This was a production of extreme boredeom XD hope you enjoy it!
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I stared out the window of the bus, slumping down in my seat, exhausted. Trees, houses and fields passed me by as I ventured closer and closer to the end of my journey.
Early this morning I had taken a bus down this forsaken mountain, on my way to my psychiatrist, to discuss my recent problems.
The fact that I resented discussing them was not something Mr. Epps cared about, he would simply pass the time motionlessly and stiffly sitting up until I spoke. After all, he was being paid whether I uttered a single word during our sessions or not, so I could hardly expect him to care.
This meeting, as always, he sat in his large, brown, leather armchair, tapping his pen on his notepad, watching me silently over his glasses. I stared back, my mouth tightly shut, waiting for the clock to tick away the hours and free me from the psychiatrists intense gaze.
When finally my double session was over I hurried out of the vast building, resenting every antique bit of it. It looked more like a protected monumental building or museum than a psychiatric clinic.
My next stop was the mall, to grab a bite to eat before heading over to the central park, aiming to waste some time before returning home.
Not that home was bad, but simply because the park, with all its trees and flowers, made me feel normal. I couldn’t be crazy; I was walking like any other normal person would, down a pebble path that winded its way past flowerbeds, ponds, trees and bushes.
Why did everyone insist that I wasn’t mentally healthy? I hadn’t so far been able to even figure out what Mr. Epps expected me to talk about in these so-called sessions. The only problems I knew were not ones you discuss with a fifty-year-old man who is paid to listen to your, supposedly delusional, rants.
In the seven sessions I’d been forced to sit through so far I’d spoken exactly twenty-two words to my psychiatrist. Beginning every meeting with a simple “Good morning” and ending it with “Good bye” accounted for fourteen of them.
The remaining eight had been “I do not want to talk about it”.
At the moment there was a three-week holiday, and unfortunately my parents had chosen this as the best time to decide that they thought I wasn’t sane.
Fine, sometimes my thoughts were odd.
Yeah, I wasn’t your typical sixteen-year-old girl, but I couldn’t help that I was more grown up than the rest of them.
Okay, maybe I did come across distant, cold and lacking emotion, but that only means I hide them well.
Honestly, I couldn’t see what the fuss was about. My parents had asked me questions, which I’d answered with the truth, and yet they insisted I see Epps.
No, I was not depressed.
No, I was nowhere near suicidal.
No, I never felt like hurting anyone, nor myself.
No, I wasn’t into solitude, I simply enjoyed some peace of mind.
What did they want to hear before they let it go?
The bus brakes screeched violently, interrupting my thoughts, and reminding me that I had a bus stop to look out for. I narrowed my eyes, scanning the countless empty seats before me.
When had everyone debarked?
I had taken a seat on the back row in the hopes of discouraging anyone from sitting down in my direct vicinity. I was not interested in getting to know the strangers I shared public transport with, I’d never see them again and therefore wasn’t planning to waste my time conversing with them.
With several slight shocks the bus drove off again, the engine roaring louder than I remembered. Recognizing the road I lifted myself off my seat, pressing the circular red and white STOP! button to indicate that I wanted off the bus.
The doors hissed open, and I swung my bag around my shoulder, making my way up the aisle. The bus driver lifted a hand in greeting, and I glanced at him, then raised my arm vaguely, barely acknowledging his gesture.
As my converse hit the pavement, leaving behind the safe brightness of the bus, I felt my heartbeat increase, my breath forming clouds around my face. The walk from the bus stop to my home was merely five minutes, but I couldn’t help being paranoid. Feeling uncomfortable I started down the street, shivering in the sudden, cruel cold, my hand gripping the shoulder strap of my bag.
The bus growled past me, soon vanishing around a corner as I steadied my pace at a relatively high speed. The soft sound of my converse hitting concrete was regular, and I clutched onto it, keeping my pace the same, listening for foreign sounds.
A second pair of footsteps became apparent, and I stole a quick glance over my shoulder, only just long enough to discover that someone was walking behind me. I tucked my hands in the pockets of my jeans, slightly hunching my back, trying to protect myself from the cutting wind that bit my face and hands into numbness.
The footsteps were at an equal pace with mine, and another glance over my shoulder informed me that I was only approximately five meters before my pursuer.
Well… pursuer?
I cursed in silence, telling myself to toughen up and not be silly. Whoever was walking behind me probably had a good, non-stalkerish reason to be there.
The footsteps sped up, I realized, and without even a second’s worth of hesitation I quickened my pace too, closing my hand around the house key in my pocket.
I was not going to act paranoid.
That person was not following me.
But what if…
I sighed, shaking my head to myself. Maybe I was crazy after all. Was being paranoid the same as crazy? I couldn’t say, perhaps I’d have something to talk about to Mr. Epps tomorrow after all.
At least that way we’d actually waste our money on something semi-constructive, rather than two people sitting in a room ignoring the hell out of each other.
My mystery follower coughed, sounding close, and I felt my breathing become more rapid. Why did this person have to walk here at this moment? Why not five minutes earlier or later?
Because he’s following you.
I am not paranoid.
I am not insane.
Biting back an angry curse I was relieved to turn into my street, the footsteps echoing through the air around me. Before others began to claim something was wrong with me, I’d never thought of myself as abnormal.
Maybe I was abnormal because I was told that I wasn’t like others. Because people stereotyped my normal characteristics into the list of crazy habits.
My front door was meters away now, and I made a run for it, jamming the key into the lock and falling into my hallway. I spun, slammed the door shut, locked it, and flattened my back against the cold wood.
My mom came up the stairs, calling my name several times before appearing in my line of sight. Her expression was a complicated mixture of annoyance and pity, and I wondered to myself which of the two bothered me the most.
‘Elle, what’s going on?’ my mother looked me up and down unsurely, halting her step over a meter from me, and then averted her gaze to the dark window beside me.
‘Mom… did you see him?’
‘Who, Elle?’
‘This man! He was… I think he was following me’ comforted by my mothers presence I pressed my forehead against the window and stared outside. There was nothing out there but an empty street.
A pale figure lunged at the window, and I heard myself scream, tripping over the shoulder bag I’d deposited on the floor and widening my eyes, in awe, at the face that was observing me with a scary mocking smile. The pale palms of his hands were pressed against the glass beside his face, his thin, long fingers spread slightly.
I clenched my eyes shut. He can’t get through the glass. The door is locked. Mom’s here. Dad’s here. He can’t get through the glass…
‘Elle?’ my mother sounded worried, but not so much as one could expect when a creepy stranger flattens his distorted face against your window.
‘Get dad! DO something!’ I wasn’t planning on opening my eyes anytime soon, knowing the image would haunt my dreams for weeks already.
‘Why? Elle! What’s wrong!’
‘AT THE WINDOW!’ I bellowed, turning my head towards her so rapidly that I felt a click in my neck, then stared at her, avoiding the window ‘THE MAN!’
‘Elle… there is no one at the window’ she kneeled beside me, resting her warm hands on my shoulders ‘Are you okay?’
With all my might I turned back to the window, my hearth hammering my ribcage so severely I was certain it would break out.
Nothing, no one, no white face and spidery hands.
‘No one was at the window, ever, I was standing here, looking, and… nothing was there, Elle’
‘What are you implying?’ I bit back ‘That I’m a… psychosomatic raving lunatic or something?’
She shook her head unhurriedly ‘No, love, I don’t mean that. I mean that… maybe you should discuss this with Dr. Epps’
Hearing my dad’s footsteps on the stairs I lifted my eyes to my mother’s round, kind face ‘I did not imagine this’
‘Elle…’
As my father noticed me, sitting on the ground, my mother leaning over me, he heaved a deep sigh ‘What is it this time, Elle? More faces in the mirrors?’
Oh, that was low.
I glowered at him ‘No, a man at the window’
My mother rose to her feet, seizing her husband by the arm and leading him into his office, leaving me alone in the hallway. I forced my gaze to the window, hearing their whispers in the background. What small fragments of speech I could hear didn’t bode well.
My mother spoke ‘Jack… she’s seeing things… not normal…. Dr. Epps…. the clinic might…. take care of it tomorrow’
Dammit!
‘I AM NOT CRAZY!’ I hollered, rigid with anger and fear ‘I AM NOT CRAZY!’
My father appeared around the corner ‘Of course you’re not, Elle, you’re… troubled. I’m certain the clinic will do a terrific job of helping you’
I was speechless.
My own parents were sending me away.
And all I ever did was tell them what I saw.
to be very honest, I'm deciding whether to make her crazy or not in the continuation of the story, so it's not surprising that it's difficult to tell !
what a pair !