Young Writers Society

Philosophy of the Dark- Chapter Nine. PG-13 for adult language and violence

Chapter 9

-A Fate worse than Falling

-On both accounts

Jamie carefully shut the notebook, her hands were shaking, every nerve still alert and waiting for the blow. After a deep breath she pushed herself away from the desk, despite her shaking and fear, she felt more alive than ever. As if she could walk down the stairs with a feeling far from fear. Pride, maybe, she wasn't sure yet.

Her mother was sitting in the kitchen, at the beat up, time worn, dining table.

“Are you okay?” She asked when she say Jamie.

“Yeah, actually,” Jamie replied, “never better.”

Her mom tilted her head slightly to the left, as if she didn't understand

what her daughter meant.

Jamie smiled as she grabbed a pop-tart from a brand new box and left the house from the side door. It took her until she reached her car that she realized she didn't know where to go. She could go anywhere, Jamie believed that she could fly if she wanted to. Fortunately she didn't want to, otherwise she would have been disappointed.

She started the car and drove away, through streets she had driven over so often she didn't even have to think about it anymore. She saw a brown sign on the side of the road, and suddenly she knew where she was going. To the lake.

It had been years since she had been there. She was at the age where it's hard to remember if you were six or eight, all she knew was her parents were still together at the time, and fighting viciously.

Her mother brought her here after one particularly bad fight, which had ended with Richard leaving Jamie's mom a crumpled mess on the ground. Jamie didn't think about that day very often, she just remembered one thing.

Her mom running to the edge of the water, making it waist deep before she tripped and fell with a splash into the icy coldness of spring.

Jamie walked across the damp sand, it was raining and nobody was here. Every emotion that she had ignored for the past years came flashing back in one flesh gripping moment. Leaving Jamie breathless and unmoving.

She started again, with a new determination to her step. Eventually she broke into a jog, and finally the edge of the water greeted her eyes.

She found the small dock, ran across it's slippery sand speckled surface. The edge raced toward her as she got closer to it, a race to the end, see who would last longer.

Jamie reached the end and jumped, landing into the icy water. It closed over her like a fist, forcing the air out of her lungs, chilling her to her very core. She emerged from the water, icy water dripped from her eyelashes down her face, black hair like her fathers clung to her like a wet blanket. Her clothes were weighing her down, and it took all of her strength to tread the water.

She forced air into her lungs, and let it out in a long scream. Her throat burned, but she screamed again, and again. Until she couldn't talk anymore. Until she couldn't even laugh.

Joy bubbled in her has she pulled her self, dripping wet, back onto the dock. Her clothes were heavy with water, her shoes waited for her in the sand. She sat down near them, still on the dock with her feet dangling into the water.

This would be the perfect place to write, and the perfect thing to write about.

If only she had her notebook with her. She froze, unmoving as fear clutched her heart, shoving it back into her throat. Only this time it didn't beat.

“Holy shit,” she said, her voice only audible to her mind.

The house was chaos when she arrived. There was screaming, doors opening and closing, a person yelling.

“Jamie, where are you, you fucking little whore!”

Jamie's main thought was not of fear, but something else. Her father had called her Jamie. All of a sudden she didn't care that he was looking for her. Nothing would hurt with the knowledge that he could actually speak her name.

He threw himself down the stairs, then saw her. In three steps he was a few inches from her, in his hand was a red notebook, crumpled and bent in every way. Jamie's heart fell back into place, where it beat with the sad, slow determination of loss.

“What the fuck?” Richard yelled in her face, saliva flying out of his mouth like a rabid dogs.

Jamie took a step back from him, he followed her.

“Talk to me bitch! I know what's in here!”

Jamie lashed out, and if she could have screamed she would have. Her first kick landed at it's desired target, crumpling Richard to the floor. She took the notebook and ran up to her room, shutting the door and locking it.

She searched frantically for a place to hide it, finally she threw open her closet door, and dropped the notebook into a shirt drawer, she slammed the door and locked with a key, which she slid in the small space between the carpet and door to her closet.

Footsteps coming up the stairs, cursing, yelling, tears.

The door flew open, and Jamie was on the other side of the room, crouched

in a corner. Sobbing so violently that she chocked on her tears. Literally a killing sadness. Her lungs burned, her throat was raw, and there was a man walking toward her with murder written in his eyes.

***

The things we do for what we have. Risking our lives for simple things. But to me, it's different. It's my job to protect the words, as they protect me. No amount of metal can heal like words, not even lead.

I protect my words the way some animals protect their young, because all I have to do is write, and the words will survive. Even if I die, my words will live on. So, here are my words, dear reader. Treat them well.

If I do nothing else in life, it will be to shed light on a topic so undiscussed, so misunderstood. But a topic it is, real to me because it is my life. It always has been my life, and until I do something it always will be. There are colors, starting with deep purple, to black, puke green, sickly yellow and finally skin. These are the marks.

There is a certain way of talking, a certain walk, an edge at the lift of an arm. Those are the symptoms.

A broken spirit, a lost soul, are the results.

The diagnosis- a fate worse than falling.

To be within reach just to be pushed back up again to relive the fall, again and again. Never quite hitting the ground, but never being high enough to save yourself.

POD 10- The Cure. POSTED NOW on a computer near you!