Once Upon a Nightmare

if i've gone crazy, i'm okay with it

ii: if i’ve gone crazy, i’m okay with it

 

At the breakfast table, I sit half-crouched on my chair, my knees drawn up like a gremlin. My appearance is frightening enough for my dad to notice.

“You go to bed late last night?” he asks over his Lucky Charms.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I answer. “Weird dreams.” Though weird seems like an understatement. The psycho version of Candyland is on a replay loop in my brain right now. I’m not any more rested, which is why, on the way home, I’m going to buy some BlissMaxx pills. I keep my eyes averted so he won’t read my guilt on my face.

He makes a noise in the back of his throat, the one he does when he thinks he gets something right. “I’m not surprised since you—“

“It’s not that, Dad.” My hand tightens on my spoon. Dad’s a master at ignoring something like me screaming through our old house, but focusing on whatever distracted him from the thing he’s ignoring.

Dad mutters something about vampires, then pushes his horn-rimmed glasses up his nose and leaves for his studio, leaving his cereal bowl on the table. His studio is just a shed in our backyard, but it might as well be a two hour commute for how accessible he is once that door closes. I, in turn, mutter something about boring landscape paintings, and also leave my bowl on the table, still half full of soggy Chex, where it joins the rest of the unwashed dishes crowding our table and counters.

I go upstairs to grab my backpack and spare my books a loving glance—so they know I don’t blame them and Dad is wrong. He likes to attribute all my psychological problems to my reading habit, but my books aren’t the source of the nightmares. They’re the only things keeping me sane. Without them, it’s like I don’t feel anything.

The bookshelf in my room almost touches the ceiling and covers an entire wall.  To be fair, it’s probably true they had a hand in my growing up. A book was where I went whenever real life was too confusing or too strict. They taught me how people behaved and what to expect from the world, which given some of the books I read, maybe didn’t provide the best cues. Once Dad realized what was going on, he did make an effort to reshape me into a normal child, even if that effort was mostly in vain. Whenever we went somewhere he’d wait until I didn’t have time to hide another one and then try and find where I’d stashed my book. Otherwise, as soon as things got rolling—be it birthday party, funeral, wedding or afternoon picnic—I'd be the forgotten kid in a corner, reading.

“Violet,” he would say tiredly, holding up the contraband. “How about a doll? Would you like a new doll?” “If her name is Carmilla and she has pull-string catchphrases,” I'd reply. His most effective threat was to replace my books with Barbie dolls or make-up.

Of course, his unease wasn’t so much because I was reading, but because of what I was reading. Crowding most of my shelves are stories of fantastical horror and tragic romance. Names like Ann Radcliffe, Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King embellish their worn spines. A lot of the books I read as a kid were unsuited for children and blossoming imaginations, but it’s too late now. The damage has been done. I’m constantly pretending my life includes castles, darkness, madness, secrets and curses. And—possibly because their real life counterparts are so disappointing to me—my friends are villains, maniacs, persecuted maidens, monsters and ghosts.

However rotten life seems, if after finishing a chapter of a Dracula I feel a miss-my-last-class sort of compulsion to read on, then everything is probably going to be all right.

. . . . . . .

“Violet Darcey . . . ?” Mr. Patterson leaves the last syllable of my name hanging. Adjusting his glasses, he peers over the rows of students, squinting at each one, trying to determine which one I am, exactly.