Finding My Voice

Spoiler

This is the edited version after I got some tips from a comment

I would always cry as a kid. Over anything and everything. That’s why they chose me. The crybaby. The weak little boy with the big heart and the sad eyes. For years it hasn’t been let go. Every day I’d trudge home, coated in bruises. My mother didn’t see me, too strung out on ‘prescription’ medication. My dad had long hauled his ass out our door, preferring a life of ‘sex, drugs and rock’n’roll’ to us. Which can be roughly translated into ‘fuck this, I hate you all’ when he walked out the door and wrapped his arm around some bleach-blonde waitress named Macy. I hated the name Macy. He couldn’t even leave us for someone with a half decent name. But I couldn’t do anything, the crybaby that I am. I simply sat by and let him leave. I let him do what he did to my mother. I let her fall into that abyss.

I screamed silently for the first time.

“Charlie!” my little sister, Paige would cry when I got home, flinging her arms around my waist. She wasn’t a crybaby. She didn’t care that, to my mother, she was more commonly known as ‘the bastard child’. My mother didn’t seem to accept that we were her bastard children. She just looked up at us from beneath heavy eyelids like we were two strange children who just wandered in off the street. It didn’t matter that we had her blue eyes and wavy, dark hair. We were nothing but ghosts. Faint apparitions that soaked through her drug haze. Never in the same world.

“Hey little girl,” I said softly, stroking her hair. I looked up around the dingy motel room we tried to call ‘home’. Flies buzzed around half eaten meals, enjoying the food far more than we had. Various insects scuttled across the damp, suspiciously stained floors and dust lingered on everything. Even my mother, who was lounged in her chair, an empty bottle of sedatives in her weary grip. Her hands looked like claws, with the flesh melted to the bone, brittle and gray. Everything was fucking gray. Except my sister. The rainbow in the blah-ness of the world.

“What’s this?” Paige asked, her tiny fingers gently probing my mottled blue flesh. I tried hard not to show her it hurt.

“It’s nothing. I fell at school. I’m ok.” The same old lies. I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that her big brother had his ass kicked. That I’d let myself be thrown against a brick wall and my face smashed into lockers. Had my hair set on fire and my books flushed in the toilet. And that was just that day. And worse, I couldn’t tell her that I hadn’t fought back. I hadn’t said a single fucking thing. I clenched my hands into fists and my mouth tightened.
I screamed silently.

“Be careful, ok, silly?” Paige asked. “I don’t want you to get hurt.” With that, I wrapped my hand around hers as she showed me the pictures she’d drawn on the back of old doctor’s prescriptions. I applauded and cheered and praised her. I needed her to be happy. If she wasn’t happy. I had nothing left to live for. It was the one thing I could do.


And then she was taken from me. By some fucking sick pervert. My mom had left her alone by herself in the park while she went to fill her prescription at the local pharmacy. He’d cornered her on the swing. Promised her a puppy. She had always loved puppies.

They found her floating in the river.

A rope around her throat.

And her innocence long gone. Snuffed out like a candle. The beautiful little light in my darkness, wiped out like so much nothing. And where was I? I probably had my head in a toilet bowl because I was too weak to do anything about it.
My mother didn’t even cry. I’m not even sure she knew. It was one less ghost, one less stranger. One less bastard child.
They thought I’d done it at first. Blame the screwed up kid, they thought. He raped and strangled his sister. His baby sister. The only thing in the world he loved. Show him pictures. Let him look at the blood in her hair, the strangle-marks around her neck and the bruises that blossomed on her perfect skin. Fuck the kid up even further. What’s he going to do about it? Nothing. There’s nothing the little crybaby can do but sit there and whimper.

I screamed silently.

The beatings stopped, for a little while, pity staying their fists, causing them to choke on their insults like my sister had been choked. The teachers let me do whatever I wanted. Which was nothing. I barely showed up. If I did, I just sat there, off in my own world. A world where Paige still existed. I was left lone for a while. A grace period. A little time to grieve. But then they came back harder than ever once they saw the angry red lines across my wrists, the little scars that told them I had nothing left to live for. That pain and blood were my redemption. They saw that I was broken and they wanted me to be shattered. ‘Emo’ they‘d shout, ‘faggot’, they’d spit ‘rapist’ cut me deep, ‘killer’ even more so. It didn’t matter that the real killer was rotting away in his cell. They’d tell me to die. I wanted to. I really, really wanted to. But I didn’t want to go alone. I’d spent too much of my life alone already. So I made a decision. I formed a plan. I wouldn’t cry any more. I wouldn’t be weak anymore.


This is it I told myself as I walked into school. Those gates opened like the gates to hell. This was hell, every student the tongue of a flame, whipping me, burning me. Killing me slowly. It’s time. No more weakness. Weakness is why dad left. Weakness drove my mother to pills. Weakness took away Paige, my precious little Paige. Weakness was killing me. But no more. No more.

I pulled out my salvation and aimed it at no one in particular.

BANG I sent someone to heaven. There’s silent shock.

BANG there goes another soul. The screaming began.

BANG there goes the third. Three. One more. I held the cold steel against my temple, breathing in.

I screamed as loud as I could.

BANG there’s four. One for every year Paige was alive. One for every month I had suffered without her. But no longer. I wasn’t weak now. I’d shown Weakness that it couldn’t hold me any longer. I would find her again. And when I did, I would tell her that I finally found my voice.

First of all, wow. This was really hard to stomach, but in a good way (as good as a story that makes you want to throw up in a good way can be good xP). You picked a hard topic. A topic that usually gets flashed with a 'no no' sign because of the complete lack of sanity that comes with so much being wrong in ones life. Its hard to really grasp what one feels in such a situation, so I definitely give you a big kudos for attempting.

But, as a writer, I cannot praise everything.

Even my mother, who was lounged in her chair, an empty bottle of sedatives in her thin, bony hands. Her hands looked like claws, with the flesh melted to the bone, brittle and gray

Right here, you show a bit of a flaw in your technique that needs to be thought through a little better. You repeat a noun twice in a paragraph. As much as this may not seem like a big deal, the repetition takes a big toll on what people precieve your writing to be. You want 'interesting'. Not repetitive.

Another thing I would like to note up on is your descriptions.

I know this is a hard subject. Its one I fear I would never be able to take on just because I'm someone who describes every facet to a situation. Its hard to really grasp a situation without fully emerging yourself within it, and to do so, one most be willing to write what they fear writing, or what they believe readers will have a hard time stomaching. But, in this case, do it anyways. You can obviously put the topic and emotion out there. Describe it. Make me hate every sick bastard that walks this earth.

Thirdly, I would like to touch up on your voice. You give such an interesting story, and an interesting character, but its almost as if you contradict yourself a bit. You say that he's the crying type. The kind who doesn't fight back, and yet his thought process is fiesty as all hell. You could easily go with the same plot, but with a character who does fight back. It would make his actions maybe a little more believable. That, and he seemed oddly sane. Like he was pretty much indefinite. But when creating good character, you don't want to make someone seem to sure of themselves and then have them throw everything away. Its insecurity and sadness that should spurn insanity. Not this will of mind he seems to possess.

You have such a strong character voice, but not for this story. Not for this topic. Tone it down a ton. Make him sound hopeless. It'll do you wonders, kid.

~Walker

Hi!

I actually really like the perspective that this takes, I've seen too many things that paint school shootings as being carried out by cold, heartless, ruthless monsters, and tend to ignore the fact that people aren't just white or black -- good or bad.

Giving us the back story is good, because it leaves us, the readers, in a bit of a conflicted position. Here is a character that I can sympathise with because he's certainly gone through many hardships through in his life. We can see that he's capable of compassion, it's clear that he cares about his mother and his sister. We can see that the cruel actions of his classmates wound him deeply. But then at the same time he goes out and commits this terrible act of violence. I couldn't call him a monster, because I can see what he's gone through, but this doesn't excuse him from his terrible actions. I also think it's kind of interesting to have the juxtaposition of this horrible thing being done by someone who refers to himself as a crybaby, it's a nice contrast.

One thing that makes this a little difficult to read at the moment is your sentence structure. There's that phrase, variety is the spice of life, and while the link is perhaps a little tenuous, the same could be said for sentences. At the moment, everything is in single clause sentences and there are very few commas to be seen, which makes the rhythm of your text a little repetitive and as a result bland. That's not to say that you should never have single clause sentences, but if they're interspaced with longer ones then they can have much more of an impact upon the reader, to your first paragraph to show you what I mean:

I would always cry as a kid. Over anything and everything. That’s why they chose me. The crybaby. The weak little boy with the big heart and the sad eyes. For years it hasn’t been let go. Every day I’d trudge home, coated in bruises. My mother didn’t see me, too strung out on ‘prescription’ medication. My dad had long hauled his ass out our door, preferring a life of ‘sex, drugs and rock’n’roll’ to us. Which can be roughly translated into ‘fuck this, I hate you all’ when he walked out the door and wrapped his arm around some bleach-blonde waitress named Macy. I hated the name Macy. He couldn’t even leave us for someone with a half decent name. But I couldn’t do anything, the crybaby that I am. I simply sat by and let him leave. I let him do what he did to my mother. I let her fall into that abyss.

I screamed silently for the first time.

might become:

I would always cry as a kid, over anything and everything. That’s why they chose me -- the crybaby, the weak little boy with the big heart and the sad eyes. For years it hasn’t been let go; every day I’d trudge home coated in bruises, my mother didn’t see me, too strung out on ‘prescription’ medication. My dad had long hauled his ass out our door, preferring a life of ‘sex, drugs and rock’n’roll’ to us, which can be roughly translated into ‘fuck this, I hate you all’ when he walked out the door and wrapped his arm around some bleach-blonde waitress named Macy. I hated the name Macy. He couldn’t even leave us for someone with a half decent name. But I couldn’t do anything, the crybaby that I am, I simply sat by and let him leave. I let him do what he did to my mother, I let her fall into that abyss.

I screamed silently for the first time.

It's 2am so that's probably not my best (idk if that semi-colon is in the right place), but you can sorta get what I mean, right?

Anyway! I hope that I've been of some use to you :D if you have any questions about anything that I've said, or if there's anything that you'd like me to elaborate on, then feel free to shoot me a PM!

-Tinny

Well first of all congratulations for writing such a thing. I've read it once & carefully. What's interesting is, now I want to read it again.
Keep up the Good work.
The review is still pending !