The Scream

This is a short little story about whatever you perceive it to be; a depiction of society's constructs and perceptions of the 'outsider'... or maybe just a story about two not-so-seperate lives colliding.

She stands in the courtyard alone,
Even when it's raining.
I want to talk to her.
I should talk to her.
But they say she's messed up.
What if they're right...
To be honest...
She most probably is.

 

Another mess of scribbles on the end half of my exercise book page. A page that's supposed to be devoted to Art History. Another page that ends with my thoughts about her.

I glance out the window again and see her, still and vacant like a statuette, beaming into the empty school field over yonder. I see her shiver, tuck her fringe behind her ear before fiddling with her sketch pad and pencil. What is she drawing? The empty field? Why?

"Now if you look at these slide that depicts The Scream by Edvard Munch..." My teacher steals my attention towards a lurid painting projected over our heads. I've seen it before, everyone's seen it before. And yet, everytime I look at it my skin crawls. How did someone create this? A distressed being frozen in time to forever bear a torturous scream of horror with a crimson red skyline above. "Many believe it is meant to portray humanity's existential angst," My teacher puts in and I gaze down to my paper to write this down. No s**t.

I look outside again and see that her head's bent over her sketch pad. What is she drawing? A portrayal of her existential angst? Why? And more importantly... why do I care?

Because she's beautiful. But nobody cares because she's a nobody, an outsider, a freak. She's got no chance in hell of making friends in this place, not since she got here at the start of the year. There's been rumour after rumour and sometimes I believe them too... She's insane, apparently. She's been thrown out of home by her parents, apparently. She's an emo or a goth gone wrong, apparently. She's killed a man... possibly. I have to smirk to myself a little as I walk down the hallway now. She could never have killed someone, she flinches at the sight of anyone crossing her path, immediately casting her eyes downwards and letting her fringe fall over her face. Then there's the rumour I can't help but wonder about; she was abused, tortured... everyday, since she was a child by a drugged up father who killed her mother.

I watch her accross the courtyard now, and she's still drawing. Just sitting there in her crimson red sky in a perpetual scream.

 

 

Someone hear me,
Someone see me,
Someone help me.

 

She glances up at me for a moment and my heart skips a beat. Her eyes send a shiver down my spine instantly. There's something wrong about them... something that almost makes me gasp. So much sadness in those dark grey eyes... they drown me almost instantly.

"What're you looking at, dude?" a friend's voice reels into earshot. "Oh, her. The Goth-tard. Right?" A nudge. He steals the last of my sandwhich but I do not complain. If he only knew how I felt about her. The Goth-tard... right. I hate words like that, remarks like that... but I never protest. I just nod and smile, throw a silent gesture, and pretend... pretend everyday like it doesn't bother me. Pretend everyday like I fit in. Why? Because If I do... then they'll believe it too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why do I exist here?
In a world filled with pretentious pleasantries.
I don't belong here
and neither does she...

 

The courtyard surges empty  the moment the bell rings and instead, I find myself walking towards her. Her head doesn't move, but she senses me as I approach her. "Why were you looking at me?

"What?"

"You were looking at me before. Watching. Why were you doing that?"

"I..." I struggle with the answer. "I don't know."

"It's weird," she offers in a tiny little whisper. Weird? She thought I was weird?

"Don't you go to class?" I ask. She's been out here for hours now.

"My art teacher said I could spend the day out here working on my assignment," She says.

Silence for awhile... a long moment of silence, and I suddenly realise I had never heard her speak before in my life. I just stand there, replaying what she had just said to me in my head, watching her. She turns around a little just then, her face mostly hidden behind her fringe, her shoulders still hunched forward. 

"You're doing it again," She whispers and I laugh a little, blushing slightly. "If you're going to make fun of me just do it and leave,"

I stop. "No," I almost shout, "No, I would never do that,"

"Why not," She replies softly, and it makes me shudder with despair for her, "Everyone else does,"

I sit down next to her and she turns to me slowly, clutching her pencil and sketchpad and looking dead into my eyes with her own. "I'm not everyone else," I reply. Then, something weird happens... she smiles. It's so perfect... I just have to smile too.

"Why are you here?" She asks, her gaze falling to the floor. 

"I don't know," I shrug. "I just wanted to say hi, I guess,"

Another moment of silence and I see the deathly grip around her sketchpad loosen. "Thank you," she whispers finally. 

"For what?"

"For saying hello," she looks up at me again and I see tears in her eyes. I steal a glance at her sketchbook and see a page full of writing instead of drawings. "I think..." She pauses and shudders a little in the cold wind. "You saved my life,"

 

Hand in hand,
She's not like them,
And I am not what I pretend...
We can make so much more sense
Just out there in the throws of chance and serendipity
I saved her life, and she saved me.

Author's Note

The words in itallics are not lines from a song- this is not a songfic. I wrote those lines myself, those are supposed to be the thoughts recorded or written down by the male character in the story.