She Goes Away

Blank Canvas

The dingy bathroom smelled like old urine. It was a wonder whether anybody ever cleaned the joint, with all the grime collecting in the corners and the rust stains down the walls. I ran a hand under my nose, saw the smear of mottled red against caramel skin. A damned nose-bleed, again. They plagued me while stressed, depressed. I'd been having them so often these past four days that my parents were getting concerned.

"Should we be bringing you to see your doctor?" Mom asked while I tried to finish Chemistry homework at the table. My heart palpated like I'd run a race. Every muscle in my jaw tensed, my head throbbed with a migraine. I forgot to breathe. Blood dripped from my nose onto my books. It wasn't the questions on the assignment causing this. It had nothing to do with school.

"I hate the hospital," I replied. "You know that."

"Maybe consider talking to a counsellor at school then. Tell them what's bothering you if you don't feel comfortable to speak with me or the doctor."

"Counsellors ..." I grumbled. "Nobody understands."

I looked in the water-spotted mirror for a minute, watching the blood trickle at a snail's pace from my left nostril. Unexpectedly, it bubbled and gushed from my nose, passed my lips, trailing down my neck. The pale blue fibres of my T-shirt soaked up the red, turning it the colour of an eggplant. I reached for the paper towel, rolling it manically off the rack. When I brought the bundle of towels toward my face, I noticed nothing but that small red trail just above my lip. A laugh slunk out from somewhere inside my head. My mind toyed with me, and enjoyed every minute.

I waited, trying to get my heart-rate back to normal with deep breathing. Certain the minor bleed was over, I threw the wasted towels in the trash bin and pulled my long, black hair behind my shoulders. I washed the crusting remnants off my hands in the tarnished sink and wiped them off on my jeans. I caught my reflection in the bathroom mirror once more. My eyes always looked lighter after a good cry. Honey-colored. I'd bawled in the second stall earlier, and wondered if any of my female co-workers had come in quietly and overheard. What would they've thought? Whatever. In a few minutes, it wasn't going to matter.

With a weighty dismay upon my shoulders, I left the bathroom and exited the hothouse. I labored at a tree nursery in a forgettable, predominantly white town; a northern fleck in the province of Alberta. Bundling spruce trees and packaging them as they came along a conveyer belt. It was mechanical, monotonous. I couldn't take it anymore. The job gave me far too much opportunity to think, leaving my mind a blank canvas. The only thing I considered painting on it, betrayal and heartbreak; shades of blue and purple. Like a bruise. Like pain. It's all that I'd been feeling for days. It consumed me. It left me without an appetite.

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Thanks,

Holly