A Fortress In The Battlefield

• Brooke Allan, Grade 10, Ravenswood School for Girls
• Short Story
• 2016

Excellence Award in the 'Top Secret 2016' competition

My domain. My fortress. My home, protection against the relentless enemy. It’s just me and my hushed army that scream silent words, battle cries that only reveal themselves to me.
Me against them—now and forever.
Truces are short-lived. They last days, weeks. Never months. Never too long.
I return to my fortress every night, return to the papery arms of my allies, hearing their stories echo in my head. Fusing my narratives with theirs.
It’s desolate in my domain. Lonely. Sometimes the cries of a thousand sorrowful people yell in my room—the wounded. Addicts, war criminals, freaks and widows. They all take refuge in my home. They all tell their stories as I lie for hours, absorbed in their hushed words. Listening to the plans of my enemy.
My enemy never comes up to my fortress. They used to when my screams grew too loud, my sobs too distracting. They’d pound on my door, speak words of either sticky sweet comfort, or yell insults that made me shake harder. Now my fortress has grown stronger, reinforced by my age that chipped away at my soul, but also scared away my enemy. No one messes with someone my age. Not if they want the force of a thousand words unleased upon them, a rage fueled by years of predictable and relived injustice.
Truces are uneasy, and my kind words are stored away for them to use against me.
And when I cry, my tears drip on whispers that drift from paper, and my gasps are covered by the soft sound of pages being turned, my pain soothed by another’s.
Parents are there to support their child, to nurture and love. My enemies are not parents. Not always. Don’t judge a book by its cover. Don’t judge a person by their job description.
My enemy shoves me to the floor. Forces me to retreat to my room, my fortress, then taunt me with my weakness. Weakness. That’s what blessed silence is. Tears and a break amounts to cowardice.
And those people, my allies, while they comfort me, their burdened lives stack more on my shoulders as I read on, to satisfy my need. Weakness. All of it. I am weakness.
I am cowardice and pain and stories collected together, a library of agony and weakness and people created in one mind and another. I am each word, each recollection, and each scream and tear and soft laughter. I am many in one mind, and I am my own person, lost in others. I am a reader and I am stronger than those who could never understand. I am an addict, war criminal, freak and widow. I am powerful, I am weak. My strength is my weakness and my weakness is my strength. I am contradictions and facts. Myths and law. I am legend and I am history. My teachings are from many; from stories hidden in books. They are my salvation.