Red Paint Upon A Canvas Street

Misery has consumed me again, as I fall back down, down into the treacherous storms of nightmares and seas of lost hope. Sheer desperation to live is the only thing driving me anymore. To the world I am a placid face, numb to the happenings around me. Inside I am on fire, burning to heal, yearning to be whole again, if only for a moment. The car my earthly body sits in pulls into a gravel drive, pulling me from my inner-most despair. This grey, crumbling, barred building marks my journey of recovery. The massive columns hold the roof, which seems as though it would fall if they were ripped out from under. My heart lurches and the voices rise up, as a tide crashing against my senses, and everything goes black.

My eyes bleach white and then the normal scenery arises. My father knocking on the door, pounding, yelling, cursing, shoving. Barging in he throws his drunken, fumbling self upon me. I scream, but his hands smothering my face muffle in the night. Even better than reliving the scene, my own special commentary kicks in. The slithering, piercing, prying voices start, telling me it’s my fault, letting me know I'd done wrong. His hands hold tight on my wrists but then his urge diminishes and he lets go. The voices subside and give way to his disgusted and trembling face. My earth lips move as I replay the words that constantly ring through. "Oh God" I mumble "You, daughter of Satan. Stop theses incessant urges. It's your fault. It's your fault..." The voices trail off and my worldly reality shatters through the replay. I feel hands upon me, gripping, and as it registers they're touching me I flail, screaming, screeching a barely audible "Don't touch me! It's my fault! It's my fault..."

The doors shut behind me, and the gate behind them. I calm myself, stroking my bruised and battered arms. Chills rise over me, shaking this body uncontrollable, even in the August heat. Sitting in the lobby of the cold, desolate place that screamed of agony and pain was the longest 15 minutes of my life. My eyes played tricks on me, turning smiles into oozing, melting forms with blood trickling to the ground. The tiles on the floor swirl around, twisting, gripping on to the feet of those touching it. Trying for safety I pull my feet under me, in a perched position, staring at the clock as the numbers fall off at every tick, tick, tick... Finally, after an eternity of apparitions hazing my view, a frozen, grey haired doctor made his way through the white-washed double swinging doors and into my life. His cold blue eyes settled on mine, sending chills down my spine and pushing forth a forced smile. Words buzz past me as mother casually strikes up a conversation, and life jumps into the mans face. Mother has always been good at that. As long as I can remember she's been charming and sweet, charismatic and bright. The woman could do everything I could not; she could even sing men into a sweet lull of reminiscing.

The storm cloud rose over my soul as I once again became swallowed into a terrifying memory. Mommy had been vacuuming the house when a man called upon her. It had been early, because she was still in her robe and Daddy has just left for work. The mysterious stranger brought her lilies, her favorite flower. She pulled him inside without a moment’s hesitation and grabbed his coat and hat. I sat on the living room floor, playing with dolls the visitor from the day before had given me. Mommy said it was a game. If I did not bother her while her and her friends were here, and if I swore not to tell Daddy, then I could have all the toys I wanted. Mommy and the man walked up the stairs and I heard the door shut behind them. My job while they were up there was to be on the lookout in case Daddy came home. That was the only reason I should ever bother her, she had told me. As I sat on the rug playing with my beloved dolls I heard Daddy creep in the back door. He grabbed me by the hair and pulled me to my feet. "Where's your mother, you little bitch?" His breath smelled heavily of the whiskey I was so used to. Before a cry could pass through my trembling lips he took his other hand and covered my pale, drained face. He dragged me up the stairs, slowly as not to strike up suspicious noise. But upon reaching the platform at the top he threw me against his bedroom door. "You open that" he insisted, his eyes blazing into my seven year old soul. "Open the door and let that skank know who's home." As the door creaked open slowly the picture faded, burning in my eyes until I sit screaming, tearing at my bandages, with those cold blue judging eyes staring at my sobbing, ugly face.

Hour upon hour passed by slowly in the sterile, sane, unwavering waiting room. Clipboards littered the waiting table as I dismally applied yet another John Hancock to a grimacing line. Stale french fries fell from my lap as I squirmed to hide from my own sights. My heart beat rapidly and my eyes grew wide when I realized mother was standing up to go. When I tried to grab her, to hold on and never let go, my arms fell like cement and would not let the weight subside. Screams took place in mind, forming clinging shapes, but not passing through to reality. She turned before she walked out the barred front door. A flash went off in my mind, capturing a lovely woman in her mid forties, lavender dress suit worn crisply without a single fold, hair ruffled slightly in the usual, delicate style. Her grey eyes locked upon me and then I saw that hidden look she'd always held. There was no grief to leave her only daughter behind, no despair, no upset. But there, in the waiting room, she shot her most heartfelt emotion at me, piercing my already singed heart. Pure black hatred bubbled from here core, lunging at me, trying to take my life.

The doors of time swung shut upon me as I watched my mother walk away from my tormented soul for the very last time. Barely 15 words had come in my direction from her mouth on the 18 hour car ride from her posh home in Washington DC to this intrepid, yet helping place. A larger woman with a warm smile pushed a rickety wheelchair into view. Aha! Cackled one of my many inner demons, our chariot awaits!

As the straps came over my wrists and ankles my visions blurred back seven years, strapping me into a car seat in a white sedan. My aunt had agreed to take me away for a while, to be safe from my parents' fighting, so I could at least get a little sleep at night. I liked my aunt, she smelled of sweet perfume and fresh-cut flowers because she constantly worked in her garden. She was nothing like my mother, even though they shared bloodlines. She was shy and humble, always helpful, always kind. She had no children of her own, and so when she visited it was almost like Christmas. Every night she would tuck me in by telling me a story and giving me a kiss. And every time we got in the car she would give me a piece of licorice for being good. As she slid the grey seatbelt across my car seat I gnawed on my licorice in sweet reverence to happy traditions. Things made more sense when she was around and she treated me like a big kid, not just a shy, good for nothing four year old. We pulled out of the driveway into the rainy grey alley on K Street. My aunt told me we were going to the zoo today, to look at the pandas. Even though I'd never said a word to anyone she could see the excitement building on my face. A big, warm, comforting grin appeared across her face and she patted my leg. The roads were slippery, glossed with oil from dripping cars and cracked from the draught of months before. My eyes lit up as I saw a nametag on the dashboard "cl-" I stuttered. Surprised, my aunt glanced over but then put her eyes back on the road. "Clara!" I managed to mutter. My aunt looked at me, amazed that I'd finally spoken my first word and in awe that it was her name. At that exact moment a truck flew around the corner and ran head on into the white sedan. I sat on the ambulance bed as they pulled her mangled, decapitated body from the remnants of the car.

A sudden jolt opened my eyes to the present. A small white room sat before me, with two beds and straps to match. The plump woman with the kind face got me settled in the bed closer to the window. She muttered something inaudible about getting more sunlight, which is good. As she set my sedative in my veins I looked up at her and saw a warm, comforting smile. "I think I'll call you Clara." was the last thing I said before plunging into a dark, unpleasant sleep. As I was drifting off I could smell the faint waft of fresh-cut flowers and sweet perfume.

The week following my arrival is really all a blur to me. Most time was spent in peaceful submission to the drugs, occasionally waking to the smiling face of Nurse Clara. On day six my inner voices finally subsided and the world's haze came back into focus. Clara was tending to my arms when I came to, and upon seeing my eyes flutter open her face turned to a broad grin. "Hey there honey, how you feelin' today? You been out of it since ya got here." Within a matter of minutes I was standing, shaking the sleep off my numb but restless body. Clara helped me dress; choosing a light blue cotton dress with yellow flowers that mother had packed for me. After taking the necessary time to deal with hygienics, Clara opened the door from my suite so we could walk the grounds. The hallway was bare, lit by beaming fluorescent lightings, with doors on left and right as far as the walls ran. After turning a corner the scenery changed, windows looked out to trees, flowers, and the outside world. An elevator stood on the right side of the hall and we stopped in front of it. Clara, with her hands full of my medical records and a shawl in case I got cold, asked me to press the golden plated "up" button.

Stepping into the cold, padded elevator was like stepping into another dimension. Flashes of color came at me, looking to harm and laugh menacingly at my pain. I could hear screams, people shooting, bullets whizzing through the air. One cracked my skull and as the liquid seeped out from the wound it went up, creating a balloon, floating in mid-air. Once all the crimson ooze had come from my body, I saw myself lying on the floor, just looking up at my own reflection. A sudden smile came across my levitating self, and I fell, forever into the abyss of the elevator shaft. A small ping startled me as I found myself laying, stiff as a board, on the elevator floor, arms crossed over chest. Carla was kneeling next to me, holding my shoulders, as she was trained to do. Calmly I stood up, apologized for the inconvenience and left the small, padded cell.

Clara led me down the second floor hall to a door, in uniform with all the others. This was a room that, in the following time, I would get well acquainted with. As we passed through the doorway a portal engulfed my mind back five years. I was playing with my new kitten, Fluffy. Fluffy had been a gift from my newly sober father. He thought if he bought me extravagant gifts and took me to luxurious places it would erase my memories, along with all the pain he had caused. But then, in an odd way it had worked. He'd been sober for 18 months until a recent train of events had led him to lose his job. Every night for a week he'd come home smelling of the poisonous whiskey that he'd missed so much. Now he'd shut himself away in the study for the past two days and no one had seen or heard from him. Fluffy scampered across the room and headed for the barely open study door. I quietly chased after, trying not to make any noise and bother father. Right as I swooped in to grab Fluffy she managed to make it out of my hands and into the study. I pushed open the study door and stood, face to face, looking into the cold, black, blood-shot eyes of my father. He held a gun to his head, finger steadily over the trigger. His stare turned to a scowl and he mouthed the words "it’s your fault". The ringing in my ears brought me from my trance back to reality, standing in front of a desk, filling out more paperwork.

I was lead into a room littered with meaningless diplomas and certificates of achievement. A black couch was pushed back against the far wall, directly under a barred window. The dull blue-eyes doctor I'd met once before walked in and shook my hand. It was plain by the look on his face to see that I looked, and acted, nothing like my mother. He was disappointed, possibly because he was hoping for a fling with desperate patient. He droned on for a full hour about how he was "going to help me reach my full potential" and "get back into the real world and achieve". I laughed mentally at his statements, thinking how many times other "professionals" had told me the exact same thing. I barely uttered 10 words during the entire two hour session. How was I supposed to open up to a man that never shut his mouth? Then and there I decided this fellow and I would not be friends. Toward the end of the session Dr. Whats-his-face, I don't think he'd even mentioned his name, decided I needed a companion. A new girl was going to show up tonight and was to bunk with me. I didn't care, after all the crazy aren't supposed to have opinions of their own. At the end of two hours a bell rang and the doctor got up and shook my hand again. He said his name, which in my mind his name was already labeled "Dr. Man". Nurse Clara walked in the room, took my arm, and led me back out into the hall.

I was just sitting down to dinner as a black car pulled into the drive at the front of the building. A young girl with long blond hair, blue eyes, and a stunningly pretty face stepped out of the car. She was spoiled, wearing the finest clothes, her hair pulled back in the latest fashion. Stepping in to the building she kept her nose raised prominently in the air. I could not for one second believe there was a single thing wrong with this child, she looked like she'd come out of a fairytale. I thought that until I saw the girl’s hands. Tightly grasped in her palms was a jacket, stained with blood, dirt, and grime. Sewn all over the jacket were little Star of David’s. Suddenly as I watched her click, click, click through the doors I burst into a wicked cackle. Her eyes locked upon me as I laughed menacingly at her and she charged across the room at me. The next thing I knew this frail, delicate girl was picking me up by the neck and throwing me against the big, barred bay window. Shards of glass gently fell, glistening on the crown of my head like winter snow. So, the voices hissed, that's your new roommate? Oh, this will be fun. And then all fell into blackness.

I awoke to the sound of Clara's voice talking to another older, raspy nurse. "Do you think its okay that she's rooming with the very same girl that put her in the infirmary only a few hours ago? Because I don't want her to have any mishaps, she's had a tough enough time already." Clara was always looking out for me, always with my best interest in mind. Truthfully, she was the closest thing I'd ever had to a friend. Clara came and sat with me for a little while as we waited for a doctor. She told me the girl who'd assaulted me, my new roommate, was a Stacy McClellan who actually went by the name Yemen. Clara told me all about how Yemen had grown up having everything and yet didn't quite turn out alright. Since she was from such a high-class family, she'd been given special privileges like having cigarettes and sewing needles. I was a little astonished, but it made me happy to know I'd have an easy way to get my poisons that I so hungered for. After a doctor came in and checked my head wound I was released back to my room where I found Yemen already asleep.

As I fell to the world of dreams I watched my peaceful and serene life shatter and crumble. Love had gone sour, although still there, it was tougher to live through. He drove me to the clinic, held my hand as I lay on the table, while life was being cut out from inside of me. He'd been my everything, my inspiration, my secret. No one knew of our blossoming commitment to another, and no one was going to know about this treacherous event. Tears washed down my face as I felt the warmth and being leave my body. I swear I heard a cry, but it washed over me hissing "It's Your Fault. It's Your Fault." Suddenly I awoke shivering, I needed a cigarette.

A single tear rolled down my cheek witnessing my uncontrollable heartache. A coolly lit cigarette singes my already infected arms. The stale presence of vicious reminders cling to the air, and I barely choke it all down. An intoxicating ring of smoke blows from my mouth as I stare through the barred cell window. Yemen, my befuddled snob roommate cries out, running from the Nazis probably. I'm told she spends most of her time sewing yellow stars on the same moldy, terribly worn, and decrepit jacked. Of course if the doctors found out that I'd just taken to using her specially allowed sewing pins as skewers for my skin they'd not allow her to sew anymore. But I did not want to cause others pain, only myself. For a girl of fourteen, and at 107 lbs, Yemen was strong as an ox. She'd grown up her entire life living as though she were to be shipped to a concentration camp even though she was neither Jewish or partook in the holocaust. I could see now why people on the outside called this a "nuthouse". Everyone was crazy in here, the nurses and patients alike. After all, who, but the crazy, would care for the insane? Surprisingly a laugh formed in my mouth and let itself bubble to the barrier of the human world. In the calm and tranquility of the night I sat, cigarette burning out slowly on the floor, watching the ashes rise with the wind and dance across my line of vision.

The dancing reminded me of the gala held in downtown DC for my debutante coming out ball. I had no desire to participate, but mother had forced me, saying it was the only way men of reasonable means would know who I was. So I got all corseted up into a poofy, frilly, filling white dress that could serve as a circus tent for the occasion. It was a beautiful gown, crème colored, tight fitting, and had the finest jewelry to match. But it was not my taste; I would have preferred to go nude. Mother had picked this out on one of the very rare days we almost got along. She told me it made my sickly, stick figure look more curvy and voluptuous. And so this dance was not actually for me I realized, but my mother vicariously through me. But none of that mattered because he would be there. I'd met him at some function or other my mother had dragged me to for the publics' sake. He'd been across the room, staring at me all evening before making a move in my direction. Somehow he'd charmed me onto the dance floor where he twirled me like a ballerina and held me close. But tonight he was mine, and I need not share him with anyone else. He'd agreed to be my date, to walk me down the stairs, and to have the first dance with me in place of my father.

The thought of my father made me cringe, thinking of that man was like pulling my fingernails across a chalkboard that never ended. Without another thought of bad memories I pulled myself back into bed, flashing a smug grin across my face as I fell into a dark hazy slumber.

The weeks that followed were mechanical, pushing through steps of some imaginary program. While the voices and visions lost numbers, the ones that did come were violent and terrible. One time, while a spell was cast upon me, I tried to push the elevator doors open to fall down the shaft in mid ride. While I had no luck, the doctors decided it'd be best if they upped my medicines anyways. Yemmen had killed because she "realized" she'd been taken to Dachua, not some institution where she could actually be helped. The occupancy of my room was just down to me with the occasional visit from Clara or a man in a white coat. After finishing a very in depth meeting with my doctor I slinked back to my room happily. Dr. Man had decided I'd made enough progress to be put on an out-patient care system. This meant I was okay again. I was so ecstatic I thought of calling him and sharing the good news. When I got back to my room I found a letter on my bed. I opened it and read:

" Dear Sweetz, (he'd always called me sweetz)
I know that I've been terrible about communicating with you while you were away. For many many nights I cried myself to sleep for missing you so much. You never wrote, you never called. I worried and worried, and yet I could not bring myself to write you. A few weeks ago I met a girl, and well we fell fast. We're engaged to be married. I know there is no way you can forgive me, and I'm just sorry that I had to tell you like this. The feeling for you I had were real. But the reports your mother have forwarded to me have been good, and I'm relieved to hear you're doing well. Get better.

M."

For a moment I stood senseless before dropping to the floor. My life, my love, my soul had been ripped out of me. He was the reason, the ENTIRE reason, I'd come here. I was here to better myself so that he could be with me and proudly say "That's My Girl!" But no, not now, he'd moved on to better, it was my fault for falling. It was my fault. Uncertainty fell around me, grabbing a hold of me and pulling me into the darkness.

Suddenly I knew was I was going to do. There was no way to end this torment, no way to silence this agony. My heart pounded knowing full well they'd be here momentarily to release me to the world I wanted no part in. He had been my only hope, my only reason to survive. Now there was onthing. I packed, putting every iten I didn not need, would not ever need again, in the whimsy cardboard box they'd handed me while declaring me cured.

Silently I snuck out of the room, no need to arouse suspision. I walked to the elevator, smiling back at all the hypocrites pretending to be happy for me. I stood anxiously until the elevator pinged and its doors opened. Clara stepped out, asking me where I was headed. "Oh, I left something in Dr. Man- I mean Dr. Geiger's room, I'm just going up to get it really quick." I turned into the elevator quickly, shutting the close button before Clara had time to be suspicious. I stood, twisting my hair in knots until the elevator came to a stop, letting me off at the roof. From the edge I could see the world, beautiful and serene as when it was founded. Without a moments thought I violently flung myself from the roof. A deviant thought flashed through my mind as I hurtled toward the ground. Oh, how they would scream when they saw my mess! I would be like red paint upon a canvas street.

With a startle I awoke, only to find myself in a suburban hospital laying in a warm, cozy bed. Mother and father hovered over me, crying about how they thought I was a goner. Mother explained I'd been driving my brand new silver truck down K Street and collided head on with a white sedan. Father bent down and kissed my forhead, telling me everything was going to be alright and I should get some sleep.

A week later I sat in a room littered with meaningless diplomas and certificates of achievement. A black couch was pushed back against the far wall, directly under a small window. I told my psychiatrist the whole ordeal. He just cocked his head, smiled in that "you're loony but I'm getting paid" type of way and wrote a prescription for stronger meds. After all, he'd been warned I was a compulsive liar.