Winter Break

Chapter 1

I only wish I could have spent a normal Christmas vacation – but if anything it was far from that. I already knew we weren’t like most families, anyway. My mom would ask my brother and me what we wanted for Christmas, and we’d make a list on Amazon of the things we wanted. We always got to spend almost $200 on our gifts. He’d spend on DVDs of the latest shows like Heroes, Lost, How I Met Your Mother, 30 Rock, The Office, and whatever else generally played these days. I, however, had gone from a gigantic yaoi manga nut, to a book nerd. I had planted lots of teen fictions on my list, complete with a couple DVDs (which were gay movies, might I add) and a couple mangas (Vampire Kisses volumes one and two and one of the latest volumes of Junjo Romantica).

Now, for those of you who don't know the terms, "yaoi" would be a form of male on male sexual activity. In other words: gay sex. And the other term "manga" could basically be summed up as a Japanese graphic novel. Which is much different from a comic book. For one thing, a normal comic book is in color, and are generally thinner than those of the Japanese kind. Mangas, however, are told in the opposite way of reading a normal comic book. In other words, you read from right to left.

Anyway, I knew as long as I got my s**t, I’d be happy. Despite what I said and how I acted, it really didn’t take much for me to feel some tiny pinch of joy. I didn’t care if it was seeing Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist for a second time in the movie theater, or watching reruns of Queer As Folk – as long as it was something I liked, I was happy. And I had gotten my stuff. And I was happy. I loved running my fingers along the glossy covers of my teen fictions and smelling them with their freshly just-been-opened smell. Because my bookshelf carried all my Japanese-styled-English-translated graphic novels, I knew I had basically no room for any more than a few more mangas before I had a full shelf of yaoi goodness, so I had to put my books in a Chinese food delivery box I had found and a white bin, because all my stuff didn’t fit in the Chinese box.

I could feel my head become as crowded as the mall on a Saturday afternoon. With all the books surrounding me, I didn’t know which one I wanted to start with. I always read my books in a specific way. If it was a series, I would have to read it all. I couldn’t go to a stand-alone book without reading all the books to a series I owned. And if the author had more books that I had bought, I had to read all their books. I couldn’t go to a different author.

I know that sounds rather odd, but I found myself being loyal to authors that way by sticking out to read all their works.

But as winter vacation went on, I found myself not reading the books I had gotten or watched the movies. Instead, I found myself sitting in front of my computer screen with the TV on, and finding myself slowly going insane.

Ever since I had experienced that night when the dark seemed to turn on me, I had not been able to go outside. In fact, I had done whatever I could to not go out. I didn’t even want to go out to get groceries from my mom’s car, but I knew I had to or else my brother would begin to b***h at me to help. The worst part was, both of them seemed to take forever to get the groceries into the house! And considering the three cats I own - two of which could not go outside because they are raised as indoor cats and one who was basically raised as an outdoor cat - could not go outside. And when they did go out, it was sometimes hard to get them back in. When they ran out, the first thing they did was run to the tall grass and begin to munch on it. If they stayed out long enough, eventually they would find the catnip on the ground. And let me tell you - a cat on catnip is not a good at all.

The last time my brother had tried to pick up one of the cats, he had gotten sliced across the back of his arm. A long trail of blood immediately began to show, and I knew no band-aid could even cover up that ugly mark.

But as I stayed indoors - my fat body practically in a fetal position in my computer chair - my thoughts ran so wild like they never had before.

As a teenager, I know that from time to time, we must at least get the typical thoughts of: who am I? Why am I here? What’s the point in life? When am I going to die? What's it like to die?

I had had these thoughts. I was lucky enough, though, that when I was younger I had been all into a Goth phase that all I could care about was Hot Topic this and Slipknot that and vampires this that when these thoughts came to me, they didn’t even affect me. They came and they went, like my family when we would go to see my dad’s side of the family for holidays. Unlike everyone else, we didn't live in Danbury, Connecticut, so the fact that we live in the next town instead of that one made it rather difficult to see my Grandma. The main reason because no one really wanted to drive all that way.

But over that Christmas break, a thought that had never accord to me suddenly came to me.

What exactly controls me?

Now, I know the brain basically controls the body, but I was talking about in a soul-type of way. I was wondering: who or what is inside my body that is keeping me from killing myself? What is controlling me from not chugging a bottle of pills or taking a knife to my heart? What makes me pick up the remote even if my brain isn’t thinking of me to pick it up? What is inside of me that makes me who – or what – ever I am?

And with these thoughts running rapidly through my head, my hand – or someone’s hand – reached out and grabbed hold of the arm of my computer chair. My body suddenly felt empty and hollow and I was beginning to know what it felt like to be a doll. To be nothing but this empty thing with glassy eyes staring back at the world. It was odd. But it was mostly scary.

My heart beat faster, and my breath came out shallower. I could feel myself grow dizzy with the thought that had never once in my life occurred to me. I couldn’t help but wonder where the random thought had come from, and why it was affecting me at sixteen. I shouldn’t have thoughts like that. My thoughts should be filled with boys and school and music and fantasies. Not thoughts of what was in my body controlling me.

But as my vacation continued on, the thoughts just got worse. Not only was the thought of whatever was controlling me scaring me, but other thoughts came to me that had caused me to shelter myself inside like the coward I had felt like all winter break.

I realized that what had happened to me that night I tried to walk and ran back inside was something that had to do with gravity. All the sixteen years I had been on this planet, I had never had a second thought about gravity. I knew what it was, sure. I knew we were on the ground because of it, yes. But never in my life had I given it a second thought. Never in my life had I ever thought, until after that night: what if gravity suddenly disappears?

I had been sitting in my computer chair, when the thought came. It was nice-looking outside, with the bright sun shining right through my yellow sheet-turned-into-curtain curtain.

My hands automatically went for the handles of the chair, petrified at the sudden new thought. What if it disappears? What if it disappears? What if it disappears?!

My brain screamed the thought, eventually giving me a bad headache. As much as I tried to get rid of it – tried to watch Disney and Nickelodeon and think of open fields filled with bunnies and flowers (which wasn’t a good idea, considering the thought was scarier in an open field with nothing above my head but the never ending sky) – nothing was working.

Eventually my thoughts had gotten so bad I would not go outside for anything. I didn’t walk anymore, and if I had to go outside, it was for taking out garbage and getting groceries, which I did as quickly as possible so I could get back to the safe haven of my room.

My room had completely become my little comfort zone. I didn’t feel safe anywhere else except for there. Its size wasn’t gigantic – in fact, I grew a fear of being in open, high places – but it wasn’t small – not that I was claustrophobic, which seemed to be the only fear I hadn’t gotten over break – but it had that just right feel to it. The walls were white, with stains of dark colors that could have been food for all I knew. Cobwebs hung in the corners of every section, some designed by what seemed to be very talented spiders and others that just seemed to hang there because the spiders were too lazy to put effort into them. One corner of my room held my computer, while right across from it sat my TV and DVD player. My bed was now a dark blue couch that could turn into a fold-out bed, but because there was no room for it, I just slept on the couch. Which turned out to be more comfortable than I thought. A bookshelf made my room complete – considering it was filled with three rows of yaoi mangas and some novels.

All I could do over winter break was sit in my room in such fear. I had never felt so terrified in my whole life until the thoughts of gravity came. I had never questioned things such as that. And it was all because I just wanted to go walking.