Asymmetrical

Symmetricity. The love of my life and my prime obsession. It's perfect, even, and beautiful. I pride myself on making everything symmetrical. It's my passion! My goal in life is to make everything absolutely perfect. So far, I am successful! I keep my apartment clear of germs, I buy my supplies and decorations by twos, but I've stopped taking lovers due to the fact they don't appease my symmetrical order by putting their things in odd places without a match on the other side. Everything in my life is perfect save for one thing...Me.

I am not symmetrical. I am not perfect. It annoys me to no end that I can never join my passion, I can never be perfect. All because of my damned mismatched eyes. All because of my red frizzy hair. All because of these disgusting freckles. It never turns perfect, no matter how many times I scrub my face raw, or condition my hair, or use temporary color-change lenses. These flaws are basically the only reason I avoid looking in mirrors. Avoid looking at my disgusting appearance. I have heterochromia iridium, two different colored eyes. I've tried using colored contacts to change them, but I've found that I cannot leave them in forever. My hair only stays down for an hour or less when I straighten it, but I'd rather not set my hair on fire. And my freckles... Well, there's nothing I could do about that. I hate it, I just want to be perfect.

My mother calls me sometimes. To tell me I'm perfect, and how symmetricity doesn't affect beauty. I don't believe her, of course, I believe everyone should strive to be even. To be perfect. I tell her this, but she just sighs and tells me "Eleonore, you should know that you're beautiful. Everyone adores you!" she always says this, and I always hang up. It became sort of a goodbye for us.

I don't approve of going outside and socializing. Not everyone is symmetrical, nor the streets. There's also sick people and germs everywhere. It's crowded. It's loud. It's awful.

I stay in my perfect apartment. No germs, no illness, not a single trace of drama, and perfect alignment. The fact that I can order food, clothes, and do work online helps my social/physical isolation. I don't really feel the need for human contact anyways. Too many reflective surfaces.

I looked around at my apartment and needlessly straightened things out. I was expecting a delivery of groceries. It's harder to keep foods symmetrical, but it's possible. I sat down in the middle of my sofa and crossed my pale legs. I gave a quick glance at the clock. The delivery was late. 2 minutes late, to be exact. I blankly stared ahead at a blue canvas as I waited for my groceries.


When the delivery man came, beautifully symmetrical he was, all he did was stare at me. I tried to neatly print my name 'Eleonore Fritz' as quickly as I could. Which turned out to be not very fast. I messed up a letter in my name as I hurried to get the man off my doorstep. It was almost as if his stare physically hurt. He must be judging me. He must be judging my eyes, my hair, my face... I was painfully aware of my flaws throughout the entire exchange. I finished signing my name and yanked the package from his hands. He opened his mouth to speak, and I slammed the door.

This was another reason to avoid social contact. To avoid being judged so openly and rudely. I sighed as I walked to my kitchen. I neatly put away my groceries before heading back into my living room.

I sat down on my plain white sofa, a decorative pillow on either side of me. I stared blankly ahead. My thoughts were whirring. Horrible frenzied thoughts spread like a disease throughout my head. A filthy, asymmetrical, disgusting creature is what I am. My breaths came out in short pants. I'm tired of being judged by the strangers! I'm tired of my reflection! I'm tired of my life!

S   n   a   p

Something in me broke then. A sharp crack filled my ears. I had a brief moment of panic before a frenzied urge drowned out any rational thought. The urge left a sweet taste in my mouth and filled my airways. A suffocating desire to make everything perfect came down upon me. I inhaled my desire, I exhaled it out. I had to fix the most imperfect thing, I felt like I had the power to fix it. It was myself.

I stumbled in a blind craze to the bathroom, pushing away everything in my path. I shattered vases with my outstretched hands, making twin messes in the hallways. In my hand, I held a plastic spork that I retrieved at some point in my craze.

I finally crashed into the bathroom. I then ripped the curtain covering the mirror down, it felt like I had no time to slide it to the side. I stared at my horrible face when it was revealed. How ugly. My eyes took in their horrible appearance before roaming to my disgusting freckles and hair. My breath was once more coming out in pants, bordering on hyperventilation. I ignored my breathing for the most part, more focused on my traits. My horrendous asymmetrical figure. I wanted it gone! I had to be perfect!

In a split second, my hands gripped onto my hair and started pulling. Broken sobs echoed throughout my bathroom and a warm liquid started trailing down my head and dripped onto my blue sweater. I lowered my hands. In them, there were handfuls of my red frizzy hair and some clumps had flesh attached. The warm liquid reached my mouth and my eyes darted to the mirror. Blood. I could make out blood trickling from two raw spots on my scalp among all my red hair. I smiled through my sobs and my tongue shot out to taste the blood. My hands then raised back up to my scalp to continue their work. Rip. Tear. Sob. Drip. Rip. Tear. Sob. Drip. Repeat.

When I finished, my blood had stained and made rivers all over my scalp, head, and sweater. In the mirror, I saw that all I had left was a bloody and raw scalp. A symmetrical scalp. Clumps of frizzy red hair filled my sink and spots of blood were everywhere. That could be easily cleaned.  My hands were stained with strands of hair tangled around my fingers. I ignored my resulting pain in favor of excitement. I was turning! In a mixture of adrenaline and excitement, I opened my cabinet and lifted a razor. I closed the cabinet and scrambled to pull a single blade, I cut my fingertips in the process. I had to fix my freckles! Hideous things, they were.

I turned the blade in my hands, deciding that it'd be perfect. I brought the blade up to my face and carefully dragged it across my face, leaving red lines behind. A maniacal smiled spread across my face and butterflies filled my stomach. I brought my hand up and pulled the skin of my cheeks so the blade could dig under my skin. I slowly began cutting away the top layers of my skin. Blood bubbled up from under my blade and pooled around my still-smiling mouth. More blood spilt onto my clothes. Screeches filled the empty space of my bathroom. The blade nearly reached the bridge of my nose before the pain fully registered.

I dropped the blade quickly, the flap of my skin waved around. I collapsed against the sink, choked sobs escaped my mouth. The smile faded and blood was everywhere. I looked up at my reflection and what I saw made me gag. My scalp still continued to trickle blood at odd moments. The collar of my sweater was soaked in blood and it splattered at random places around the rest of my clothes. And my face was partially skinned...

When I saw my progress, it brought the urge back to me. I pulled myself up and picked the blade back up. Tears trailed down from my horrendous eyes and stung my wounds. The pain escaped me and I felt I could do anything once again. I reestablished the blade onto my face to continue my path of skinning. To get rid of this ugly creature. Skin could be replaced.

My path was relentless and continued without stopping. Screams filled my head and my skin fell to the ground. Agony suddenly consumed me, and it washed away any trace of the urge. I collapsed once again, this time onto the ground. Sobs wracked my body and my tears bit my wounds. I used the countertop to shakily pull myself up and nausea crashed down in wave over me. My eyes caught their reflection. Uneven eyes. The right one green and the left blue. The urge came back.

Heterochromia iridium. Horrible asymmetrical irises. I was almost perfect. I was almost beautiful. Just my eyes had to be removed. A crazed grin grew across my face, and it caused more blood to pour out of my cheeks and flow down over my lips. I dragged my tongue across my lips, excited. Elated.

I picked my forgotten spork up. I regarded it carefully before deciding it would do. I slowly raised the spork to my eye. I felt panic and anxiety spread throughout my head and I hesitated as the urge dimmed slightly.

R   i   n   g

The pain crashed back down completely. I screamed and attempted to run to the living room. I cut my feet on the broken shards of vase and tripped over invisible things. I scrambled for the phone and shoved it up to my ear. I panted, pleaded, and screamed for help. As the person on the other side of the phone beseeched for my area, and my vision went fuzzy from what I assume is blood loss. The person's speech grew louder, but I couldn't make it out. All of a sudden, all I heard was static and everything went black.


I awoke to pounding on my door. There was static in my vision and ears. Voices on the other side of the door were shouting static. With each knock, the static in my vision wavered. I reached to the side, pain was shooting rapidly throughout my body. As I reached out, my hand collided with a hard surface. My coffee table? I deducted that I fell on top of it when things went black.

The static voices kept shouting and I felt an ache in my throat. Was I still screaming? I moved to get up off the floor, my hands were groping for support. The static got higher, brighter, and louder when I moved to my knees. When I was finally standing, the static was a piercing screech. My hands were gripped tightly onto the arm of my chair or couch. The static in my vision and the pain in my body escalated to a frantic dance. It seemed like every painful sensation was fighting for control. In short, it hurt.

I swayed and trudged towards the door, falling to the ground half-way. I struggled to my knees, the motive of help pushed me on. I used my hands to navigate my apartment. My head and shoulders occasionally hit an object on my way to the door, and it shot sparks of agony through my pounding skull and body. I reached the door sooner than I thought I would and I went face-first into my door. I let out a wail when my raw cheeks hit the cold door. The knocking paused for a bit then...

C   r   a   c   k

The door was forced open and it slammed into my face. A gush of warmth ran over my face and heat bloomed from my nose. The static voices were louder now, and their voices were frantic. Splinters from the broken door rained down into my skinned cheeks. I fell to the side which pushed the splinters further into my cheeks and the rug dug into my raw scalp.

The static voices brought their hands to my body and the static in my vision grew very bright. They grabbed. They shouted even louder. They lifted and they pulled. I started to close my eyes, my head was too full.

I could make out a few light spots. The static in my vision collapsed to a white haze. Everything I saw was pure white like snow and cold settled over me. I couldn't think anymore, but I could feel the static voices' hands try to pull me from oblivion. Their hands were hot like molten iron. I gasped out a puff of hair as their hands touched my scalp.

I couldn't take another breath in.