Sometimes, I venture into the world of short fiction. I blame it on an amazing creative writing professor. And an amazing Brti Lit professor. Okay, mostly, I blame it on my very twisted, morbidly curious mind. Mainly, my blog has been nonfiction. However, I read a news article, I saw a news report, my soul cringed, and my imagination took off into the worlds of "how" and "why." From such, was born this.
The Color of Silence
By: Brook Marie
They
always told me to be honest with them, that the truth was better than lies no
matter how painful the truth might be. “Be honest, always,” said my father in
his deep, grumbling voice. “If you aren’t honest we can’t help you,” my mother
spoke softly, all the good intentions of a mother resonating on the soft waves
of her voice. “What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive,”
quoted my father to me one day: I was seven and had tried to explain away
something or other. Tangled web. Tangled. Web. Sticky. Caught. Can’t get loose.
Trapped.
Yellow is
a horrid color. Oh I know, people say – don’t ask me which people – that yellow
is vibrant and alive and happy and cheerful! They say. They say. They don’t
have a clue. My sister loves yellow. She would. She’s the happy child in my
family. Always dancing and laughing, her blonde pigtails bobbing up and down,
up and down, up and down – I race to the toilet and throw up violently. Outside
the bathroom I hear my parent’s concerned voices.
“We should
take her to the doctor.” It is my mother. She thinks everything can be fixed
with a Doctor’s visit.
Mom, my heart is broken/
The
doctor can fix that dear/
Mom, my soul
is crushed and ripped open, a gaping hole/
Oh,
sweetheart, let’s go see the Doctor! I’m sure he can help/
My
father’s voice follows. “It’s just the flu. That time of year again, you know.
Winter is setting in wet this year and everyone at work has been getting the
flu. It’ll pass.”
The cool
porcelain of the toilet kisses my cheek. They don’t know a thing. They can’t
fix a thing. They asked for honesty. They asked for truth. The truth is, I hate
yellow. And my sister is dancing about in a new, yellow dress.
______________________________
When I was
six I begged to ride the school bus to school for first grade. I was a big
girl. In my mind, the world was something I could conquer with tea parties and
sword fights. My mother and father smiled fondly, a touch of sadness in their
eyes (“Our baby is growing up”) and agreed. Take
your lunch box. Be safe. Sit up front near the driver. Be safe. Don’t run
around while the bus is moving. Be safe. Don’t distract the driver. Be safe. We
love you so much. Be safe. Mommy will be right here at the bus stop waiting for
you when you come home. Be safe. Be safe. Be safe. Be. Safe. Safe.
At church my parent’s
best friends had children that rode the same bus as me that year. They smiled
fondly when my mother boasted, somewhat sadly, about how independent I was
becoming. My father rubbed her back and nodded, looking over my mother’s
shoulder to wink at me. I grinned back and then ran off to play tag with the
other kids. How innocent was the world I lived in!
When we
were leaving, my mom looked at me and said, “Drew and David and Elizabeth will
ride the bus with you. Drew will make sure you don’t miss your stop for the
first week or two; just until you get the hang of it.”
Inwardly I
scowled. I was a big girl. I didn’t need Drew to help me. He was twelve. He
would be bossy. Outwardly I nodded, afraid to disagree lest my parents change
their minds about letting me ride the bus. They smiled at me, satisfied that
they were making the right decision.
______________________________
Drew held
my hand the first day, and helped me down the steps of the bus. Through the
window, Elizabeth waved cheerfully. She is one year older than me and she is my
best friend. Was. She is not my best friend any longer. My mother thanked Drew
and I pulled my hand away. The bus was warm and smelled funny but I had reveled
in the sense of “bigness” that swept over me when I rode it.
Field
trips on the bus were always fun. The cracked leather of the grey seats itched
my bare legs that stuck out, skinny and white, from my new shorts. Elizabeth
wasn’t on the bus. David wasn’t on the bus. Drew wasn’t on the bus. Only first
graders. We were going to the Pumpkin Patch. I loved the bus, that day. The
Field Trip monitors and the teachers cracked all the windows at the top. Autumn
breeze came in cool and crisp like an apple. Field Trips were the best bus
days.
Winter and
my mother was worried. There was ice and snow on the road. My father said there
wasn’t, my mother argued there could be. Perhaps she had better drive me to
school. But the bus pulled up to the house and away I went, my mother calling
out as the doors squeaked shut, “Be safe!”
Outside
the bus, the world was grey and frosty, winter had come and the world would
soon be white. Now it was only cold and dreary. Inside the bus I was warm and
safe and Elizabeth sat beside me and my new scarf was soft and warm and long
and wrapped like a hug around my neck.
The next
day Elizabeth and David were home sick and the rain poured down. My mother
again called out, “Be safe!” adding, “Drew, make sure she doesn’t slip and fall
or get pushed getting off the bus.”
I didn’t
slip. I didn’t fall. But I have yet to get back up.
______________________________
I loathe
yellow but my dreams are filled with yellow. I crave honesty but honesty is
harder to find the longer you wait. My tongue swells up when the truth
threatens to come out and my throat gets thick. My mother smiles at me, worry
and concern etched across her face. My father frowns at me, confusion over my
attitude creasing the corners of his mouth. And the truth lodges tight in my
chest, catching my breath in a painful grasp of ugly nettles. It’s too late.
Too late. Isn’t it? The truth is ugly. Honesty is supposed to be the kindest
thing you can give someone, but it only looks tainted and black to me.
My little
sister is in the kitchen, crying. I have snapped at her. She is so small and
the world is so bright for her and I have spoken harshly to her, cracked a
portion of her sunshine. Mom’s voice carries softly, “Oh sweetie, that wasn’t
very nice of her. Here, you come help me finish dinner.”
The last
time I was asked to help finish dinner, my mother pulled out a bag of shiny,
yellow bell peppers. I screamed and howled, an animal set loose in the kitchen,
and threw the repulsive vegetables across the room. I tried to find words for
my torment. I was seven, then, and knew my words but my words no longer knew
me. My mother sent me to my room. She never asked me what was wrong. She
couldn’t have known to ask me. That’s what I tell myself. But she should have
asked me. I was her child.
Her child.
No one else’s child. Hers and my fathers. They should have known that honesty
was inside of me, trapped in a web, poisoned by a spider. But they didn’t ask
because…because. I spilled paint purposely on my yellow shoes that Grandma sent
me. Taking out the trash, one day, my father found all my yellow building
bricks in the garbage bag. When I was eight, my mother received yellow flowers
for her birthday. I cut the heads off. When she asked me why, I tried to tell
her but how could my child’s mind find the words to explain that yellow cut me
open and watched me bleed out? Sometimes honesty has no words.
Now my
father is yelling at me. I deserve it. I made my little sister cry. I shattered
her perception of me, the protector, the bigger and better and stronger. My
father never yells. He is a man of low, grumbling, soothing voice. I needed him
to yell sooner but sooner came too late.
______________________________
Today the
sun came out, through the wintry grey of an overcast sky, and the cold, filtered
light made my stomach churn. Little sister has on a pink snow coat – our mother
stopped buying yellow clothing a month ago. It took her years to figure out
that yellow destroys me, destroyed me, and she still hasn’t asked why.
Elizabeth’s mom called my mom. She and her husband are going out of town and
can my parents watch Drew, David, and Elizabeth? Why would my mother say yes?
Why would my father agree? I haven’t been friends with Elizabeth in five years.
Drew is old enough to watch everyone but his parents will be gone for two weeks
and don’t want them alone for that long.
They have
been at my house for two days now. I cannot sleep. I lie in bed and grind my
teeth, hoping the grating noise will drown out the wails inside of my head.
Elizabeth has tried to be kind to me but kindness is a farce in the face of
disowning honesty. I was honest with her and she turned away. I spilled out my
brokenness to her and she silenced me.
There is
movement from the next room and I freeze under my covers, my hands gripping
white on my chest. Everything around me slows down to a painful tick of each
second on the clock by my bed. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Go. Away. Go. Away. Go.
Away. The silence is loud, so loud! How can no one hear the silence? Tick.
Tock. Go. Away. Silence is death. Death is the yellow glow of the hallway light
that briefly flickers as honesty finds its way to my room. Tick. Tock. Time is
running out.
______________________________
There are
no words for despair. Alone, now, in my tiny apartment, where I have painted
the yellowed and aging walls a vicious green, I remember. The clock never
stopped that night. The questions were never asked. The bus never slowed down.
The screams never came. But honesty came.
Lying
naked on the shower floor, seventeen, a bottle of pills in my stomach, a
patchwork of scars and cuts, old and new, revealed at last, my parents found
me. They found what was left of me, the shell of me, the bottled up, broken,
withheld honest part of me. I hated that hospital room where I recovered.
Cheery yellow paint to wish the patients well again. In that hospital room,
with a complete stranger, honesty came. She was kind and soft and
understanding. Things were set in motion. But it didn’t matter. It doesn’t
matter.
The damage
is done. The break was final. Honesty only destroyed those around me when it
finally came out. When I was a child, I couldn’t find the words for honesty.
When I was a teenager, I choked on the wall inside of me and buried myself
beneath it. As an almost adult, I let it out and watched with a detached
numbness the catastrophic fallout around me. This was the result.
This is
the result. I look around me. Pristine. Clean. Neat. Spotless. Orderly. Safe.
Haven. Safe. Be safe. Make safe. Isolate. Withdraw. Precaution and contain.
They can’t touch me. That is the result. They won’t touch me. I am broken,
beyond repair.
The sun is
coming up. Another day. Yellow light streams in a thin line through the crack
in the curtains. Stand up. Walk over. Seal the curtains shut. Outside, a school
bus rumbles by, a yellow coffin singing my death.
