Followed by the Silhouette

Chapter# 7

I'm sitting here on the pavement with my back resting on some backside of a bakery. Thinking of what I've done in the past years and what will become of me in future. I want to just evade away from the planet for sometime and think things through. I feel my inside getting hollow as I think of my life. I've been living like I'm living someone else's life. Now I'm confronting it all and it's hard to admit, it's my life.

It's starting to drizzle. I see as one drop of water lands on my right foot, I drag it back. Then another on my left, I drag it under shade too. I hate rain. More concisely, I hate the things related to it. Wanna know, what?

It reminds me of the time I learned to utter the word "dead". I remember how strangely I was introduced to it.

Well, one night I didn't feel like sleeping at all, so I hopped out of bed and clambered downstairs. Spying on Lisa and dad has been sort of my hobby and I really enjoy catching them doing things they won't let me do. Like using strange words with each other, normally they don't use in front of me.

Lisa and dad were up as usual, watching the telly.

I stood behind the couch and starred at what they were watching. I silently gasped to see a man suspended several feet off the ground as if pinned on a hook.

He was dripping some black fluid and the echo it made was starting.

I couldn't bear it. "What happened to him?".

Lisa was mad at me for sneaking on them at night. It seemed like she spent her best, waking time, thwarting.

"Why isn't he moving?".

"Oh, A****n, you can't just make us uncomfortable enough, can you?", Dad's face glowed in the flare of the screen.

Lisa raised her eyebrow at him.

"Well, sweety, he's just...".

"He's dead", dad said stressing the last d.

"Dead", I adopted the word, fascinated how new it sounded on my tongue.

"Cut it out! It's not appropriate for her yet!".

"Frankly, my love, I don't give a shit about it".

"Dead", I repeated as they argued. 

I guess Lisa was right because that plink, plink of blood and dead rang in my ears for days.

I couldn't think of anything else. The horror and blood were too fresh and red and I kept vomiting in preschool. I felt like hot blood swarmed on my face and body. It was trauma. A trauma I'll take to grave. 

I starred at the circles of rain on the road. Both are fluids; blood and rain, I thought. One takes while the other gives.

My sitting muscle got numb from sitting too long.

I struggled to get up by taking support from the bakery wall which is my favorite spot. I patted the wall, sighed and headed home despite the rain.

As I approached close, I saw a huge package sitting on the front stoop. Wafting: "For Ms. Merissa". Why didn't she recieve it?

The weather was no more accommodating to be out more. The wind rose as the rain gave up it's temper.

While walking in, I could hear her. Half-sobbingly, she was mumbling something on the cordless.

"Your package", I threw it on the sofa.

I gawped at hoe hideous she looked with her mascara all smeared and smudged. 

Another guy, I thought.

She glanced up at me without even a slight interest.

I almost felt for her. While thumping on stairs, I said, "No, I don't".

Hauling the chair out, I wrote:

"Sometimes, I think I'm among the invisibles. Time and again, as days wane, I feel more left out. Many times, I fervently entered bawling unconsciously "Lisa, I'm..." and there just four seconds of a feeling that everything's all right then I'd mulishly complete "home". It was a bond, some habit to call someone as you entered, someone I felt safe around.

Look what you made me, just look. Lydia's affable personality won her many friends. I'm locked in a dreary prison."

Two big, round circles of grey appeared around black ink. I touched my cheeks to see I'm crying. I hate myself for crying too. Right now, I hate everything.

I thud-closed my diary tagged: Telling the untold.

I was so carried away in all this emotional thing that I got startled when my phone beeped. I searched around my room to find it. My backpack was a mess and my thumb pierced with a thin blade. 

"Damn", I frowned, sucking my thumb.

It's Jason. I refresh my phone again to see it's really Jason. But wait he deleted the message before I could read it. How embarrassing. He just deleted the message he sent, just like that. Maybe he would have sent by mistake.

I gave my feet a jerk, one by one, my sneakers flipped with a sault in the air.

Then I flattened my nose on my pillow, laid on my front and shrieked in, "Nobody gives a shit, I exist".

An hour past with my arms and legs splayed out like that. 

The bell chung suddenly, it rung and rung and I stuffed my face some more in the pillows.

I heard a muffled, "Get your ass down here!".

I leaped out and made my way down, maybe it's Lydia, maybe someone remembers what day is it.

"Who is it?", I asked Merissa. Totally forgetting how she's like.

She rolled her eyes and slammed her door shut.

I hurried to open the door. 

There sat a slob basket loaded with something. Wait a minute... Is this chocolate?

I picked it up and managed to get it in the living room.

I opened the transparent wrapping to see it's Toblerone.

I really, like really love Toblerone.

Eating one T pyramid, I chewed hard on the nougats.

Surfing around, I tossed it over. A red card fell:

H.B.D.

Who? Who could it be? Eva? Lydia? Jason? Maybe Jason.

The bitter taste of it swarmed in my mouth.