Helen

By Parker Sullivan

Chapter One

When I was young, my mother would always tell me how special life was and how you do what you need to do to get by. You move on from the things that try to hold you back and you climb the mountains that get in your way and block the view of what it is that you plan to accomplish.

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Helen Harris. I enjoy taking long walks on the beach, writing, and watching television. The one I enjoy most would have to be writing. A person can really have a way with words if they want. If they wanted, they could write a poem to capture the heart of anyone they loved. For me, love is writing. Sitting at my desk typing all day may seem boring and dreary to most, but to me, it is rushing. It is some sort of high. The question I am most frequently asked is if my hands ever get tired. My answer to that is that no matter how much they want to cramp on me, I push through the pain like an athlete who wants nothing more than to cross the finish line of the big race.

I live alone by the way. I don't think I mentioned that earlier. I like being on my own. I feel free not being held by the bonds of another of the opposite sex. The thing that does have my heart and that I cannot get enough of is of course, writing. That is what I am doing right now. Well, I'm not literally sitting down at my desk punching away at the keys of my computer, but I am writing in my head. You see, I tend to think of things that I may want to have in one of my stories, but I may not always have the pen and paper that I need at the time. I don't take my computer with me. So, when I am going for walks on the beach or doing other things where I am far from any writing tools, I like to make a plot for my story in my head. If it is good enough to the point where I think I will need to write it down or dare forget what it is, I run as fast as I can to the nearest source. I write it down, run to my apartment, and type.

I think I have told you enough about my writing for now. I think I should probably give you a little bit of my backstory to let you know more about myself. When I was born, the doctors said that I was the most beautiful baby girl he had ever seen. Although the doctor saw my beauty, my mother and father did not. I can remember my first day of kindergarten. I didn't go to preschool. If I had, our story would have started there. Anyway, I stood out by the corner of our street. I was by myself. The bus pulled up and I got on the bus and sat in the first seat I laid eyes on that no one other person was in. I looked out the window looking at my house. They didn't even go outside to see if I had made it safely on the bus.

The really bad stuff happened when I was in eighth grade. My father started to drink much more than he had ever before. My mother left at that time and my father had complete custody over me. My mother didn't want anything to do with her only child. She still doesn't to this very day. My father was a very angry and violent drunk. I remember he would come into my room when I was asleep and would wake me up with his yelling. I don't even know what would make him want to yell at me the way he did, but I couldn't argue or I would be hit. Hell. I didn't even have to say anything half the time for him to get pissed off at me just enough to hit me. I never did anything wrong to deserve the yelling or the beatings. I was as good as a kid could be. Maybe I was a little too good? Maybe the fact that I never got into trouble at school and got all A's on my report cards seemed fishy to him. He was a paranoid type of person. When it would be daytime he'd always look out the windows and every hour he would go through the entire house to check and see if all of the windows and doors were closed and locked as tight as they could possibly be. My father never really made much sense when he would lock down the house every hour of the day, but I decided that it was best not to ask him what he was doing unless I wanted a swift kick in the ass with a size twelve boot.