‘Why am I no longer that… that…’ I stare at the photograph of me. It’s been three years since I smiled with my teeth. How has it been three years? That was last week, that was Mum’s last week, I remember that smile, fallacy came naturally. I look up at Ron. ‘Why am I not that—’
‘Pastoral little bird?’
‘I…that’s absurd. I was never anything but brutal.’
‘You remember yourself wrong.’
Ron’s eyes found the photograph again, but I couldn’t bear to remember what I used to feel like. Gods, it had been a while, hadn’t it? Had it felt like this the whole time? Do I forget to breathe so my ribs don’t feel the burning? Gods. I was never brutal.
‘What am I now? I…Ron. Things have happened so quickly. What am I, now?’
‘What were you to begin with?’ There’s a softness in his face.
‘To begin with…’ I sigh. Oh, to begin again. I would never be brutal. I close my eyes and feel like the word fracture. My arm got fractured when I was eight. To be eight. To begin as anything at all. To swim in pools that I can reach the bottom in. I smile, I can’t help it. Everything was yellow and green and had such a shine and felt so different. Squeaky noodles. No running. Everything was so different, but I was there. That’s still me. Oh, I could be brutal. Everything lost to me. I sit in rooms I have known my whole life, and feel like the word fracture: where did everyone go?
About the Creator
Essie
Brambling, atypical logorrhoea that really materialise in the form of hatching worms. Or stars.
21
Feelings Never Die
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