Feather

This story touches on depression, religion, and different ideas.. Wrote while feeling creative

Feather

One time after another I take the steps to the place where I have tried to forget. One step in that direction and my stomach becomes butterflies. There must be a million in there. I cannot hear my own thoughts over all the flapping of their colourful patterned wings. My heart like a pin on a tattoo pen pumping in and out at 2000 miles per second. God I wish I could erase my life.

  The sidewalk is covered in fleshly powdered snow and my footprints are so delicate and normal that I envy their existence. I’ve never had the chance to be normal nor delicate. My life has been surrounded by chaos and hardships that make me numb inside.  My name is Ben Wilman, I wish I could say that I have brown hair, green eyes; 5 and a half feet tall, with a slight lisp, but that would be an understatement. In reality I’m cold, alone, sad, and scared; scared to live, scared to be.

   When I was born I killed my mother. She gave her life so I could have mine, though at this moment I would go back in time and change it all. I had no father, one sister Rebecca Wilman. She was 11 years old at the time of my unfortunate birth and the death of my caring but ignorant mother.  Rebecca was a good student, good teeth, glowing skin, and kind to others, always happy. All of it though changed after only two minutes of my first screaming breath. Once she heard about our mother her small small feeble heart broke into to million pieces which she forgot on the seat where she sat waiting at the hospital. She began to distance herself from me and our exaggerated 15 different foster parents. At the age of 14 I was told she had been selling her body to the men outside of the Drunken Pipe Bar down on third street. She would come home and have blood shot eyes and buries shaped like a hand from the night before, which I never understood at the time.  All out foster parents tried to stop her, but all the moving around gave her new places to traffic herself. She eventually ran away and her body was found in a ditch two weeks later. She’d be raped and left there to die. I can’t help but to blame myself for this inconvenient death. Who would she have been if had not been.

   Now I am crossing the rows of tomb stones marking the place of a person’s eternal rest, oh how I envy them too. I have been surrounded by death my whole life, this seems proper and the only thing normal in my life. Though my steps were painful and scared me, they lead to stone titled Debra Wilman, 1963-1985. A small insignificant stick in the mud surrounding by hundreds more, but now the coldness and numbness set in, as I was reminded of my birth date, Monday, January 2^nd, 1985.

***

    I walk through the small front door and I am confronted with twelve scrounged up letters on the floor. Electric, heating, rent, what’s the use if I have never felt them? I drop my coat and scarf to the floor, slip out of my holey boots and continue walking to the end of the hall. Every room that I pass is empty, dark, and gloomy; no pictures, furniture, or television, just empty space that consumes me. I walk to the last door and turn the rusted knob to reveal a mattress and sheet on the floor. I crawl onto it and contortion my body into a ball as I stare at the old stripped wall paper falling off the crumbling pasture. I wish my mother and sister could see me now, suffering. I hope they laugh and call me pathetic. A single salty tear drips down my face and onto the already stained mattress I am alone and nothing can change that.  

    My eyes ease open as I hear the sound of my apartment buzzer going off. My instincts tell me to get and answer but my brain and heart are completely shut down trying to drown out the sound. After a few minutes of silence it starts again, I wait until it stops and I close me eyes. Again with that buzz noise. Out of annoyance I untangle my body and I slowly stand up. Hunched over I make my approach to the grey box by the front door. I press the right button, “Hello?”

“Package for Mr. Wilman,” the static box replies.  

I press the bottom again, my figure almost slipping off, “I didn’t order anything. Return to sender.”

Like the volume has been turned up the character on the other side says, “It’s from a Mr. Fredric Wilman.”

   My mind begins to question the realism of the unknown characters last comment. I’ve never made contact with another Wilman, aside from my sister, God rest her young soul. “I do not know who that is. Send it back.” I didn’t want to know, why hurt more people?

“He told me that I can not take no for an answer, sorry sir but you are going to have to let me in.”

  I contemplate of this interaction with another human. I held down the button and I released another loud buzz but of a different pitch. I sat down on the dirty floor put my head between my knees and now I regret letting the feminine voiced character in.

   After what felt like seconds the feminine character knocked in a joyful tune on my door. I created a circle of dirt on my floor and I awkwardly raise my body to look through the peep hole. As my left eye focuses in on the female on the other side my heart skips a beat. Her hair like fire, eyes blue as the sky, and her strong chin made me twitch. What was I feeling? I open the door slowly and I poke my head through. She looks better in person and not through glass. “Uh...just lea-ve the package on the ground, I’ll g-et it whe-en you leave.”  My eyes fell to look at the package, the perfectly wrapped paper bag brown parcel...  the one from Fredric. I found it hard to focus on such a thing that was only 10 inches away from me. It made my stomach turn thinking about opening it. I did not want to touch it.

   “I will need your signature sir,” she gives me a questioning look as she follows my gaze. “You know what? I’ll sign for it myself, have a great day,” she squats down and places the box on the floor then flips her hair and off she went to the elevator. I watch her as she walks away and until the doors close and the glowing red number read ‘G’. Once I knew she left the building her image was stuck in my mind. I open the door a tad bit more and grab the package from the ground.

    I step onto the dirt circle I created and ruined it as I walk quickly back to my mattress. I throw the box to the other side of the room and plumped down on the mattress to fill the crevasse that my body had made. I close my eyes.

    “Mama, mama, hold me mama,” I woke myself up again. I sit up on my bad and rub my eyes of the salty tears to notice that I was surround by black, it was sometime during the night. I do not keep track of time. It had been another reoccurring dream about my mother, but this time it started with the package woman holding me in her arms; comforting me, but as I felt more comfortable I could feel her body changing. When I looked up to see who or what she had become I saw bright green eyes and brown curly hair that depicted my mother. She was holding me like a new born baby swaying back and forth.

   The sweat was almost completely dry as I found the rectangle shape of the package. Fredric Wilman, I thought to myself. Who is he and why has he chosen to contact me now?  Again like a rapid fluttering of butterflies, my stomach began to squirm and I lean over cradling my stomach and I vomit on the floor. It was clear, nothing but liquids. Feeling slightly better I ignore the puddle of bodily fluids and crawl over to the package.  I grab it and hold it in my hands. My heart skipping beats gives me shock after shock to remember to breath. I ripped off the packaging starting on one corner and then unhurriedly taking it all off.

  It was a white box with a feather attached to the top. Sitting awkwardly I take off the top. When I look inside there was only a piece of paper at the bottom. I take it out toss the box aside and read it on the verge of tears:

Dear Ben,

My name is whatever you want to call me. I am your father, the one that brought you into this world and it seems fit that I tell you where and what you are...

    Right now you have been living in your own personal hell for reasons that I will now discuss: your hell is a one that continuously tests your thoughts, actions, and words. To end your life, you committed suicide. You killed yourself by an over dose of anti-depressants. You were sick and you blamed yourself for the death of your mother and sister and your break up with your girlfriend Charlie, the red headed, blue eyed, parasol deliverer, who broke your heart.

    Everyday you will live the same day with the same darkness and emptiness and it will be your eternal resting place. You took the cowards way out and now you shall reap the benefits. You are now a headstone, stuck in the mud. Do you still envy them? Remember that I will always love you and this is only hell, at least you finally know who you are.

                               God is love  

 

 

    In the darkness I sit there weeping, my hair hanging in my eyes. As I read the last phrase it seems as if all the peices fit and as the tear dangling from my noise falls to the letter, it turns into a white dove and flies out the window. Nothing in me could move or think. I was unable to speak. After a few minutes of kneeling I fall over on my side. My eyes feel so heavy, I closed them hoping to not fall asleep.

Darkness overcomes me...

***

My eyes open and...  One time after another I take the steps to the place where I have tried to forget. One step in that direction and my stomach becomes butterflies. There must be a million in there. I cannot hear my own thoughts over all the flapping of their colourful patterned wings

 

                           By: E. DenimGoldfish

Author's Note

This is my first short story... I understand that it need some tweaking but positive constructive criticism is welcome!

Reviews

[CassieLynne]

Wow this was really good, I have read this story before when you showed it to me a while ago, but I like the editing you did. Good job Vonce :)