Interlude Monologues 5: 11 Years

Interlude Monologues 5: 11 Years

I’m not a seagull. Spent so many years looking at them, thought I’d become one of them, too but I’m not. I’m not a seagull. Or maybe, maybe I am. I don’t know. Maybe I’m a seagull and I’ll never know.

Beat.

Actually, I don’t think I could ever be a seagull. I don’t have wings. I can’t fly. I mean, I could try like that guy, what’s his name? Icarus? Yes, I think that’s him. But I would probably get myself too close to the Sun and die. Or fly too low and get my wings wet and they’d fall to pieces into the ocean and I’d probably drown.

Beat.

But over here, there’s no ocean, only cement. Better not to. Better not to fly. I mean, even if I wanted to, it’s humanly impossible. Only birds can, so there’s no way I could attempt.

Wish I could though. I wish I could fly, at least it could get me outta here. Out of this place to somewhere nice. Somewhere over the rainbow, as they say. Although that’s a cliché. I mean, we all know there’s no pot of gold at the end of it. It’s just the effect caused by the refraction of light in water droplets when it rains. I mean, it’s called a rain-bow for a reason.

Right? Right.

And even if there was a pot of gold at the end of it, then what? Would you run for it? It’d be a complete pool of blood if we all knew about it and ran for it. People tearing each other’s heads off and killing each other for gold like that film, the Hunger Games, at the arena when they have to run to the middle to get their bags and they end up stabbing each other to death. And what’s the point of it all if you’re going to be dead anyways? Or when people stamp on each other during Black Friday. They sleep outside and as soon as the clock strikes 10 am, they run to that 50% off Louboutin pair of shoes they’ve seen on display and I mean, you’re lucky if you don’t get hit by a pair of Jimmy Choo flying over while you’re passing by. I guess, what I’m trying to say is, why do we do all of this for?

Why do we survive? What is it that makes us wanna stay alive and why? What would I want to be alive for? Why would I care to live for 80 years or so? What is it in being alive that we can’t just simply die or allow ourselves to get killed? Do you know what I’m saying? That urge. That need. The drive to keep it going… What if I don’t want to? What happens if I stop trying? Will I die? Will my body just get into a coma and switch off if no one ignites the switch back on again? Or will I just become numb and aloof like most people? No. Honestly. I’m serious. I mean, they make it seem so easy in the movies, anyways.

What is it we’re so afraid of letting go?

Great. It’s raining. Yay, love rain. Not really. I mean, I don’t hate it but I don’t like it either. It makes me soaked and I don’t like having to carry an umbrella with me and adding loads of layers on top of every other piece of clothing I’m wearing underneath and then, having to remember to wear a coat, with a hood. Otherwise, what’s the point of wearing a coat without a hood when is raining? Anyways. I don’t like the rain but I like sitting here. I like listening to it while I’m sitting here watching the other kids walking by, too busy running from the rain, trying not to get caught, as if it’s contagious or something.

Beat.

The truth is, I’ve been sitting here for way too long and they don’t seem to notice me. I’ve been coming to this place every day for eleven years. And you might think eleven years is nothing. It’s just a number. Like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, … all the way up to 11, you can almost count it with your fingers but we only have ten fingers and then, you gotta add that extra one. And that is when all the trouble starts. When you gotta add an extra finger to make up for the one you’re missing out.

Pause.

And I’ve always been that extra finger on your right hand, or is it the left? I keep saying hi, waving at them but it’s as if they don’t recognise me. I mean, I know they can see me. But whenever I wave at them or try to say something, they just ignore me. I’ve seen them looking at me. Sometimes they’re standing against the wall, looking at me and whispering. And I’m not sure what their voices are whispering about but I’ve started to listen to those same whispers wherever I go. In the toilet, in the corridors, in class and they’re loud, like the rain when it’s falling down and then, suddenly… it drops but it doesn’t really go away.

The whispers, they don’t really go away and they keep coming back. They’ve started living inside my head and every day, they grow louder and louder.

So loud that I can’t even think straight nor have a clear vision of myself or life anymore. Everything has just become a complete blur and I’m…I don’t know what it is but I feel myself…dissociating.

I don’t know how to explain it but it’s starting to suffocate me. The other day, I went to the toilet because I couldn’t breathe and I tried to ask for help. I was standing close to the sink, coughing and all these girls around me and they did nothing. They just stood there. Watching me while I was choking. I couldn’t breathe and when I turned around, they’re all laughing at me, at my face as if I was some kind of joke to them, as if I was some source of entertainment or something, saying I was faking it. But I’m not faking it. This is real.

Then, they started whispering again and the buzz started to grow, getting louder in my brain. I ran out of the toilet and there were some guys, older guys who saw me coming out and decided to surround themselves around me. Some of them were laughing. Others were making faces. But I couldn’t listen to them.

They kept staring with their eyes fixed on me. Looking so intently as if they wanted to devour me wholly. They kept making nasty comments about my weight and the way I looked. They said I was a freak and kept calling me weak. One of them spit on my hair and said I should probably get it fixed. Although I don’t think I’m the one who needs fixing. But they kept diminishing me. Until I was so small, I couldn’t even have a clear vision of what was happening anymore. I couldn’t feel my body. It felt like I was disintegrating, I stopped existing. And suddenly, it started to grow on me. This feeling that kept weighing me down, it started on my gut until it felt tight on my bones and every time I looked at myself in the mirror, I hated all of it. I just wanted to punch the person in front of me. The shame. I just wanted to disappear.

Beat.

This was a show. I mean, I was their show and they were enjoying seeing me getting smaller and smaller. For a moment, I stopped seeing faces. I tried to scream but couldn’t hear my own voice, so I screamed louder. I saw their eyes popping. They were too close now, grabbing, touching, pushing me till I fell on the floor. But even then, they didn’t stop. Those voices did not stop. The whispering did not stop and I tried to fight them back. But I couldn’t and I kept screaming but no one came. The more I tried to fight them, the worse it got. And no one seemed that bothered, really.

I’m looking down at my arms and they’re bleeding. And I don’t know how I got here. I’ve got a razor on my right hand and loads of blood on my left. I’m shaking.

How the hell did I end up here? They brought me here. They did.

I gotta stop the bleeding. I gotta find a way to stop bleeding. There’s gotta be a way. Do I wanna die? I don’t wanna die. But there must be a way of making it all stop. Something I gotta find to just stop it before dying, something in me to pull it off. But how the fuck am I supposed to pull this off, on my own, I mean? Sometimes, I don’t think I’ll get out of this alive. But then, they’ll win and I’ll lose, the usual. They win, I lose. Maybe that’s the premise that I am a seagull. You know the seagulls I was talking about earlier? I saw a dead seagull the other day. I was walking by the gates to go home and I saw it lying there on the floor. It got shot. One of the kids probably did it and for a moment, I just stood there, thinking I don’t wanna end up like that. I always look at them and think that there’s gotta be a way for them to keep it going. When they go out to the high sea, there’s gotta be a way for them to come back home after the storm without drowning or getting shot. There must be something out there that keeps them going, something beyond the need to survive. Something they can’t see quite yet but it’s there and they know it’s there, waiting for them to find it and come back home, proud to say they’ve found it. What is it though? What is it that keeps them going back again and again, even after the storm?

Maybe all I need is to spread my wings and go into infinity. Because storms don’t last forever and as the saying goes, after the storm there comes a rainbow.

Pause.

That’s it. The seagulls. The rainbow after the storm. I was wrong. Maybe there is a pot of gold at the end of each rainbow. And maybe it is worth going out there and find it. But if I kill myself now, I’ll never know. I’ll never know whether there is indeed a pot of gold.

I think about mum and dad and how selfish I’m being right now. I think about Maria, Peter and Kate, my friends. I think about grandpa and how devastated he’d be. And for what? Better to fly away and come back with a pot of gold next time I come home.

Have a story to share? Contact us.
featherpen-blog@hotmail.com   

Also, don't forget to follow us on Instagram!
@featherpenblog

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *