My Red Flowers And The Skye

• Gloria Zheng, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2019

‘I don’t know how people can sleep, knowing that they killed someone.’

I don’t sleep. I stay awake. I am not a child.

I am big, big, big. I don’t need a bedtime.

Red Flowers
Mommy.
Skye.

Bad children are sent to bed early.

I am not a bad child, I am just bad, so we get sent to a someplace else that isn’t bed. It’s big and wide and made of concrete. It smells and my neighbours aren’t as nice as my old ones.

Skye
Dead, dead, dead
Your death, everywhere

There are bars covering my door and a single window which sheds light into my room. Marie says that the bars are there to keep the bad people out, so that we are safe. Marie says the window is there, so I don’t forget what the sun feels like.

I like Marie. Marie is my neighbour, my friend.

Where is your head Skye?
You bled, bled, bled
Your blood, everywhere

I did not like Skye. Skye tried to be my mommy. Skye is not my friend.

I do not know where Skye is. I have not seen Skye since…

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

I killed Skye
I am not ashamed to say
Skye is dead
I blew off her head

The people are back. The people are back, and they've come to take me away.

I scream. Kick. Punch. Anything, just to not go.

Skye laughed at me
Skye stole my red flowers
I am glad my flowers were redder than her blood

I bang my head against the concrete wall.

Once, twice, thrice.

I feel pain, a deep pain.

I cannot feel my head now.

I see something red.

Oh. Blood.

My blood is redder than Skye’s, but not as red as my flowers.
I was going to give my flowers to mommy.
But mommy wasn’t there.
Why wasn’t mommy there?

‘RESTRAIN HER!’

I hear some shouts now. The people are getting angry.

I begin to cry. I sink down to the floor, curling into a little ball.

And then I beg them not to take me.

I picked some flowers because mommy was upset
She and daddy were arguing over money
Money over treatments, over the issue of having a ‘problem child’ and ‘unfaithfulness’
Who even was the ‘problem child’? What is ‘unfaithfulness’?

They do not listen to me.

They carry me out and I scream, and I beg, and I cry. They don’t do anything to help me. They don’t care about me.

Only my mommy cares about me.

And Marie. Marie cares about me. Marie is there, banging on her bars to try save me.

We made a promise, me and Marie.

Too never leave each other.

Mommy’s not going to come back for a while, he said.
Instead, Skye will be your mommy, he said.
My flowers have dropped to the floor.
And Skye is dead, dead, dead.

I am subject to torture.

And I, I cannot sleep.