Whispers haunted an echoing cry through my chest; hollowing it out, leaving my heart open to being scraped raw by a flood of pain. The whispers taunted me- laughing, singing, dancing around in my head- happy and joyful in contrast to me, pressing myself into a corner of the dining room, feeling like a conduit to the deepest kind of loss. They dragged with them screen after screen of images and tapes of past days when nothing was left unknown and nothing was daunting- birthdays, Christenings, trips- even smaller things like the family watching a movie, having breakfast all together, going to the park.
The happy memories were bruises. Excruciating bruises.
Sickness overwhelmed me as they attacked my mind, like a bombardment of battering rams coming at me from every angle possible. There was no escaping and I was left to suffer through it.
Dad’s dead. Your Granddad’s dead, the voices whispered.
Sweat beaded over my goose bumped flesh and I pushed myself deeper into the wall, trying to meld my skin to it, to disappear and feel nothing. My hand clenched at my chest where my heart was throbbing, pounding obnoxiously.
Dead…
I hit the polished hard wood floor before I realised I was falling. I barely felt the pain in my tailbone as the rush of bad memories overcame me at the whispers of ‘dead’.
I am standing in the hallway yet again, watching my mother’s face crumple and hearing her lost cry of, “Oh! Mum!” into the phone. The tears slid from her lids without her will and then she was turning those unconstrained eyes on me. “Dad’s dead. Your granddad’s dead.”
I folded my legs up to my chest, my hands shaking while an odd, guttural sob clambered clumsily from my throat. My stomach was clenching, un-clenching, and clenching again in a constant rhythm that I never grew accustomed to. I let myself slide across the wall till I was huddled across the floor.
Dead…
I was the one who had to tell my little brothers. I was the oldest. I was the only one of us that knew. Mum was already half way to the hospital now. The burden of being the messenger was almost harder than the cause.
My brothers were asleep. I stood over them and without care for their serene sleep induced expressions I shook them awake. “Granddad’s dead,” the words slipped out, cold and devoid of any kind of emotion.
My brothers faces were worn from sleep, but their eyes were alert, searching my face for the joke they were missing. The youngest lips twitched and before he could smile, I snapped, “This isn’t funny! I’m serious. Granddad’s dead.”
I stormed from the room before I could see how they would register this information. I had my own issues to take care of, let alone theirs- no matter how awful a sister I was being. I had to be strong. I couldn’t cry. I wasn’t allowed to cry. Crying was weak and I couldn’t be weak. I had to be stone. Nothing could reach me through stone.
It was difficult, though, trying to block what was hurting me when it was so obvious in every breath and every glance I took.
From my vantage point on the dining room floor, the pair of mugs I had gotten my granddad and grandma for Christmas was glowing. Who would be using the pair of mugs now?
The clock my granddad had told me he had collected in Vietnam in the war was taking painstakingly slow chunks off my body with every reverberating tick…tick…tick….
My grandparent’s arm chairs stood powerfully in the lounge room. They were a position of respect. Not even my mother was allowed to indulge in their plush cushioning or fold out leg rest. I saw my Granddad resting in his chair, always on the right, and then he was gone and the empty space was apparent. Who would be taking my grandmother’s right side now?
By his throne was the latest book he was reading- Another Wilbur Smith book he loved. The book was closed and sitting peacefully. There were no protrusions of paper or cardboard jutting out of it to mark his place. An odd comfort blanketed me in that fact. He had finished it, knew the complete story and wasn’t left wondering.
I could see my granddad everywhere in the house- Scanning the bookshelf, humming some Andrea Bocelli song to himself, making tea and shouting out to my grandma, ‘what brew do you want, love?’, stretching up to the ceiling on top a chair to attempt to blu-tack Christmas decorations. He was everywhere. He was in everything.
Dead…
My eyes slammed shut and I wanted to attach prison bars so that I wouldn’t see any of it ever again.
My body fluctuated in temperature. The sweat continued to dance across my skin. My stomach was fighting an internal battle and my eyes were failing to revisit pasts that were in need of forgetting. My body was chaos. My mind was chaos. My life was chaos.
Through dry burning eyes I stared at the pair of mugs, the arm chair, the clock, the book…
I hugged my knees to my chest, bowed my head, and thought:
How am I supposed to ignore what’s missing?
As though through cotton buds, I heard the gunshots of my brother’s games. They were distracting themselves. They had noticed all the missing pieces, too.
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Maybe someday you'll have woke up,
And, barely conscious, you'll say to no one:
"Isn't something missing?"
- Missing by Evanescence
Not to sound morbid, but I'd like to know that too. ^_^
