Lament Heart

• Diya Dhull, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2019

Trying to chase away the depression that slowly takes over, if only it were easier. I slowly pace down a small grey path, with my head supine to the baby blue sky filled with clouds, that look like cotton candy. I quiver as the dewy petrichor of the afternoon fills me up, then, I pause for an ephemeral minute and sit down on a small wooden bench, sheltered by a minute cherry blossom tree. Out of frustration, I breathe in, and ball my hands into fists until my knuckles turn white. My body seems as if it’s cemented onto the seat. It feels as if, any second, the Earth is going to drop me into its endless prison, and I will never escape. Snapping out of my infinite thoughts, I tilt my head down, like a wilted flower, as if my life was sucked out of me. The words, or should I say, pages, flipped back and forth, making me want to puke. My head spins and the pale expressionlessness on my face stays frozen, like an inanimate portrait. “Are you okay?” they had whispered all those years ago, and I had replied with pure misery laced into each word that left the grasp of my lips, “Yeah...I’m fine.”
If I had told the truth, it might of made it easier to let them go, but I didn’t. Every time I tried, the words were ready at the back of my throat, but when I opened my mouth, silence is all that came out. The question lingers in my head to this day, morning and night, always stopping once in a while, to let my weep, “Why didn’t I say anything?” My surroundings, barren and deserted but most of all the voice in the back of my mind, seeping through every vault of sanity that’s left, disturbed my empty soul. They had left me, they were gone, only left to be figments of my reminisces, but I couldn’t seem to forget them, they raised me, fed me, taught me what I needed to learn and they were always there for me.
I’m hungry, but I’m full. I’m happy, but I’m sad. I’m lonely, but I’m accompanied. It’s confusing and it feels as if imaginary tarot cards circle my head, urging me to pick which way I should go, but I’m self-consciously unaware. Maybe that was the reason the words wouldn’t escape my lips, maybe it was because I was afraid, they would suffer because of me. Now that I think back on that, I realise how wrong I was, if I had told them, they could’ve helped me and I wouldn't think that I had kept something secret from my own parents. The hallucinations of someone still being there shattered my heart into a million pieces, the grief and uneasiness filling me up, preparing to tip over when I reached my limit. All the trauma we experienced only happened because of me, it’s all my fault that their gone!