Chapter Six- Script Reads, Script Ends
I don't write stories. I don't even write. I just...
Interpret.
I sit at my laptop and stare at the illuminated whiteness of a blank Word document, entranced by its black blinking cursor. I sit and I drain completely and fill to my potential at the same time.
The world comes to me simultaneously sharp and blunt and I receive it with open arms. It's an explosion of an innate and raw core, splintered and embedded into every breathing being. The splinters that mold to me do so in both harmony and argument. Amidst this I repeatedly loose and find myself.
I cry and laugh inwardly and frown and smile outwardly.
I burst with contradiction.
Sometimes this causes flow. Sometimes my fingers dance detached over the keyboard, clicking away furiously to capture fleeting snaps of life my mind is too slow to recognize.
The resulting words of this intricate dance aren't really words. They don't form sentences and then paragraphs, chapters and stories. They don't hold just one definition in their own pitiful seclusion.
They blend. They transform. They weave adeptly yet effortlessly together to form chasms upon chasms of excruciating reality that I hardly contain knowledge of.
Perhaps this reality, this outcome of spiraling alphabet could be referred to as an image of feelings. An image that alters that intangible and splinted core we all possess into something more comprehensible, something maybe not attainable to the eye, but at least to the mind and soul.
Presently this current coursing through me has produced a room. In this room, this square room with stained white walls, there sits a girl. Beside the girl, unrecognizable in both psychological and physical shadow, stands a lamp. The lamp's light creeps across the floor, reaches desperately for the walls, but flickers.
Sometimes the light is bright, sometimes faded. Sometimes the girls form moves across its beams, but mostly they rest uninterrupted. Sometimes the light goes out completely and sometimes it turns red or yellow or gray.
Right now, it is dull, unchanging, unable to stretch to where the girl sits slumped and sleeping in a corner of the room.
This is because my hands are still.
This is because now is one of those times that my burst of contradiction is not so inspiring of natural flow but rather tying me down.
I'm stuck, so deep in thought that the outside world ceases to hold existence in my mulling mind. I'm stuck, words and muse having deserted me.
And all too ironically, when all I need is silence and seclusion, the doorbell rings.
The doorbell rings and the door swings open revealing a highly unwanted visitor, an intruder, also known as Orlando.
He stands casually, chewing intently on his nails and looking quite disheveled.
If I weren't so detached I'd be really surprised to see him.
"Uh...hi."
"What? No hug?" He pushes past me, breezing nonchalantly into my apartment.
I try to concentrate on his presence but I can't. I'm still back in my screen, trapped, tied down in that room in a head that's not mine with a dull, monotonous light throbbing against my skull.
"So...I left about six messages. You never called back."
Frown, frown, frustration.
I hate how
I hate how despite all this some part of me always desires his company.
"You know...this really isn't a good time."
Question of the day:
Why must my life always include so much drama and confrontation?
In other words:
What the hell is wrong with me?
"I don't like being ignored and ignoring me is exactly what you've been doing the past week,"
This is true, but can he really blame me?
"I've just been busy," I tell him.
In my mind the girl in the room is hammering her head on the cold concrete wall, the light surrounding her agonizingly bright.
I hold back from rolling my eyes at this classic movie line.
Script reads:
Girl breaks into tears, collapses into boy's arms with a dramatic wail.
Girl (sobbing): Oh,
Boy (comfortingly yet cunningly): There, there. Didn't I tell you I majored in medication?
Girl and boy have hot steamy sex and live happily ever after.
Script ends.
Well, sorry
Life isn't a movie and help is exactly what I don't want.
And I've checked my planner, hot steamy sex with
"You're delusional Orli. I don't need any help."
He doesn't seem too convinced.
"Look. You want to know why I never called you back? Because of exactly this. I don't want any fucking pity."
I stare at him dead in the eye when I say this, but he turns his head.
I'm wondering, am I really so horrible?
This is me being truthful for once and he won't even look at me?
"I don't pity you," He whispers, plopping down on my couch. "I wouldn't even know what to pity you for."
He's right of course. He's witnessed so much, but he's still lost. He saw how I lied to Anna, how I hurt her but that was just one small part to a thousand piece puzzle. When it comes down to it,
And in the dark is exactly where I want him to stay.
"Then just drop it," I say.
He sighs and I sit back at my computer, silently praying that he'll just leave now.
He doesn't.
"I was reading the script to my new project the other day," He blurts out. "They have scene where spiders are crawling on my character."
I laugh, despite myself.
His voice is shaky, revealing uncharacteristic hesitance and fear.
"What the fuck am I going to do?!"
He seems quite distressed, but I know it's more of an act than anything.
I asked him to drop it, and he has. For once he is letting me forget.
And I'll gladly play along.
"Can't you just ask them to...CGI the spiders in or something?"
"And be known as the sissy of the set for the next months?!"
I laugh again and mutter disapprovingly to my laptop, "Men."
The blank screen in front of me has sprung to life, is dancing wildly in unmasked potential. My fingers twitch, flow across the keyboard, send resounding clicks through the room. The noise blends with Orli's accented ramble in unusual harmony.
And just like that the damn breaks free, bursting with inspiration.
The room I was writing comes to life once again.
Click, click, click.
The dull lamp brightens considerably, its lighting perfect, and spreads softly across the girls face, revealing tear-stained cheeks. But the girl is smiling through the tears and the concrete walls around her, though remaining, turn to wooden ones.
Instead of silence a comforting hum filters into the room to greet her.
Numb insanity is breached, silent fears are scattered.
A shadow still lurks but remains presently out of sight and mind.
Click, click, click.
The images pour out of me, whip me off into another world while the reality in my apartment remains undisturbed.
I type and
I type and
I type and
In situations like this time has no existence, no meaning. Four hours go by in four seconds.
In situations like this all present thought vanishes.
I type and type and type and I don't stop. Not once but maybe to mindlessly crack a knuckle or two.
I type and type and type and I don't stop until the loud ringing of
My fingers fall still.
"Hey Mum."
I blink, shake my head clear in odd awakening.
"I swear I was just going to call Mum, I swear."
A pause and then
Something peculiar is happening. Something inside of me is stirring, blistering.
Raging jealously. Spite.
I look at
I hate him for that happy smile. I hate him for that warm comfortable sparkle in his eyes, for his light and casual conversation.
I hate him for having what I never could, for deserving what I never did.
My hands shake with this hate. This hate, so harshly directed at the innocent, that isn't even my own.
Vaguely I'm aware of
But I'm not hearing it. Not really listening.
Instead my spite ruptures in vivid memory.
Usually all that haunts me are the mirrors.
Instead I'm hearing my own mother, her angry short words.
You little fucking whore!
Instead I'm feeling her cold gaze, piercing me with the harsh sting of detest and regret.
Bewildered grief, disappointment, hopelessness.
Why couldn't it have been you?
The memories send chills though me and I clench my muscles, scalded by the burning cold.
I turn to watch
He disappears and I just sit here, unable to move.
Alone. Self-pitying. Pathetic.
So I do what I do best.
I think of puppies and chocolate and Bounty.
I think of Elijah and
But what I do best isn't enough.
I think of
And then some unknown force swoops into me, takes control.
I surprise myself, I surrender without struggle.
I hear a voice, my voice, say loudly, "My mother hates me."
The tone is bland, detached, unfamiliar.
Behind me the sound of Orli's movements cease abruptly and are replaced by a barely audible sharp intake of breath.
But he doesn't say a word.
I repeat, "She hates me."
I elaborate, "She resents me."
And the worse part is, I understand. I'd hate me too.
"Jules..." He comes over and kneels in front of me.
Something in me breaks, just keeps rambling.
I don't know why. Maybe I just feel like I owe it to
Or maybe I'm just afraid if I don't tell someone my mother's hate will eat me away, rot my insides.
But I'm thinking I'm too late. I'm thinking maybe it already has.
So I don't stop the flow of words that pour out of me. My mind is protesting in protective vain but my mouth moves on its own.
I tell him about that night, that night he found me on the side of the road. I tell him how my mother's eyes burned right through me, how I knew at that moment she wished I were dead. I tell him how I immediately forgave her, that I knew I deserved such loathing because I murdered my own flesh and blood.
I tell him all this and
My silent tears quickly soak his shirt.
I'm so sick of crying. I'm so sick of this irrepressible self-pity. I'm so sick of being this helpless, broken person whose missing pieces are never found.
Drama, drama, drama.
All I am is a burden to be dealt with.
Thump. Thumpthumpthump.
I'm so in tuned to it that I almost don't notice the sound of a door handle jiggling, and then swinging open.
Elijah waltzes in, triumphantly holding up a glittering key.
"It works!" He announces smiling.
I immediately tear out of
"Ehal...Elijah!"
His smile fades instantly, forehead creasing.
"What's wrong?!"
Blue eyes stare at me in wide alarm.
Brown eyes rest softly on my back.
I'm frozen in contradiction, in truth and insincerity.
I'm frozen but I stand shaking, face stained with tears. I lie stupidly, "N-nothing."
And Elijah just nods. Just nods obediently like he always does.
Guilt shreds through me.
I bite my lip. I twirl a hair. I stare at him intensely.
My eyes say: I'm so sorry Elijah, but I need at least one of you in the dark. I need the freedom you give me.
And he does give it to me. He really does.
With Elijah there are no tears, no trips down memory lane.
With Elijah I can live the life I've never before been graced with.
With Elijah the lie isn't really a lie; it's reality.
He walks over to me, swipes away my tears with his thumb and places his lips softly over mine.
He says, "You want to watch the movie."
It's not a question but I nod anyways.
He shifts his focus behind me. "You should stay Orli."
I turn to face him and he's frowning slightly, looking between Elijah and me in confusion.
I watch as my hands reaches out, touches
The confusion lingers but he smiles.
He smiles softly at me and I almost feel...satisfied.
Because when it's all over and done, this wasn't about me, wasn't about my tears and my suffering.
It was about laying it all out there. It was about faith and dependence and honesty.
It was about finally giving
I just hope he realizes that this is the extent of what I have to give.
I'm all dried up now.
He smiles and says, "I think I just might."
The movie is popped in and we all three sink into my couch.
Elijah laces his fingers through mine and
"So, you two, eh?"
We just smile.
All my tears have vanished; exist only in the whisper of a dream.
I amar prestar aen.
Orlando Elijah and I, we will ourselves to merge with the screen flickering before us.
Our minds go,
...
And our mouths curve up-right in ease.
A soft voice hums beautifully in our ears.
It tells us,
The world has changed.
And maybe, for just this one moment, it has.
