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horizon.
At serenity with the willing resignation of a character in a novel… the denouement is premeditated.
I am in control.
Turn back!
Flee!
Escape!
Creepily outstretching spindly detached macabre fingers deep into the recesses of my mind his talon-
like claws dig into a passing memory and thought. Steadily dragging it, drudgingly to the surface of my
Feeling small, naïve and confused I stare glaze-eyed into the desolate room. A machine
with a red flashing light intrudes on the nightmarish stillness. And there my sister lies.
Physically weakened so that she cannot even lift her head, she just returns my blank gaze.
Desperately trying to express the worry, fear and love whilst maintaining a “together”
“Rechelle, I…
Still staring back at me without any expression or hint towards her emotions she replies
in an exasperated voice:
Even in this moment of incomprehensible mental anguish and confusion she stubbornly
holds the controls to her own mind. Fighting to keep her mind together and not allow
herself to release the emotions and pain that must be threatening to break her fortress of
strength she does not even relent to return in any way my emotional communication of
love, and I find myself adopting her methods of coping; be strong, on your own, at all
perhaps the devil...? The two are blurred and combined, no longer discernible from one another. He, like
a parasitic tumor feeds off my brain, constantly trying to gain the upper hand and force me to execute
The ominous fingers twist painfully deeper and a torturous voice rebounds within my head.
Enslaving another thought he forces it in front of my mind’s eye… blocking the escape.
I find myself sitting in the family car with my mother and father, but my sister is absent.
despair and grief for the loss of trust in life. I stare out the window into darkness as
Why did this happen? How could anyone... How could he do this... to me and us and
everyone… how??! To pre-plan something so.. so.. I can’t even... comprehend…. WHY?
With salty liquid rapidly building up behind my eyes impossibly increasing an already
painful pressure my tears, the evidence of my weakness, try to escape. Proclaiming their
desire to run with the natural stream and break free of my makeshift dam, they thrash
No. Dad’s already emotional enough. Mum’s at her wits end. They can’t handle any more
stress. Worrying about Shell’s mental states hard enough for them, they don’t need
another daughter to add to the ordeal. Be strong. No one can help. I must do this alone.
2
In a whiplash the memory is snatched away to be replaced. As a quietus my already shaken sanity is
Chandra screams. A scream made all the more haunting as no audible sound results,
from her wide opened lips and deathly sallow facial expression. Having used up all her
tears and voice she gasps and stares up at me in horror whilst reaching out with all she has
left… arms to comfort that will never reach as I’m uncontrollably guided closer to the
Rhiannon stands shaking in the administration office, trembling and stuttering whilst
Her hands shake up and down as they also fail their attempts at describing what she’d
witnessed… Her best friend shot through the chest from behind with a bolt aimed at her
heart by another student, once trusted friend, just another boy in her class.
image of a boy being forced by a teacher past me in the school playground this morning,
his distinctive face and nose firmly unemotional staring straight ahead... my mind fails to
bridge the connection with images of that same distinctive face, laughing, smiling,
joking… embracing and being talked of by my sister with a careless, dreamy gaze in her
eyes… I blink back the shock as all I know of the world collapses beneath me.
Lonely and insignificant I’m guided by foreign apparently bodiless arms through the
3
In an unrecognizable city with dark towers and eerie black alleyways I suspiciously
glance into every window and path only to see young faces staring back captured and
Unable to cope, unable to see, unable to accept and believe I begin the construction of a
fortress of peace and safety. Without windows, without doors, just high towering walls I
find myself imprisoned by the bricks carefully laid to prevent any harm or uncontrollable
emotions from pouring in. The predicament being once in, my emotions refuse to be let
out.
The memories fizzle away throughout my body causing me to uncontrollably shake. Determined not to
A flame relights and awaking to consciousness I’m overtaken with the stubbornness born in me, but this
4
One small step pushed my mind over the edge and I momentarily panicked before feeling the comfort
surround me. From the hidden safety of the pews, to open admittance of my weak human dependence on
Coming to terms with my own life and death, I watched all that I was; the confused attempted
understandings of life, the fears and thoughts, the contradictory striving fight for control, the false faith
in safety, all of me, just fall over the edge of my mind and shatter into the ground. Putting the weight,
confusion, pain and responsibilities of my world in the only hands large enough and loving enough to
hold them... and believing in something far greater and true than the fallacy this world offers me…