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And Then Some
by Tyde

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I was loaded up on the essentials. I was all ready to head out. Then I collapsed on the floor in a bundle of nerves. I thought I was ready. I thought I had everything I needed. But the one thing missing, was you. After all this time I still can’t do it. Because you aren’t there to give me the courage, to make me feel alive again. You left me, but you couldn’t help it. You were taken, and you couldn’t stop it. I was all alone, and now I can’t control it.

I fell onto the slate, a rough edge put a rip in my cords, I’m picking at the threads now, saying to myself this is more important than what lies in front of me. There’s no one else, there never was…I couldn’t have reached them anyway, just couldn’t. It’s been 2 years since you left me. It’s been two years since I’ve tried. I found it so hard trying even when you were here to hold my hand, to make me understand the importance of it all. For six months I refused to acknowledge I belonged there. I refused to believe you’d really gone. They’d come in and taken you away, they asked me if I would like to ride with you in the ambulance. I just shook my head and sat back down on the couch. You were buried on a hill in Rookwood Cemetery, so you could see the sun rise first, before everyone else. That’s what I told the funeral director on the phone when he asked which plot you’d prefer. I picked it from a printout, didn’t need to go and see it. Didn’t want to, couldn’t.

The gardener still came, I slipped his payment through the back window with a cup of tea when he wasn’t looking. Had the groceries delivered and always pretended I wasn’t home so they’d just push it through the doggy door like the sign on the door said and I didn’t have to face them. You were the only one who had understood why it was so hard, you were the only one that didn’t treat me like a freak or a weirdo.

You’d moved in next door, you were visiting the neighbours on either side just to say hi. I’d waved at you through the window, said I wasn’t decent, couldn’t come to the door. You’d frowned. You were taller than most, you could see that I wasn’t in a towel fresh from the shower like I said, you could see my t-shirt and the top of my jeans. You’d just smiled back and said it was delightful to meet me and that perhaps we’d see each other at the local shopping centre. I didn’t think so, but you were so sure.

You’d had a calming effect on me so next time I saw you heading over to my place I unlocked the front door then scuttled back into the lounge room. You rang the door bell, I called out that I was in the kitchen baking (a half truth, I had finished the biscuits twenty minutes ago and they had just cooled). I said ‘Come in, it’s open.’ You pushed open the door and entered my home. My palace, my dungeon. You seemed to take up so much of my kitchen just by standing there. I’d forgotten what it was like when someone else shared my space. My choc chip and custard powder biscuits were sitting on the counter on a cooling tray, I offered you some, you took one and sat down at the little leaf table by the fridge.

‘Cold out there today, probably glad you’re inside.’

I shivered. ‘Yes, very much so. My little house keeps me toasty.’

‘Does it keep you cool in summer?’

‘Yes. Good batts in the ceiling’

‘Sound investment’

‘Joe...’

‘You don’t go out do you Christine?’

‘I’m not much into parties and...’

‘I don’t mean socialising, I mean ever. When was the last time you left this house?’

‘1997’. There, I’d said it. A breath whooshed out with it and ruffled the papers in front of me.

‘Groceries?’

‘Internet’

‘Payments?’

‘Internet’

‘Loving family?’

‘Cemetery’

‘Friends?’

‘Never’

‘Why?’

‘Can’t’

‘You can’t make friends?’

‘Can’t leave the house’

‘Have you tried?’

‘Why? If I can’t, I can’t’

‘What’s the harm in trying?’

‘Sweaty palms, fainting...’

‘Is that so bad?’

‘You don’t understand, you can’t...’

‘Make me’

‘No’

‘Look, can I try to make you understand why you should try?’

I didn’t know what to say to that. The entire time he’d been sitting here he hadn’t made me feel like the rest did. I didn’t feel like an object, I didn’t feel like he wanted to hurt me. I just felt, safe. From anyone else his probing questions would have made me yell, scream, cry, but not him. ‘Okay.’

And he did, he really did make me understand why I should try, why out there it isn’t all bad. And I tried to make him understand. I told him about the comments, the complete strangers, the poems. The feeling of wanting to lay into them all. Beat their heads against walls, scream abuse at them, give them unbelievable pain, rip them apart. But how it wouldn’t be enough, how it could never be enough. But I’d still try, I’d make them try to feel it all, every single part of my emotional pain, matching it with excruciating physical pain to them, to those that just crossed my path, those that had nothing to do with those three people.

Three people, that’s all it took. Three despicably rude people that drove me to the edge. They made me want to kill, over and over again. But it wouldn’t be enough. Even if I saw their eyes pleading, even if I heard their screams of mercy, it still wouldn’t be enough. Nothing could match it.

You thought that meant that I’d just go out and kill the first person I saw. You didn’t understand at first. What I meant was leaving the house, having their eyes on me was torture. It didn’t matter if they were looking the other way, even if they had their backs to me, I could feel the eyes. I was paranoid, I was hurting and I couldn’t take the judgemental attitudes. I wasn’t in the realm of reality, I lived somewhere off to the side. Somewhere where I was the circus freak, the attraction at the carnival, they all paid to watch me, to nudge each other and laugh in my face. They questioned why I’d left the house, why I’d even bothered to get up in the morning. They questioned my sanity and my insanity would answer them.

You made me talk with you for hours. You made me let it all out, over and over so that I could have some sort of release. We were happy, Joe, we thought it was working. When you died on my lounge room rug it all went back to nothing. I couldn’t open the door for the ambulance men, they had to kick it down. I couldn’t look at them, I could barely talk to them. I just nodded numbly, letting them take you out of my life.

I’ve picked myself off the floor. I’m standing right at the front door now. I’ve got my handbag, I’m going to the shops. Maybe buy something, maybe not.

I put my hand on the door jamb, I twist it in my hand, my heart is pounding like a jack hammer, sweat is trickling down from under my arms, my palms, my forehead, everywhere, but still I press on. I’m doing it for you, you would be so proud.

The door opens, the smell of fresh air is frightening to my senses. I almost close the door again but I tell myself that I have to go, I have to do this.

I climb down the steps, one by one, so slowly like a baby learning to walk, leaning on the railing and letting it take my weight. I’ve reached the bottom of the stairs and there is no one around. I hear a car, my body is wracked with terror, but it whizzes past, it doesn’t stop, they don’t look at me.

I walk so slowly to the footpath, it’s like lollipop steps. And then some person comes out of their house across the street. I turn in horror, they see me. I scream at them to go back inside, I shriek at their approaching figure all the while ruffling in my bag. I know I packed it, it must be at the bottom.

They approach me with concern, with genuine kindness, but all I can see is the hate, the judgement, the eyes boring into me. I find it, right at the bottom of the bag and wrench it out making the contents of my bag fly in the air. They look at me not comprehending. I scream again.

‘Stop it. Stay away. Turn around. Go home. Don’t look. Don’t see. Go.’ I start slashing wildly in the air with the knife and I start to cry. They don’t deserve this. They didn’t ask for this, I’ve never seen them before. None of this is their fault.

But I realise they are not hurt by my knife, they are just staring in horror. The knife has slashed my arms, it’s embedded itself in my stomach. I’m bleeding all over the footpath and onto the lawn. They turn and run, I imagine to call an ambulance. They are helping. But as my eyes start to close and my mind drifts away I realise…it’s not enough.

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THE END

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