Vague Existence

• Seanna Farrow, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2018

__________________

Hello Sylvia,
How’s your life going? Slowly disappearing, just like the ones of every single being around you? What colour eyes do you have, blue, green, brown, emerald? How are you?... who are you?
Yours sincerely
Kathleen, your daughter, remember?
___________________

I grab the page for the fifteenth time. I slowly scrunch it up and throw it across the room. It hits the edge of the bin and falls softly on the floor.

~failure how did you miss again you saw their faces the men on the sidelines eyes filling up with tears they saw that they saw you miss they’re laughing at you they are screaming and crying and it’s all because of you~

~BOOM~
I hear a knock on the door.
~What was that noise?~
~Are they here?~
~They’ve found you~
~Grab the scissors~
~Give it up before they do it for you~
My host mother enters the room.
~A figure enters the room~
“Hello honey, I was just coming in to check if you needed anything?”
~It’s not her, it’s them, they are using her body~
I look at her, analysing her facial features; it looks like her, it sounds like her but something’s different.
~Ask her! Ask her something they wouldn’t know~
“What’s my middle name?”
She looks at me confused.
~She’s going to hurt you~
Her forehead begins to crease, “Don’t be silly, Kathy.”
~She is going to hurt you~
I think she’s displeased but she walks out.

I get back to writing.

_____________

Dear Mum
Ever since you left I’ve been confused. You said you had to run from them but now they’re chasing me. My head hurts and my heart. I can’t even remember who you are but I want to know. All my pictures of us are gone. They were all in black and white. Like life. I don’t care that you left but I need you now. You are the answer. You know what it’s like. I go from host parent to host parent but they get rid of me after a while because “they don’t want to deal with it.” Please come back. You and me together can fight. We can beat them.
Your daughter
Kathy
_______________


#####
The alarm goes off slowly bringing me out of a soft sleep. I instinctively reach to cover my ears but then remember my wrists are chained up. I look out the window and I can barely see the world outside through the bars.
“Sylvia, you have mail”.
That’s the first time I had ever heard that sentence. I don’t know anybody in the outside world. I open the letter and read word for word.
I then scream for the nurse
“I have to leave! I have to go let me out!!”
She brings in the doctor and they give it to me again

~This vague existence is tiring~