A Small Story

Once Upon a Time

"Once upon a time..." she whispered into the empty bottle of vodka. She sunk down onto the floor, using the wall for support. Her head hung down heavily and she let her arm holding the bottle flop to the ground from her lips. Her eye lids began to feel like weights and she slowly let them start to close. "Once upon a time..." And she was out.

Two long wheezy gasps and then a finger twitch. A flutter of an eye lid and a long pain-filled moan. One hand let go of the empty bottle of vodka and slowly took itself to attend to the pounding head. As the cold finger softly hit the surface of the forehead another moan broke out. Then the rest of the hand softly lay itself over the forehead. Some slow breathing was heard and then a sigh. Someone picked two feet up off the ground and dragged them down a badly lit hallway and into a badly lit kitchen. The hand that wasn't on the forehead reached towards a kitchen stool and pulled it out. Then the body slumped itself down into the stool.

At 11.am an oven timer went off. And the still body suddenly came alive again. This time with more energy, it picked itself up and walked smoothly into a bathroom. There, a brush was picked up and put down again. A toothbrush got wet, minty, was washed and put away. A toilet was flushed. A painkiller was swallowed. And a hair-tie was used to pull hair away from the eyes. And bit by bit this body became a person.

Her two blue-grey dull eyes slowly rose to look into a mirror. She stared at the mirror. Her eyes meeting a pair of solemn, cold, lost blue-grey eyes. Her mouth was opposite a swollen lip and her cheeks were facing a pair of cheeks that were full of colour; blue, purple, brown... bruised. 

She didn't acknowledge the way she had fallen apart so badly that even her face showed pure loss and depression. She barely acknowledged how hurt she was, or even how badly she was hurting herself still. But for a matter of fact, she barely acknowledged herself as a person.

It's had been months since Allan passed. Isabella never took her time to clear her thoughts, never took her time to mourn properly. She didn't talk to anyone about him, she didn't tell anyone about him, she didn't cry in front of people. No, she scared them instead. She drank large amounts every night. She had rows, fights, arguments and disagreements with anyone and almost everyone who was larger than herself. It was as if she wanted to get hurt. Her family and friends watched as she started to fade into nothing.

Was it really enough that she claimed she felt no pain? Did people believe her when she told them she was fine? Was she really that great at acting that no one ever worried? No.

Everyone was scared, not only for her, but for her child. 

Scarlet, reaching 7 years of age. Lost her father. Is losing her mother. Feels lost herself.

How can a child so young grow into a world like this? It's not as if she didn't understand. Because she did. She knew that she wouldn't hug her father ever again. She knew that she wouldn't get a hug from her mother any time soon. She also knew she would never let go of Allan. She knew his favorite colour was blue. She knew his favorite song was 'Clocks' by 'Coldplay'. She knew that in the morning he would sit in the stool closest to the window, pull out a cigarette and smoke it. She knew that he would then make coffee, read the newspaper and go to work. She knew that she would remember him forever.

It was 12pm before Scarlet felt safe to go into the kitchen. With the remains of a mother who had been drunk last night. She was scared and walked cautiously. 

She had a head full of questions but she kept them all to herself. She didn't say anything. She slowly used one shaky hand to grab a box of cereal and then used to other to open the fridge and take out some milk. She settled into a stool with a bit more confidence, and started pouring milk into the bowl. She then added a spoonful of sugar. Mixed the milk and added some cereal.  

She picked up a shiny spoon, used it as a mirror to smile at herself, then she dug into the cereal and ignoring her mother she ate every last cheerio hoop.

-Eggy Mayers, wanna be writer.