Crimson Badge

I was never much of a girly-girl, growing up. In fact, I probably had more action and superheroes than any boy on the block. I loved reading about superheroes. In my mind, they were real, they just stayed undercover. Then, someone murdered my dad. I was only seven. They stabbed him thirty-seven times. Who stabs someone thirty-seven times? I remember sitting in the backyard stabbing at the sand, trying to keep count. Thirty-seven is a lot of times to stab at something.

The police officer came out to see me and saw the holes in the ground and the broken stick in my hand. He didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, he said “I will do everything I can to find out who did this.”
“Aren’t you supposed to promise it?” I asked.
“Would it mean more to you if I did?” he answered. I think he knew. He could have promised, but it wouldn’t have changed anything. Chances of finding someone like that are slim. And there was no superhero that day to stop that man’s knife.

Two weeks later, grandpa came to stay. Mom did nothing but work anymore. She left the house in the middle of breakfast and came back in time to say good night. Sometimes, anyway. Mostly, I didn’t see her again until the next morning. On Saturday, grandpa decided it was time I got another action hero, and took me to the toy store. I explained to him the difference between my favourite superheroes, but I had all the figures the store had.
“So what about a police officer? Or a fireman?”
I rolled my eyes. “Those aren’t superheroes, grandpa.”
“They’re the only one’s we’ve got nowadays sugar.”

I wasn’t really buying it, but I let him get me a police officer figure. As time went by, my superheroes eventually disappeared, passed on to other kids who wanted to make believe, but I held on to the police officer. The police may have never figured out what happened to my dad, but grandpa was right. They were the only superheroes we had.

When I was seventeen, I moved out. Mom didn’t care. I don’t think she even realized I moved out for the first two weeks. That was when she called me because she couldn’t find her dry cleaner tag, and I told her I hadn’t even been in the house since her last two trips to the dry cleaner. My friend had an empty bedroom, so I just moved in. If the landlord noticed, he didn’t care enough to say anything.

I like to think I did a pretty good job of taking care of myself. I made my own money, paid bills, and gathered the paperwork I needed to apply for college. The apartment complex was nice enough but it was right next to an unlit park, and when winter came, even four pm felt eerie.

Horror movies always feel so cliche, and in real life you try to calm yourself by rationalizing that bad things don’t really happen like that. Only, sometimes they do. Sometimes you’re walking home in the dark in a neighbourhood where nothing really happens, and someone steps in your way, and puts a gun to your forehead.

I remember every little detail, and yet when I try to recall it, I feel like my mind blurs it away, only to torment me with it when I sleep. I remember him forcing me backward off the pathway, the gun digging so far into my forehead it might as well have been a knife. I remember everything going numb as he pushed me against a tree and started tearing my clothes off. Then he tore his pants off. Using only one hand, he shook himself free, and his pocket contents flew to the ground.

He shoved me to the ground, face first, with the gun burrowing in my back as he steadied himself over me. The pain was blinding, and I looked around in a panic for something, anything, to help me. But the only thing that caught my eye was the glint of what had fallen out of his pocket.

It was his badge.

Something in me broke, and things get blurry. I remember screaming and elbowing him in the face. I must have caught him off guard, because his gun flew into the bushes as he fell backward. He grabbed hold of my ankle and I kicked his face in, screaming again.

“You’re supposed to protect us! It’s all wrong! No! You–you are supposed to be our superheroes!”
I kicked myself free of my pants and tore off for the apartment. I just left everything behind and ran. When Janice opened the door I didn’t even say anything, I just ran for the bathroom and climbed into the bathtub. I didn’t even turn the water on, I just curled up in the tub and pulled the curtain around me.

It took her hours to get me to talk and explain what happened. She didn’t even get a reaction out of me until she moved to call the police. I shrieked no over and over again. She put her phone down, but she still tried to change my mind.

“This is a big deal, Annie. You were raped by a cop! We need to call the police and have them do something about it!”
“Right, because the police are going to do something about another cop!”
“They’re just human, Annie, and one of them did a sick, sick thing. Now we need to trust the others to actually do their job.”
“No. No they’re not supposed to be human. They’re supposed to be different. They’re supposed to protect us because they’re the only ones who can!”
“Annie. They’re not all like that. And we need to keep it that way by telling the others about it.”
“It only takes one, Janice. It only takes one.”

I went back to the park the next morning, but everything was gone. He had probably taken the evidence and burned it.
I never did go to the police about it. I don’t think Janice has ever really forgiven me for it, but I couldn’t. I had held my broken childhood together with a plastic figurine, and facing the realty of human saviours was more than I could bear.

NitorInMori©

Dust

Walls are paper thin and made from trust. Your whispers are the pen, and you're writing it to dust. Justified words lose power by method of transit. And tonight, soul's blood is mixing with decayed remains of what once was so strong.

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down. Everything we were is fragile as parchment, and I stood staring into the dusk as it burst into flame, nothing more but dust scattering in the wind. 

Kisses crumbled to sawdust, and touch has left nothing but shattered marble. Love is a word on paper, a whisper of a legend fallen mortals dream of but can never find. 

Everything must eventually turn to dust, but you just enjoy holding up the flame under my soul. 

NitorInMori©

You Are Responsible

Life has been insane, these past few months. It's taken me a lot to force myself back into my writing. In the past, I have been able to rely on my stories to make myself feel better. There's something cathartic about writing things out, and one thing I've noticed is that I can often find myself in my protagonist, even the things that I don't like. Occasionally that's all it takes for me to realize that I've created a character I can't stand, and that this character is exhibiting traits I myself have been displaying as of late. 

Something I've noticed about myself lately is that I'm hiding behind all the emotional shit I've been feeling and using it as an excuse for my weakness of character, rather than accepting that sometime shit happens, and moving on instead. 

I can bemoan the fact that I haven't had a decent night's sleep in months, that I have constant panic attacks, and that I can't write half a page without wishing Drake were here to talk to about it, and that it's causing me to lose any willpower to get up, go outside, socialize, to do pretty much anything. Or, I can stop asking why and just force myself to push through until I find it. 

Shit goes down, and things fucking suck, but I am responsible for my own decisions. 

Whore

The door creaked obnoxiously as she shoved it open. Get WD-40, she added to her mental to-do list of a million things she never had the motivation to get done anyway. Fumbling for the light switch, she kicked her shoes off and headed for the refrigerator. She reached for the orange carton and, giving it a solid shake, took a swig to wash the semen from her mouth.

She plopped on the bar stool and took another chug. It took a few more swallows before the taste started to fade. She sat there in silence, cradling the orange juice carton, lost in thought, trying to find an excuse to stay awake. Finding none, she flipped off the lights, abandoning the juice on the counter, and collapsed on the bed. She shut her eyes, but she couldn't shut out the voices in her head.

"When did you get home?"
"About five minutes ago. The shoot took longer than expected, and I have to go back early in the morning."

She winced and shifted, feeling his hands on her, trying to unhook her bra.

"Jake. I'm tired. I have to get up in five hours again. Please."
"So you can have sex on camera but you can't have it with your boyfriend?"
"It's my job and I have to go back and do it again in five hours. I'm tired. That's all."
"So what, I have to get in line? Get out some cash? Is that what it will take? Do I have to throw some money on you to get some? Do I have to treat you like a goddamn vending machine?"

Her eyes flew open and she turned the nightstand light on. The room was empty. The torment was all in her mind. Night after night.

"Can we try it tonight?"
"I told you. It hurts."
"You did it on camera."
"That was a job."
"So what? You care more about your job than you care about me? Is it because I don't pay you? Is that it?"

Anguish, and fear finally gave way to anger and resolution. "No. It's because when the cameras are on, it's a job, and what I do outside of that is supposed to be pleasure. And it's not pleasure when you force shit I don't want to do on me by guilt-tripping me."
"Are you serious? You're lucky I tolerate you with your shitty job as it is."
"No. Actually. You're lucky you get for free what everyone else pays for. Now get the fuck out of my apartment."

She gave up on sleep and trudged back to the kitchen. She got a tumbler out of the cabinet and poured the orange juice in it, this time adding a good shot of vodka. Sure, she had a backbone. Sure, she knew how to stand up for herself. She paid her bills and went shopping when she pleased.

But at the end of the day, she came home alone, because at the end of the day, she was still a whore.

NitorInMori©

Sacrilege

The thing about nightmares is that when you wake up, it’s supposed to be over. You’re supposed to wake up screaming for mommy, turn the lights on, and see your familiar pooh bear in the corner, next to the toppled over Thomas the Tank Engine and Barbie’s Dream House.

The thing about dreaming you’re abandoned, cold, tired, and hungry, is that when you wake up you’re supposed to wrap your blankets around you tighter as you sneak downstairs for a glass of milk. And when your nightmare is reality, your dreams are supposed to be an escape.

There was no escape for Annie. Bad dreams were a sign of an evil mind. Evil minds must be starved. Go to the priest. Ask forgiveness. Father, please forgive me. I’m so cold. I’m so hungry. But the father sits and grins drunkenly, holding up a forkful of steak. You want to eat? How badly? What will you do to eat?

Tears stream down her face as she trudges back home, trying to stop the bleeding; terrified of what mommy will say… terrified of what mommy will do. She stares at her fingers in fear. Must hide the blood. Must hide. Mommy cannot see. Mommy will know. It’s crusted over and won’t rub off on her tattered dress. She pops her fingers in her mouth to wash away the shame. She creeps into bed and closes her eyes, praying for just one night of release.

But the shadows grow larger and evermore fearsome. She whimpers and pulls the ragged covers over her head, but the evil shadows crawl through. She can no longer suffocate the scream.

Wicked child. Evil child. Have you learned nothing? Go see the father. Beg forgiveness. Maybe there is hope for you yet. But all it brings her is the taste of her own blood and never-ending nightmares. She is ravenous with hunger when she sees a crippled bird struggling in the bushes. She hesitates only a moment before she tears its wretched head off and pops it in her mouth.

And at night the father appears before her, his feathered hands holding up meat, the blood pooling around his mouth and down his greasy arm, asking her what she will do for food. She has finally had enough. She’s terrified out of her mind. She grabs the fork and stabs it in his eye. The blood sprays into her face, into her mouth. Madness takes over as her shrieks mix with his and she stabs wildly with the steak knife, slicing his throat like a carved turkey.

The moon finally breaks through the shadows, illuminating what’s left of a young girl, chewing softly on finger stubs, a broken cross clenched in her hand.

NitorInMori©