Hermit Crab

A piece of Sydney's thoughts.

 

I hear…

I hear the knocking on my door and I know it’s Alex. I know…I hear his voice, so it must be Alex.

Must be…

It must be Alex, but…his voice, it sounds like someone else’s. Daddy. No. It’s Alex. We’re in Greece and it’s definitely Alex. Definitely…Yes, definitely. The room here is different than mine back home. The walls are a different color, texture., it smells different, like the beach. Maybe I left my window open too long last night. I don’t usually, the beach smells bother me after awhile. After awhile I feel like a gull or a hermit crab or something.

After awhile…

Alex knocks again after awhile, I can hear him calling for me. Supper’s ready, I’m sure, and Katrina is probably telling him to just let me be if I didn’t want to come. Katrina’s like that, real cool and all about my personal freedom and what I want to do and all that. After all, I’m just a boarder. They shouldn’t care. Alex shouldn’t care.

Shouldn’t…

He shouldn’t care a lick, but he does and that’s what bothers me so much. He likes me, I can tell, and I…I can’t deal with anything like that right now. Too much stress now, much more than I ever anticipated. Everything floods back on me at the oddest times now. Everything I want to forget, I can’t and I hate it.

Hate…

I hate the way it all comes back, the stupid stuff, like how Jason used to drug me up and…touch me. It makes me sick to think about it now, which is why I don’t want any dinner. Too sick to eat, too sick to do anything. Sick, I just lay there, on the bed, too tired to do anything, sick. They worry about me, I know, Alex especially, but I just need to be alone.

Alone…

I’m all alone, but I don’t want to be because I can hear him coming. I hear someone at the door again, but I try to ignore him. He’s not calling for dinner. I can hear what he wants in his voice, and I know there won’t be any knocking. No knocking, ever, never. He doesn’t knock before barging in. I used to have to knock before coming out sometimes, when I was little. Before all the questions, before the social worker found the lock on the outside of my bedroom.

Before…

Before all that had gone down, he didn’t hate me exactly, he just didn’t tolerate me. When it all happened, though, he found out just how I was, and then everything about me was like a stench to him. He hits me on my birthday the hardest, and I know it’s punishment for being born, though I can’t very well help it.

Help…

I need help. He barges in now and the beach smell evaporates from the room. One of the walls turns pitch black, except for the white chalk drawings that skip across the surface. Blood covers my arm and I hold a knife in my left hand, I’m ambidextrous, you know. It’s his hunting knife and I always wonder why I use that knife to mark up my flesh, maybe there’s some sort of psychological reason behind it. My therapist thought there was a psychological reason behind everything I did, but isn’t that what Andrew paid her for, to make up psychological reasons for things. Either way, I had his knife and I was cutting myself with it, and I knew that he was gonna be mad at me for getting blood all over it, even though he hasn’t gone hunting since I was born, and he doesn’t care about the blood all over my jeans or anything, but his knife is different. It’s his.

His…

Everything is his, whether it really is or not, so whatever gets taken I’m blamed for. I’ve tried to brush it off on Andrew a couple of times, but it doesn’t work, he says Andrew’s not dumb enough to take it, implying that I’m dumber than my brother. It’s not true, but I pretend it is because my intelligence is what makes him hate me. When he found out that I was so smart, he started to hate me instead of just dislike me, and I know it’s because I’m smarter than him and his son. He tells himself lies to feel better about himself. Lies about other people, lies about me, lies that hurt.

Lies…

Most of what he says are lies. I’ve never had sex, but the way he talks, you’d think I do it all the time, with any guy I can find, even though I know better, even though I’m saving myself. Reality doesn’t matter because of the lies that muddle his brain, lies that he begins to believe so he can find fault with me, so he has no reason to fault himself.

Fault…

I’m not at fault this time, I know it because I’ve tried to be real good lately. Finals are coming up and I don’t need the stress of CPS looking into my situation during exams. But he doesn’t remember how good I’ve been, or quiet, he just sees the knife and the blood and he remembers why he came in here, I can see it in his eyes. He screams at me, my name, I think my mom picked it out because who else would name their daughter after some city down under, though I kind of want to move there sometime just so I can live in my name, but he’s not screaming about the city right now, wouldn’t it be funny if he was. He yells at me, and I tune it out, carving away at my arm like I always do when I’m feeling down or guilty about something, and when do I ever not feel guilty, so I cut myself up all the time, sometimes I don’t even notice that I’m doing it.

Notice…

I try not to notice how much I’m shaking from the fear, the fear that maybe he’ll try to kill me again, he tried once, you know, but it was a long time ago. I still shake, I can see it on my arm because I usually cut straight lines and the last two look like lightning bolts or something jagged of that sort and I wonder how I can just calm myself down before I almost kill myself again, I did that accidentally once, though several times were purposeful. I was cutting my palm and I slipped because I was drunk and I didn’t mean to, but it happened and I cut my wrists really deep and my friend, she freaked out about the cutting, even though she was into some other stuff that could have killed her just as easily, crack and the like. But I don’t want that to happen this time, so I slow down a little, just ignoring his ranting and raving about whatever was missing from his stash, I’m sure Andrew took a syringe or something. I never take anything any more because of what happened that time, that time when he tried to do away with me. I never take anything.

Take…

He takes the knife from me, jerks it out of my hand, I can feel the edge cut the flesh on my palm, but I’m used to it so I don’t even flinch. He talks to me, but I don’t hear his words exactly how they come out or anything, I hear something along the lines of the yelling people do when their dog goes on the carpet or something. Bad girl, very bad girl. It hurts less if I just think of it like that, like he’s too dim to tell the difference between a young woman and a dog, it almost makes me laugh and one time I did, but that made him madder, and he hit me hard, so I haven’t since. He hits me now, and I run to my corner to cower, it’s on the chalkboard side of the room and I can see the white chalk coming off on my clothing, but I don’t care because I know how to get any stain out, even blood. Blood used to be hard, but not any more because I’ve had to learn to live with it, make do, so I learned to wash blood out.

Blood…

I taste blood, I see it splatter on the slick floor, I’m always glad that I have hardwood floors in my bedroom because I don’t want my friends to see carpet stains. I’m not sure if the blood is from the wounds I inflicted upon myself or from what he’s doing to me, I can’t tell and I hurt everywhere now, he hits me everywhere, so pain is no real indicator of where the blood comes from. I feel myself letting my mind go so that maybe I can black out, it’s something my body has learned to do under extreme stress, black out so that I don’t have to take any more, I can just sleep, maybe for a few minutes, maybe for the rest of time, I never know when I plunge into the darkness, nor do I care any longer. I just want to fall, fall into it.

Fall…

I fall onto the hard floor, which is strange since I was already on the floor, a crashing sound echoes in my ears, which is hardly strange since the beatings are always accompanied by crashing sounds, maybe he broke my guitar this time, I’ll kill him if he did. The room’s different again, I can smell beach and I suddenly feel like a hermit crab. I hear Alex’s voice, it’s him this time, really, and he’s close by, over me, why am I on the floor, he wonders the same thing that I do. He’s kneeling by me, I can see the tears in his eyes, he was really afraid for a minute, I can tell, he doesn’t cry all that often, though more often than Andrew or Jason. They never cry, ever.

Cry…

I begin to cry hard, I can barely breathe, and it hurts to, even when I can, like a knife slashing through my chest, I can’t bear the pain. Alex asks what’s wrong when he sees the tears and I stammer around an answer, though I know I need to unload on someone, anyone, so I tell him the truth after awhile, about what happened, it seems so real still and I can’t quite tell if it really did happen yet. He hugs me, he loves me I think, but I don’t ask since I can’t bear that, I don’t think, I’m too wounded, plus he doesn’t understand my beliefs and convictions, so it’s a bad match, me and him. I don’t tell Alex about the knife, that I still have it with me, that I’m tempted to use it all the time now. I don’t say a word about the hunting knife.

The knife…

I take the knife out after he leaves my room, and like usual, I stare at it, remembering how it felt to cut into myself, what a release it was, how much better it made me feel. Like usual, I talk to God, though actually, it’s not really usual, it’s a new thing for me, I didn’t used to believe in God because I didn’t have a reason to, but I figure he’s saved my life enough times for me to at least give him the credit of existing, but it’s still not a usual thing since a usual is built up over time and I’ve only really been praying and studying the Bible for a couple of weeks, so it’s not a usual. But I’ve been doing it for a little while, so I figure it’s an almost-usual, which is good enough for me, and I know God doesn’t really care if I’ve been praying for years or seconds, but I remember stuff like this without even being asked, it comes with the territory of being a genius I guess.

Guess…

Guess where I go when I want to talk to God for a long time, I go to the beach and walk and pretend like I’m a hermit crab who has to carry around all this stuff with her, but then I give God my shell, and it always feels better ‘cause I know he’s got everything under control, being the Creator of the universe and all. So, that’s where I go now, carrying the knife even, and I decide that it’s not really the type of shell I want to be carrying around, so I stop for a moment so I can fling the knife into the sea, I hear a splash and watch it sink to the bottom, maybe someone who wants it will find it. I don’t want it, not any more, I don’t want to live like that any longer, hurting myself all the time for no reason at all, no reason at all when God’s got a handle on it.

God…

God and I have a little talk and I think we’re starting to understand each other now, not that he didn’t understand me before, but it’s more like I finally get him, after years of denying his existence, I finally understand him just a little bit. It makes me feel better when I take my walks with God and unload on him, it’s way better than venting on Alex, though that has its place and everything, but Alex doesn’t know what to do with me when I talk like that, and even though God doesn’t really talk back, the silence isn’t all awkward and he doesn’t try to act like it’s no big deal, even though he’s horrified. I’m sure he’s seen worse than I have, being omnipresent and everything, and I know he understands my feelings even more than I do, he even created my dad, though I can barely believe that, and he loves him, I do, too, you know, but it’s not as hard for God, I’m sure, since he’s all-loving and I’m sure if my dad ever thought about God or Jesus as more than an expletive, then I’d see him in a different light, too. He’d be so different if he ever asked Jesus into his life.

Different…

I talk about different things with my God, my Jesus on the way home, I’m over the whole flashback at this point, since I mulled over it a long time and the knife’s gone, so there are no more reminders, I don’t know why I kept it in the first place. I pray about my daddy, about his salvation, maybe, I’m not like one of those people who harbors so much anger that they can’t stand the thought of something good happening to the person who did them wrong, I want my dad to get better so he can have what I have now.

Now…

Now that I’m done with talking about my dad, I talk to God about Alex, the feelings for him that have risen in me, I don’t understand it. I don’t want love or anything like that, I’m not the romantic I used to be, reading Romeo and Juliet every few months and mulling over Pride and Prejudice every summer, those things aren’t real priorities now. Alex doesn’t feel the same way, though, Katrina says so, and I believe her, but I don’t want to hurt him, so I tell God all this, and how I want things to stay like they are and I think we’ve reached an understanding once again. And I figure that whatever happens with all of that, God knows what he’s doing and I almost hear him whisper in my head. I hear him say to me, I’ve got you covered.

I hear…

Reviews

[Hannah!]

I'm really impressed with the character you've created here. That's what I think stood out to me the most about this piece--the whole thing is really and truly excellently written, but Sydney, wow. She blew me away. You just climbed right into her head, and the whole way this thing was set up--the connecting words between the paragraphs--made for a great story to read. I loved the end. I loved that the story had a hopeful turn of events, rather than ending with Sydney in the same bad place she started in. I have no idea how many times I've heard God say more or less those very words to me. That is a really cool thing. ^-^

Great story. Seriously.

[kbob]

I think that most people would be very surprised at how many others can relate to this story. Everyone has something that they want to forget. We hope to keep it out of our thoughts and leave it all behind. then it can be over. But these are just dreams. We believe that forgetting makes things better because it is all we have the power to do. Because we want to. These mistakes, made by you or by someone else, no matter how drastic the consequence is, are there forever for a reason. The reason is that God is thhere to protect us from this happening again. Why should we forget about that?

Its sad that most people don't learn this without a personal experience. Either way, this is a great write. It really dives deep into one's heart and returns to the surface with the most magnificent treasures.

About the contest, the general theme of parental abuse and depression is, sadly, less than original, but the writing style and feelings coming from it are amazingly creative. I can't say anything as to where that puts you as this is one of the first submissions that I've read, but I wouldn't hesitate to put money on at least the top ten :)

Keep writing and good luck

[Song of Mercy]

I was there. You and I definately created today. With your pen and my interpretation a life was born. The true and only life at times for me...the life within a story. I loved this. I am sorry I do not know the ins and outs of critical review, but I know what I like, and this I like. Thanks, Barb

[Dempsey Wilson (D.L. Wi..]

Wow! Very powerful story! It has the ring of truthfulness. Quite a unique format, as well. This is the most original work I've seen in a while. Congrats on presenting a deeply emotional piece of literature. Well-done, indeed.

[Kristen R. Heyl]

I am not a very religious person though I do believe in God. This moved me and it's a smooth read with real smooth transitions.