure when you were going to die but you would now that you definitely would. In the contrary I would not want to die because of a gunshot a bomb explosion or burning to death.

I lean in so fascinated by this well, maybe a little too much. “What in Gods name are you doing Kylie?!” I turn my body towards her and tilt my head to the right. She raises her voice. Not because she is mad but because she thinks I am partly deaf. I ignore her and walk towards the indoor part of the museum.

My mom and dad thought this would be a good family vacation, visiting St. Augustine in Florida. I might look depressed and seem like I don’t know or understand much, but actually I love it here. It’s filled with old memories, darkness, and death. The occult grabs my attention ever since my experience with death.

I walk slowly and in the corner of my eye and see mom shake her head. Why can’t she understand that sometimes a person needs to stay quiet to heal some scars? I climb up the creaking wooden steps and push the door letting the cold air take me in.

I smile at the cashier and exit the gift shop to the one of the rooms filled with old photographs. I walk around the room and notice that my mom is right behind me. I stop walking at a display of items that the Native Americans from this area used to paint with. “Do you like it?” mom asks me. I blink and keep on walking.

I see dad looking at a brochure of the ‘Old Jail’. Dad looks tired with a 5 o’clock shadow and his blue coat is unbuttoned. I look towards mom and see that she is exhausted too. Her hair in a frizz her makeup looks worn out.

I guess I am too looking tired. I want to ask dad if we could go to the hotel now but something in the pit of my stomach immediately stops me. So instead I begin to walk room through room (Of course I know my mom is following me and my dad following her) until I get to the front door and go to our truck. I wait at the back door and look at the ground.

“Hun, I think she wants to go now.” My mom tells my dad.

“Well alright to the hotel it is.” He thanked me with his eyes, and opened the doors to let us in.

“Did you have fun sweetie.” Mom asked me while I got settled in the car and took out my iPod. I ignored her by putting on my headphones and turning the volume all the way up to ‘Bleeding Mascara’ from Atreyu.

She gave a deep sigh and closed the door. My dad turned on the car and backed up towards the street to the hotel which was about 8 miles away from here.

It’s not that I hate my mom or dad or anybody else I try to ignore. It’s just that I hate that they don’t know or understand me, that they don’t comprehend what I went through when I was 14, that they seem so sorry for me as if I was dying. Well I just want to scream and tell them that I am still alive, that I am more ALIVE than I ever was!

So I punish them by giving them the silent treatment.