I Hear Them Cry

• Hebah Mahmood, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2015

I indulge in the fascinating item before me, my eyes ravishing each inch of this consummate allure that I wish would never end. As every second passes, I goad myself to finish this utterly superb…god given……gift…..before the bell rings.

Too late.

I keep my head down and rush through the many cliques and posses with my main goal to just get to the library to read my Discoveries of Science book before I spend a little too longer in the courtyard where many girls and boys sit together with joyous smiles and hidden stories- everyone seems normal. But one by one, each opens up their own bag or case for their own treat… and I hear each and every one of them.

They screech and scream. Unyielding sounds that hurt the ears of even the dead I assume. Scathing sounds that make me want to curl into a ball and use every limb possible to block my ears from the sounds that each and every edible item wants to convey. Without even some sort of audio output, every food yells their own plea.

But every day, there comes a time when the sounds dissolve into the hum of the courtyard and my vision clears. And confusion seems to be the only word, phrase or idea that even tries to exist in my mind.

Does no one else hear their own food, which they molded, into their very own creation; plead and cry to be free? Why is it that I am the only one who hears these innocent little beings try to find themselves in the pleasant fate never planned for them?

As I slip out of this temporary coma, I rush out the courtyard- still scrutinizing every person I see with some item entering mouths…which had previously been asking for the very opposite. I make my way to the bathroom, wanting to freshen myself before I make my way to the library. I gawk at my reflection. With such a narrow face, and cheek bones popping out like they didn’t even want to be there- no one would be pleased to have a body like mine: so thin and patchy in colour. I’d heard enough comments to know I wasn’t exactly ideal.

But I smile as I pull down the collar of my shirt to reveal the similar structure of my collarbones, and know that at least I am saving the little beings people so hatefully call food, and devour without a second thought that it didn’t want to end up in pipes running down into the ground where the sun definitely did not shine.

Without another second to lose, I find myself a seat in a small corner and pull out my book and find the page I had marked haphazardly.

Schizophrenia- a chronic, disabling brain disorder that induces voices that aren’t present and hallucinations that could pose damage to one’s wellbeing. Scientists have not created a full treatment for the condition yet.

Maybe they will soon?