Road to Jannah

Chapter Twenty-one • Happier

"I'm afraid so." I groan as I get up and lay my back on the headboard.

I feel Mama's hands behind me, arranging and fluffing the pillows till I was reclined at a more comfortable position. How I had managed to put her off and convince her to not rush me to the hospital was beyond me.

"Let me close the curtains, maybe you'd get to sleep better." Mama says making for the window.

Perhaps she had forgotten the fact that even if the light of the morning sun was pouring through my windows, it would do little to stop me from sleeping since it made no difference to me. The only thing that told me it was morning was the distant sound of the city's hustle and bustle and the slight warmth from the rays of the sun that peeked their way from my window. Light has no effect whatsoever on me anymore and now since Jannah is freed of the torture of being with me, that applied both theoretically and literally.

"No Mama, I think I'm better off just getting out of bed." meaning I had spent a full forty eight hours with zero hours of sleep.

"What's for breakfast?" I make sure to make my tone light as I limp to the bathroom.

For my mother's sake, all the demons inside me had to be kept tamed. Or at least only released when she was no where to see them and hence, putting on a mask was necessary. It would be hard but I had to convince her that I wasn't in a dangerous psychological state not only because I feared her bringing up that dreaded topic of seeing the therapist but because I feared my pain spreading to her. I wanted to make her believe that I could be happy again even though I know that was a blatant lie.

"What would you like?" I hear Mama call out to me before I close the door to the bathroom and I was relieved that she decided to follow my suit, making her tone just as animated as mine.

"Uhmmm," I hold open the door, "Just anything yummy." and I close it with a bang, turning to the sink.

This is the part that I'd get to see myself in the mirror. This is the part that I would be spared just a bit of clearity as I look at my doppleganger in the glass and try to bore into the most deepest of my souls. This is the part that I'd get to talk to the man in the mirror and our colloquy would yield some kind of comforting assurance and a truce that would make me forget about finding peace with the blade in my hand instead. Something that would make me forget of searching for those powers mightier than love in the feel of my own blood on my fingers. But as I gaze ahead, in the direction I know the mirror was placed over the sink, all I see is stagnant, daunting darkness reminding me of the bleakness and emptiness of my soul. It laughs at me and cheers me on when my hands reach behind the counter for a Gillette shaving stick.

It was all I could afford now, after everything with as much as a pointy tip has been smuggled out of my room by my mother except this; something she thought was a harmless essential. I grasp it tightly, knowing that I was in need of it's true and innocent purpose since the bush on my face was growing out of control. I hold it even tighter knowing that I was more in need of a more sinister use of it. Knowing that the demons in me were rioting out of control and searching for an escape. Knowing that the only way to free myself of them was when I let them ooze out of me in a warm, red liquid. I hold it so tight that I hear the stick snap into two and I discard the handle part, taking hold of the head and crushing it to pieces.

I manage to slide out the three separate blades that were soon going to be my saviors from these demons and hold one to the skin of my elbow. A part of my body I know I could easily cover up with a long sleeved shirt and hide from Mama. All I needed was one single cut, nothing more and then I'd be free of this ever expanding cloud that carried a heavy rain. I just had to make a path for that rain of gloom to drain out of me, one little cut that Mama won't even notice would do that job and then, that'll be all.