Tattoo Of Pain

• Emily Morton, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2014

Tattoo of Pain

My hands scooped the water, my legs rapidly tread so intensely desperate for another breath of air, invigorating air. My lungs were filling up fast, too fast. The ocean engulfed me in such an entirety of water and despair, the glimmer of hope that I may survive was such an obscurely unlikely possibility. I may as well have been dreaming. This is what I wanted right? The ice cold, salt water burned my eyes and throat. I forced myself to take a look up. The sunlight shone blindingly into the water creating the heartbreaking illusion that I was closer to the glimmering, foaming surface. Closer to living.

I am sixteen driving through the city, music blaring, lights shining, tequila running through my veins. Not a care for consequence. Whatever happens from now.. oblivion.

I am fourteen at my mothers funeral, death has taken over me, I sob, sob, sob painful tears that run down my face like rain scurrying down a car window. People smile sympathetically, unaware of the thoughts racing through my mind. They give my shoulder a gentle squeeze, that I cannot feel it as I am so numb with pain. My eyes sting as the salt infuses through. This is killing me. The pain is consuming me in a labyrinth of suffering.

I am twelve, mum is dying, dad has left. I am alone in my room, blood covering the floors, two long thin cuts decorating my wrists, a tattoo of pain. The agony of my wrists immerses me in an alternate universe. I walk to the bathroom to wash up. I stare at myself in my mirror. Long dark hair running down past my shoulders in a somewhat endless array of chestnut coloured softness. I slide my hand along the basin, fingers searching. There it is. They wrap themselves around the ice cold metal and I hold them up to the mirror. I will not look like my mother. I will not look like my mother. I tighten my grip around the scissors and begin cutting. Hair starts falling, falling. With each cut I become more and more distant to her, to the illness. I no longer resemble her. She is no longer my sick mother. I don't think about mum’s soon to be death. I think about mine.

I am ten, we are at the carnival, Mum, Dad and I. There are clowns, I actually find them funny. On the teacups, spinning round and round and round. The carnival’s a blur, my life is a blur. Emotions heightened with the bliss of oblivion and innocence. Laugher and cotton candy, and the bitter sweetness of false security.

Through the heavy, thick water I saw my skin, blue, purple, white. Lifeless and blank. I was no longer struggling. The burning had spread. The pain was no longer just in my mind.

It’s my sixth birthday party, I’m blowing out the candles eyes squeezed shut. I wish to be a dancer when I grow up.