Chaotic Mind

• Amani Migahed, Grade 4, Hambledon Public School
• Short Story
• 2015

Excellence Award in the 'Read Write Repeat 2015' competition

My name is Gaye Browne and I’m a delirious and crazed thirteen year old girl. My life first commenced in 2002, August.
Sometimes I wonder why I was brought into this lost word. Why do I live in the collapsed world I’m living in now? When will everything be okay, and when will it all end?
I’m lost in my own head; destitution was inching closer towards me; I didn’t like it.
I was crestfallen and distressed, I didn’t know where my life was going, but in this very moment, I’d take any risks to draw my life back together and realise that this world wasn’t worth fighting for, as it’s already dead.
My mouth screamed out for comfort and guidance, but it was muted and drowsy. I was out of luck. I always was.
I wanted to sink closer into death, and make it the end of my disconsolate life, nevertheless it was the mishandled way to do things, although life really wasn’t worth living now.
My life was turned to ashes and flames, the sudden explosion of my family and the rotten dwelling I called my home wouldn’t make-do for the rest of my disoriented life.
I used to love my mother, but I can’t stand to think of her anymore.
My mother’s amber hair stuck out in clusters, fixed into a chaotic topknot which trident off into bounteous dishelveled tangles which often snagged onto all sorts of random assortments of large and small things that lay untouched around the inadequate household. I loved her imperfections.
But she left me.
I despise her now.
Stranded at the age of six, my mother lived her own life and only god knows where she is now.
I wouldn’t care for her if we weren’t related.
I didn’t know where she went, or why she left me, but she did leave me, it’s really all I know.
2008, August, the day after my birthday,
I panicked. Everything of hers was departed from the house, including herself.
She didn’t get kidnapped or murdered, I knew for a fact, as not one thing of hers was lying in the house, accepting the decrepit cookie jar she used to put the notes from her fortune cookies in.
I’m sitting here, writing this note to my parents, hoping one day they’ll find it, come back to the house and maybe then we’ll be a perfect family, we’ll open the walls, I’ll get to live a fine childhood. Be safe, for once.
I open my mother’s fortune cookie jar; all that’s left is a small strip of paper, curled neatly in the glass enclosure. I uncurl it and read it slowly.
‘Your life is in danger. Say nothing to anyone. You must leave the city immediately and never return. Repeat: say nothing.’
I blinked.
If you find this note, return it to my parents for me, okay?

- Gaye Browne, Deuce Street 27.