May 5, 2013

•      "You're drunk," Chrissy noted as a shadow passed over her.
       "I found some whiskey," Amy slurred, offering only a penetrating smile that wallowed in its own complacency.
       "Which kind?" 'Rome asked, inching up from the cafeteria chair he had been reclining in.
       Amy staggered over to a table, her arm jutting outward to grasp hold of it with such force that the table vibrated against the friction of the concrete floor. All three of them watched her back as she stood there, hunched over as the table continued to shake in her grasp. With a rasping intake of breath, she brought herself upright.
       "I didn't very much care," she drawled.
       Giving herself a soft push, Amy fell into a nearby chair, sliding a few inches across the floor. "I used to drink all the time, you know." With a crooked leer, Amy gave a nod to her company before raising the bottle for a drink.
       'Rome was standing; Chrissy was sitting entirely upright; James hadn't moved. Amy's hair had fallen over her face, casting shadows that seared the glow the full moon gave everything as it flooded the room from the ceiling; every bit of electricity in Fernbrook had been killed during the panic and evacuation.
       "Why did you stop?" 'Rome asked.
       The bottle clinked as Amy slid it onto the table. "Alcohol," she mused, "stops the mind from thinking. It stops the body from yearning. It deadens the senses and dilutes reality." Amy's smile faltered before becoming slack. Her gaze bore through 'Rome, through the wall and the cells behind him, and past the very atmosphere outside into a time which no longer existed and feelings which no longer knew their nature.
       "We're taught to yearn, you know that?"
       It was barely a whisper but there were no noises to fight it. No one moved. The whiskey sloshed within as Amy clasped her hand to the bottle's neck before bringing it back to her lips, her eyes still staring off into dead space. Teeth grinding as she groaned, her voice crawled out:
       "Before they came to get me – I was six, you know that? There…was a time when I was six. And my teacher – Mr. Johnson – once commented that I didn't draw within the lines one time. It was a random assignment to keep us busy – even I knew that; 'didn't see the point. And, for whatever reason, I spent the rest of that year doing whatever he said we should do exactly as he expected them to be done. Nothing…was more important than that he should consider me a good student. I was to be a model and everyone, from my parent to my teachers, were to be able to safely look down on me knowing that I did as was expected. I didn't make waves. I didn't make trouble."
       Amy's eyes shot to 'Rome who was just before the table. Before 'Rome could utter a single suggestion, Amy gingerly placed her hand on his arm. "You are possibly the only person I know I would lay my life down for, 'Rome, but I promise you I will lay you down if you dare to touch this bottle."
       Both hands were pulled in as Amy doubled over, her back heaving as the sound of her hacking gave forth to wheezy laughter. "But when I stopped eating," she guffawed into her hands, "well, it was a little hard to be so perfect." 'Rome stood stonily where he had stepped back to with the exception of his hands which were fidgeting uncontrollably; Chrissy was standing where she had been sitting; James still hadn't moved.
       Amy's chuckling devolved into a listless grin. "You want to be perfect and perfect doesn't starve itself. Perfect doesn't hide food; perfect doesn't count calories; and perfect doesn't ever feel it has to!" Her voice pitched at the ending, riding into a snarl as she pounded the table at each pronouncement.
       As if waiting for the echoing to abate, Amy just sat there.
       "Oh…" she murmured slowly, "but I had to.
       "Because perfect wasn't me and I had to be…perfect." Never breaking eye contact with the wall, she downed another gulp from the bottle. Whiskey had run down her chin and into her lap before she bothered to wipe it away with the back of her arm.
       "Danielle thought I was perfect." Amy's eyes darted up to see none meeting them. "She thought I was positively brilliant." 'Rome's hands had stopped. "She used to hold me and tell me how she knew – the second I couldn't open my mouth while others were present, the way I would try to skip showering just so I'd have more time to work on my drawing, the way I could escape into my own world in spite of everything else that was going on around me, the way I'd push a few strands of hair behind my left ear whenever I was nervous, the way I wanted to learn everything in spite of being taken out of school so young, the way I rarely made eye contact – that she was going to be mine."
       Amy scoffed, shaking her head, as she peered down the opening of the bottle. "She used to say that she didn't believe in suicide notes because the entirety of our life was a death note; what were you going to say when you left?" Amy laughed as she took another swig, chuckling as she tried to swallow her intake.
       The bottle clinked against the table once more as Amy slid it onto the table carelessly. "You know – everyone talks so highly of her now. Even if they're indifferent, they know her name," Amy balked, hunching forward in her chair as she eyed the three in front of her. "They talk about how kind she was, how her charity knew no end. They talk about her patience, her tranquility, her selfless nature. Want to know how she died?"
       It wasn't really a question.
       Amy contorted into a twisted grin that etched sorrow, regret, tolerance, patience, and – above all – hatred into the very structure of her face, the sort of complexity that we construct to cling onto the golden calf of a pulse and respiratory-intake. "It wasn't suicide and it wasn't to make more room here; they don't do that: they know that it gives the citizens hope that their family may still be alive and it keeps up the charade that we're kept here with our best interests in mind." The grin was already receding from Amy's face as all emotions and movement shut down other than her memory and voice; it had been so very long since she had last been here.
       "It was a fight; two idiots and she got in the way trying to reconcile. They didn't even check to see if she was O. K. after hitting her head: they just ran."
       'Rome still stood there, the longest he had ever stood still; Chrissy had wound up, sitting, on the floor, her gaze unwavering; James watched on as he had at the beginning, was now, and continued to be.
       "That was it."
       Amy scowled at the floor, seemingly ceasing to linger on the subject. Somewhere in the labyrinth around them, water was dripping. "I try to end up…in a different bed – every night – because I am terrified to go one day without having my flesh pressed up against someone else's." The words slurred until they trailed away into the silence. Amy pitched forward into her hands, her fingers twitching for strands of hair to twist themselves into as she tugged at her scalp. "Because maybe," she growled from within her veil of black hair, "it'll make up for every scream of fear, every fist that punched a wall in frustration from being given no recourse or choice over what they wanted to do, or every bruise or broken nose or finger that I caused. Like maybe I'm giving something back to people. Maybe I'm not really so utterly alone." Amy's elbows rested on her thighs as she rocked her feet back and forth between the heel and her toes. "And, by that morning, I feel empty for once. There's nothing inside vying for attention or just making noise. Everything is blissfully silent. It's only momentary, maybe until I fall asleep and only for five minutes once I wake up, but it empties my body like my brain ensures me not eating would do, as if all other yearnings would cease and all of life would be explained and answered if every last bit was emptied except for my bones." Her fingers twisted themselves more firmly into her locks. "People get it into their head that they're so edgy when they hurt people. They think they're being clever or maybe they're being intellectual." Amy spat it, like the words choked her very insides and she wanted them out. "'Oh, that hurt you? I have the right to say what I want!' 'There's nothing good about humans; we're all animals. Why don't we just accept it?' 'I was hurt in the past: toughen up!' So it's that simple?" As Amy's hair moved back and forth with her movement, the three saw her eyes glaring out from behind the strands. Focused and unblinking, they were no longer lost in time nor space but acutely aware of their surroundings. "I chose, the moment I saw Danielle's body go limp, to make certain that no one would take advantage of me the way they had so thoroughly tossed her aside, regardless the casualties. I know pain. I see it flood the eyes as I stare them down or the way the light dies within yet again just to live another day. I've carried it's blood, soaking, on my hands. It's selfish. I know because I make that choice every day."
       Amy sighed, her hands kneading the sides of her head. "I stopped…drinking, 'Rome, because it makes you think twice about the pain you'll cause; you might even hesitate about whether to make clear that they understand their place and then you spend the rest of that week making sure you didn't make a mistake. Or maybe you become too friendly and then someone else can hurt you all over again. Or, sometimes, it grips you so firmly with guilt that anything else becomes secondary. Other times, you forget that there's anyone really there; every punch and kick is a hit against everyone who ever struck you first, unprovoked. And then you forget to stop. It doesn't feel remotely bad anymore. Ohhh," Amy shuddered, "it's the best damn thing you'll ever feel.
       "And, suddenly, you don't know how to stop."

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