Twenty-Five
Day
I was in my safe place. I was in my safe place but I didn’t feel safe at all. I felt trapped. I felt fearful I felt as if there was a me that wasn’t me in my head. I wanted to be whole. I wanted to be strong. Like Nian. Like Evian. But every time I tried I failed. The harder I tried the more I failed.
Here I was again in the mind with the voices that was in my head. With their consent voices in my head whispering for me to do things. Using langue that you would never say in front of your mother. I rocked back and forward my hands over my ears but it wasn’t like that meant anything. They were inside of me. Even if I covered my ears I could still hear them.
It wasn’t that I heard the words that they were saying. I couldn’t make out any of the words but it was this feeling that I got. It was a feeling of lost and loneness. It was a feeling of utter madness inside of me. I knew there words because I could feel them inside of me. Filling me up there words were the only thing that made me move. And yet their words froze me in place. Most of the times I just wanted to scream. To cry out. To ask someone anyone for help. But I had the feeling that they wanted me to do that. They wanted me to beg Nian to help me. They wanted me to fail and break and never be whole again. To cry and whim and just all together suffer.
I felt like fool because I knew that if I was stronger none of this would have been happening to me. I knew that if I was like Nian or like Evian I would have been fine right now. I would have been me right now.
“You idiot.” I heard Nian’s voice outside of my door. I knew that he wasn’t talking to me because at the moment there was no need for him to call me names.
“It wasn’t just me.” Evian said and I wondered what he had done. What had Evian done this time to make Nian so angry? Nian hated Evian so it wouldn’t have to be much.
“And let me guess.” He mocked Evian. “The big bad wolf is the one that did it. Did he huff and puff and stab the girl in the chest.”
“I messed up I know.”
“No!” Nian said. “Messing up was playing that dumb game of yours in the first place. This is something beyond messing up. We are fuck now.”
“All we have to do is speak with father. He will make it go away. He always makes it go away.” Evian said and I heard a sigh from Nian. Much like me I knew that he didn’t want to go to father. I knew that asking him for help was the last thing that he wanted to do. I thought for a moment that he was going to come in here. I thought for a moment that he was going to make me take the body and ask father for this. After all you catch more bees with honey.
The body. I shivered just from thinking about it. I didn’t want the body ever again. It was drenched in blood and I knew that meant that so was I. I wanted to clean my hands and my soul so that I could make it into the afterlife. If there was an afterlife. If people like me got to go there when they died. I wanted to go there clean. I wanted to go there free of all he sin that tied me to this body. And yet the more I rejected the body the stronger the voices became.
“Fix it Evian.” Nian told him in that tone that he used when people had angered him and he was at last laying down the law.
“I said I would.” Evian yelled back and I could hear him walking away. I heard Nian swear and then a loud banging suggesting that he punched the wall or something like that. I opened up my door to my safe place peeking outside of it to see that it was Nian still in the hall sitting on the floor with his head in his hand. I came out and sat beside him.
“If you would do your job none of this would have happened.” He said and I just looked over at him. He was going to yell at me next. He was going to tell me to do my job. To play my role to take the body.
“I don’t want it.” I said and he frowned.
“Damn it Dian. How long do you think you can stay like this? How long do you think it will be before the body repels you?” I was wondering that myself. I was wondering why it hasn’t kicked me out already. Maybe it had other plans for me. Maybe it had another need for me. The door. I looked over at Nian because Evian didn’t really watch me on his shift but Nain was there right outside the door. How was I going to get out? I wanted to show him what I could do. I wanted to show them all how weak I wasn’t.
Let them see how strong I could be when I needed to. My mind was breaking but I could see me in there still. I held on to that. The little thing that made me Dian. I had to hold on to that so that I could make it out. I didn’t want to become someone new. I didn’t want to use the body and be controlled too much. No one ever tell you about the pain but I feel pain. Every time I take the body I feel pain.
“Nian.” I said and he looked over at me.
“What?” he hissed.
“You need rest as well.” I told him because I needed him to leave. I needed him to go so that I could do what I needed, wanted to do. So that I could go back to the other side of the brain and learn what it was that was behind the door? The door. The red door had haunted me but the black door calls to me. It demanded that I come to it. A part of me wanted to fight that. A small part of me that knew that the door was something bad and evil. It warned the rest of me to stay away. But as I said it was a small part.
“How are you feeling?” Nian asked me and I knew how I was feeling. I was feeling as if I was only one fourth of the me I once was. That in a moment time I was going to break completely and there would be none of me left. And knowing that. Knowing that I was on the edge of darkness. One more step. One false move and I was going to fall I just didn’t give a shit anymore. I was done caring about life and death. I wanted to go back to how things were. I felt as if I knew too much now. I found bliss in ignorance but I didn’t have that anymore. The whispering words filled my head with so many things.
One more sentence. One more uttered word and I was going over. I was going to break and no one was going to stop me. And nothing was going to save me. Nian looked at me and I think he read it in my eyes. I think he saw how I just didn’t care anymore. Then he shook his head as if he was shaking it clear. As if he was shaking a thought out of his head. He stood up and placed his hand on my head.
“I need you to be stronger than this.” He said.
“I haven’t the will left to fight.” I answered.
“You’re not weak Dian. Not nearly as weak as you want others to believe. I know you better than the others. I know that you are just as brave and strong as the rest of us. When you don’t want to do something you can be as much as a dick as Evian or I.”
“What are you saying?” I asked him and his grip on my head tighten as if he wanted to pulled me to my feet by my hair and make me look him in the eyes. And make me understand what it was that he was telling me. But words were hard to understand at the moment. Nian words were even harder because his I couldn’t feel. Not like the whispers inside of me. His were so easy to block out because they were the only words that wasn’t attacking me at the moment.
“Be better than this.” He said and I looked away to the floor. My mind was in pieces and I tried to make sense of what Nian was telling me. Be better. What did that mean? Get rid of the voices. How could I do that? It wasn’t that I didn’t want to heal it was that at this moment I didn’t know how to heal.
“How?” I asked him and he shook his head. I frowned because it seemed to me that it meant there was something that even Nian didn’t know. I giggled at that. At the thought that the all power Nian was in the dark about things as well. I could feel the whispers in my mind giggling as well. They thought that it was funny. They thought that his not knowing was just and right. Why should one man hold all the power? Why should one Ian have run of the body?
“Just be careful.” He told me and started to walk away. I watched him as he went into his door going into his safe place. Nian needed rest as well. We all needed rest and yet we all got so little of it. No rest for the wicked as the saying goes. I stood because I had somewhere to be as well. I had needed to go here for a while now. I had needed to free myself of Nian and Evian so that I could go back to the black door.
I made my way to the right side of the brain. The darker side, maybe even the evil side of the brain and I stood in front of the door. There it was again. The bunny. Ducky’s bunny on the wrong side. He was like a child. He was a child a baby. It was his way. Throwing his toys around so that the idiot adult picks it up and hands it to him again. I picked up the bunny and now that I was so close to the door I could hear the voices even louder than before.
I grabbed my head because it was like a whirlwind inside of my mind. It was like a hundred people with a hundred words all yelling at the same time. You couldn’t hear anything. You couldn’t make out anything. All you knew was that it was loud. All you knew was that you wanted them to shut up.
“Let me speak.” I whispered out talking to no one but at the same time talking to who or what was inside of my head. They couldn’t hear me though. Mines were just another voice added to the mix. “Let me speak.” I said again and again I was ignored. Again in my own head I had no voice. “Shut up.” I said so soft it was hardly over a whisper. “Shut up.” I said a bit louder. “SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT THE FUCK UP!” I was pointing at the door I was looking at the door as I yelled as I told it what to do. All the voices in my head went silent for a moment. “I am master of this half. I am Dian. You will listen to me.” I said and no one said anything.
I wondered if this was working. I wondered if they were listening to me or were they biding their time. I was wondering if they were only waiting for me to break again. I was broken. I was at my lowest. I had nothing left to lose.
“I will have peace.” I said but my voice creaked and I wasn’t nearly as clam as I wanted the whispers to believe. As I wanted the door to believe that I was. I wondered if it was the door that I was talking to. Or if it was something more. If I knew that there was something behind it that needed to be respected and feared at the same time and so I did. I respected the door and I feared it as well. And I loathed it as well. I just wanted what it took from me back. I wanted to not know anything again. I wanted it to return to my bliss. I wanted to enjoy in my innocence. “I will have peace.” I said and then I felt as if the door nodded. As if it told me that it had heard me. It was listening to me so come to it.
I wondered what I would find if I went to it. If I went through it. I walked over to it. Walking closer to it and reaching my hand out to touch it. I hesitated remembering the pain that I had felt when I touched it alone. Remembering the pain that Evian had felt when he touched it. I turned my head away from the door. Not wanting to see myself get fried. I held out the bunny that was Ducky’s toy and it pressed against the door. First there was nothing at all and then I felt the door sucking at me taking the bunny from my hands and into the black room. I turned around to look and see if Evian or Nian was behind me. If either of them were going to come and stop me or to offer a protest of me going in. But when there was none the rest of me was sucked into the door and then there was only the blackness of the room.