PART 1: Never the Same Again

The first chapter, the worst news.

Boxes of truth are, despite being unexpected, are always labelled:

THIS WAY UP

HANDLE WITH CARE

BREAKABLE

And when given these boxes we are always given a chance, a small split second chance to see this, to know this is what the truth is, breakable.

It says THIS WAY UP for the truth can be turned upside down, and the truth handled the wrong way up is no longer the truth. It is a lie. There still may be some truth in it, but it has lost all its purity and honesty it once had. We all know of and aware of these upside down packages delivered to us sometimes from the government itself, though often we don’t recognize them.

The box says you need to be HANDLE WITH CARE, BREAKABLE a warning to the receiver that everyone reacts in different ways and that it is now your responsibility to do with it what you wish, but preferably do the right thing.

There are some eager to open such packages and when they do a few are happy or relieved, but most stare into its black emptiness and are disappointed. But it’s a number much greater than that who choose not to open it at all in fear of what it contains. And in their fear they tremble forget the warning and let the box slip from there fingers where it then crashes to the floor…

The truth is broken before it is even known to the world. And as they sweep up the mess their mind plays with them, creating lies of its own, pretending the box never came.

It was never here.

IT NEVER HAPPENED.

IT NEVER EXISTED.

 

And even now as I open the door and take the box from the police officer and shuffle through its contents, my mind has trouble believing the truth.

The one I loved, the dearest to me-

IS DEAD.

 

It was too much so suddenly to take it all in. I wanted to explode. Explode with what? Grief? Sadness? Anger? Fear?  It was a huge mix of all emotions, I wanted to be sick. It’s like when painting; the colours are beautiful on there own, and even are still beautiful when mixed with one or even sometimes two other colours. But if you try to mix all the colours to create the ultimate colour, all you get is yucky brown.

So there I was; sitting on the couch head in hands-yucky brown.

 

Soon I was able to let myself explode. There were different spats-splatters of colour on the canvas; Flowing tears of blue streaking down, then a vomit of sickly yellow before finally ending up with a blast of red anger and broken glass.  And the glasses that were not broken were filled and drained, filled and drained with a flowing, sickly liquid in a red bottle...and once more all the primary colours were mixed...a painters worst nightmare, my worst nightmare.

But as the sky grew dark and the moon came out...

The painting vanished.

The painter died.

And the bottle of yucky brown sent me into a deep dreamless sleep.

 

When I woke up the next morning on the genuinely fake leather sofa my mind had already begun to compute the events from the night before and despite the haziness had already begun to mock me like it did on most days...

Look at yourself, drinking! ... Are you going to grieve your whole life then, eh?...Wallow in your sorrow all day?

Wallow in sorrow? I chuckled at this, I don’t know why I thought it funny. I suppose I thought it was odd that I would even come up with such a phrase and how instantaneously I came up with a new word for it: swallow.

And at that moment, fate I guess you could call it, I looked outside my window and saw a swallow, the bird I mean. And then my mind attacked again.

See!?  Not even a swallow swallows, it just keeps flying on. Now get up and get ready for work!

And so without another thought I obediently got up and headed for the shower.

 

It’s quite amazing really, how comforting routine is. As I showered and then pulled on my clothes I almost completely forgot last night. It was only as I walked towards the towards the front door to yell;

‘Goodbye honey, I love you!”

That it suddenly hit me that something was different and would never be the same again.

Author's Note

Written when I was 14.
So I know improvement is required, but I've known it for so long I wouldn't know where to start.

Any thoughts, comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated.