The Mind of Willow Grey

Copyright © 2011 Molly Elizabeth Arnell

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Placing my hand on the door handle I was overcome with different sensations. I felt cold, like the metal door handle in my hand, and slightly dizzy from the memories of being turned over and over again. I also saw myself -no, the door handle- falling of the door and landing on my carpeted bedroom floor with a light thump.

Jerking my hand back, I effectively closed off the mental connection.

Damn, I hated that. Nothing worse the being half asleep when your mind suddenly becomes that of your door handle.

Taking a deep, I put my mental walls back up and touched the door handle again. There, much better. All I could feel was a slight buzz as thoughts tried and failed to make it into my mind. Thank God I'd figured that out early on or else I would never have gotten to experience life as myself.

Note to self, I thought as I walked down the hallway and into the kitchen, where I could hear my dad, Frank Grey, making breakfast. You're gonna need a new door handle.

Dad was standing over the stove in our small kitchen, raking eggs around in a pan, with his brown hair falling over his eyes.

"Good morning, Willow," he said with a smile, halving the scrambled eggs into two separate bowls just as the toaster popped. He grabbed one of the slices and placed it into my bowl before handing it to me.

"Thanks dad," I grinned back before taking a bit out of my toast. "I need a new door handle," I said around my food.

Dad looked at me with a weird expression and I realised it had probably came out sounding more like "I nnnnnnd a new oooor anple".

"Sorry," swallowing, I tried again, "I need a new door handle."

"Did it fall off again?"

"No, but it's about to."

When I was six I used to run around school telling people what I could do with my head, but no one had ever believed. No one except my parents, who always believed me. And since my mum, Julie, had died a few years back it was just dad who knew now.

Dad nodded, taking a mouthful if his breakfast too.

I took another bite of toast, choking when the clock caught my eye. Crap, I was going to be late.

I shoveled my eggs into my mouth, said thanks to dad again and ran back to my room to get changed into the way too green formal uniform I wore to school, opposed to the slightly better looking sports uniform I could have worn. I only preferred this option for one reason -it usually got me out of doing Phys Ed.

What the hell were they thinking when they decided to make the formal uniform green? Craigslea was messed up in the head.

Yelling bye to dad, who was taking a shower, I hopped out of the front door -ignoring more attempts of thoughts trying to make their way into my head- as I tried to pull my stupid looking, chunky black formal shoes on. Stupid uniform requirements.

Craigslea State High School was literally around the corner from my house on Pullford St. I walked through the front gate of the school just as the first bell went and started jogging to form.

Letting out a sigh if relief, I slid into my chair, just as the final bell went. The teacher (a sub today) gave me a dirty look, obviously still wanting to give me a detention even though I was technically on time.

The sub teacher started reading names off of the roll, and I cringed as I realised that he was one of those teachers who read out your full name. I hate those teachers.

"Willow Gregory Grey?"

"Here," I choked out, feeling my face flush. God, I hated my middle name more than this teacher. What had my parents been thinking when they named me?

I could hear the class snickering at my embarrassment. Everyone but Rachel, my best friend, who was sitting next to me. She glared at everyone and the class shut up. Rachel was the kind of person who terrified everyone.

I jumped out of my seat when the bell rang, pulling Rachel with me, eager to get to art, our next class.

I love art. Not for any particular reason, I just do. I was practically skipping, which made Rachel roll her eyes at me.

I had to stop though when Rachel saw her boyfriend, Jared, and stood there awkwardly as they kissed. And she thought I was the embarrassing one. It looked like they were trying to eat each other.

They kissed once more before parting, leaving Rachel with this happy little sparkle in her pretty green that made me want to gag. They were way too sickly sweet.

I raised my eyebrows at her and she giggled. Jared was the only one who could make her do that. But I had to give him points for bravery. It must be hard going out with a girl that scared everyone shitless.

Rachel got herself sorted and we were on our way again.

Just so that as I walked around the next corner I ran straight into a broad chest and fell down hard, narrowly missing having Rachel land on top of me.

As agony shot through my ankle, my mental barriers went down and I was over whelmed by the pain of people stepping on me, not caring how much pain the caused.

Whoever decided that the ground could have a mind and experience hurt is an idiot.