THE RELEASE OF THE PRISONER

The family should be a place of safety for children where they experience the unconditional love of their parents, instead of a danger zone, especially for LGBT youth.

I gathered up some of my things - at least those I could put in a medium-sized suitcase - and made for the front door. I had had enough of the insults and snide remarks which had been levelled at me for so long. 

They supposedly were my family but they acted like strangers to me, who were out to quarantine me in some kind of detention. Sometimes I was in fact locked in my room for days on end and meals would be sent up to me. I assume it was to try and teach me a lesson, keeping me in isolation, so I didn’t contaminate my other siblings.

My life had gone into freefall, as soon as my parents had found out from a third party I was not their ideal son, who would get married and have children, so the family name could be perpetuated, but I had turned out to be one of those hateful queers. 

The third party was in fact my school principal, who, not realizing they didn’t know, had blurted out what I had been waiting to reveal at an opportune moment, which now would never come. He had reported I had been bullied because of my being a homosexual. It had been a blunt statement, which possessed no redeeming features to it to make it more palatable to my traditional parents, whose single fundamentalist doctrine seemed to be restricted to hating f*****s and perverts.

Today they proceeded to administer tough love on me - punching and kicking me violently and swearing to high heaven as they did so. This ordeal lasted a good ten minutes, until they got too exhausted to continue. It was then I made my mind up I was going to leave them and never see them again except in a court of law. In the good book it says: “Seek and you will find, ask and it will be given to you.”

Well, I was ready. I did not bid anyone of my family farewell, but uttered a promise to myself I would see to it my parents would not get away with the violence they had meted out to me for the offence of telling them I was gay. I knew which church they attended and for one brief second thought what it would be like to watch it burn to the ground, preferably with the pastor inside.

I was at the front door and opened it. At once I heard noise behind me. “Good riddance. You are no longer my son. Rot in hell.” It was my mother, my own mother who had carried me in her womb from which I was born as a beautiful baby to be cuddled and nurtured by her. She was to me now a she-devil, and I was not the one in hell right now. She had placed herself there by her words and actions. I was not going to give her the satisfaction of replying to her diatribe.

I crossed the threshold and moved into the light of a new day. I did not slam the door. I firmly closed it of my volition, knowing I did not intend to open it again.

I walked down the street, putting more and more distance between me and my past, which had ended that morning. As I planted each step along my journey, I began to realize two things. Firstly, I had a future to which I could look forward. It was crowded with adventurous possibilities and I could take advantage of any of them, because I was now the one who alone would make my decisions and live with the consequences of those decisions. 

I was becoming aware of a gradual release-like emotion, as I visualized a butterfly, emerging from its chrysalis and then drying its wings in the sun, before it was able to fly. Freedom is an ecstatic experience when you first encounter it. If you have been in prison for a very long time, it takes a while to get used to the outside world, which is welcoming you into its midst. I had been a prisoner for all my life until I started walking away from the house of pain. 

Some of the time I did not realize I thought living there was normal and there was no life beyond which had any meaning, but inside my inner core I wrestled with the truth that conflicted with what was supposedly normal, and slowly the normal changed to abnormal and unnatural, and I rebelled against it and craved for my freedom.

Announcing that I was gay to my homophobic parents was my declaration of independence. The ensuing war lasted barely a few hours before I won my victory and left the field of broken images and dead bodies. 

I took my standard with me as a reminder of what I had achieved. I knew that whenever the occasion demanded it I would unfurl it, so it fluttered in the wind and the sun lit up the colours. From now I would always have a smile on my face and an inner peace to fill time and space.

Reviews

[Chopstix]

I found this story through the new Discover feature. I scanned through at least ten stories before choosing to read years, so, to me, your story stands out.

This story reads like non-fiction. If so, I agree that your family acted poorly. I can’t recall where the story is set, but it does not seem like California where child abandonment, even kicking/driving out undesired teenagers, is against the law.

There is one detail which throws me off. At first the story states:
My life had gone into freefall, as soon as my parents had found out from a third party I was not their ideal son
but later:
Announcing that I was gay to my homophobic parents was my declaration of independence.
Though not entirely incompatible, “Confirming” seems a better choice than, “Announcing.”

In a similar light, the first paragraph makes it seem like the situation brewed for a long time before boiling over. The body of the story leads me to believe it happened in a flash after the principal inadvertently outed the narrator.

The best advice in writing is to simply tell your story. Despite the statement’s simplicity, it’s one of the hardest things to do. Authors need to imagine and re-imagine their story until the right angle brings it out as if the telling were straight forward and natural. This is true for both fiction and non-fiction. I recently watched Amazon’s Good Girl Revolt. Set in News(of the)week’s offices in 1969/70, reporters struggle to find the right angle (approach). All news, all stories are slanted (a fact which bolsters, but does not validate, Trump’s “fake news” claims). Told with the a right slant, stories seem simple, natural, compelling and true. In other angles, the same stories seem forced, contrived and false (even when the same set facts/details support both stories).

Even though the first paragraph drew me in (over several other stories), it does not fit in with the more compelling body of this story. This story needs editing to find a better angle.

While reading, I also felt the story needs editing to reduce word count at sentence and paragraph level. Although I felt the facts/details interesting, I also felt I needed to wade through too many words to get to them. (’ll be glad to provide details if requested, but since I recommend a rather dramatic edit, it doesn’t make sense to tune sentences).

Keep writing.