Burning Alone

• Meghan Hardie, Grade 11, St Francis De Sales Regional College
• Short Story
• 2012

Finalist in the 'Far Out 2012' competition

Dear Mr Henry Felix,
I, Violet Wood hereby apologise for what I have done.
On Friday the sixteenth of August, I did something that I can assure you was completely out of character for me and I knew as soon as I walked away the damage that I had caused. The thing is I knew the power that I held within me and I knew it would cause such ruin, that a path of destruction would trail behind me. Yet I did it anyway.
You see Principal Felix, I hear everything and I see everything, but I say nothing. It’s like I am two people in the one body, each of them fighting over one another for control. Talk about an inner conflict.
I have answers and yet I stay silent. I feel two great powers within me urging me forward and pulling me back. So I do nothing. I do nothing because I don’t know what to do, but on Friday I didn’t want to be torn apart anymore.
I have been through a lot in my life and I’m not sure whether you notice or not how a person is so easily influenced by their early childhood experiences. I will get to the point while I have your attention for this short amount of time. For once I stopped trying to be what I wanted and became who I am. I broke down the walls that I had so securely built up over time as I found myself gasping for a breath of fresh air from this solitude. I am alone. In a place where hope crumbles at my feet, tumbling out of my reach and down into the dark abyss, but at least now I have become who I really am. Even if that means I get expelled for setting a classroom on fire.
It’s just when I struck the match it was like the little fire on the end was a little glimmer of hope. It was me that little flame, so small and insignificant yet so dangerous and powerful. I guess you wouldn’t understand and I don’t expect you to either.
However you do need to know it wasn’t to hurt anyone, it was to prove to myself that we underestimate too often the power of something so little. I have lost everything. I have stood on an open cliff and watched my life simply deteriorate to dust, only to then be swept away by the violent waves. One thing was for sure I am falling apart, up till now there is one thing that will forever hold me together, even when there is nothing to hold onto... As a matter of fact I am not going to apologise for having feelings and letting them control me.
Yours sincerely,
Violet Wood