kez-writes

[kez-writes]

nothinggg better than torturing an emotionally repressed character until every single trauma they've ever refused to process starts spilling uncontrollably out of the cracks. like a matryoshka doll situation of repressed trauma and baby you better believe i'm going in there with a hammer

[kez-writes]

I called you in the Uber on my way to the hospital.

My right hand was wrapped up in a wet cloth in an attempt to stave off the second-degree burn that was forming. I’d already called my parents, explained the mishap at work and that decaf coffee was the work of demons. I hadn’t even had time to fill out the Accident and Incident report before my hand had started blistering.

”What do you mean you’re going to hospital?” you asked, your voice flat with concern.

”Decaf coffee,” I explained again, “it’s like molten toxic sludge. 111 said I needed to be at Urgent Treatment within the hour. So yeah, we might need to raincheck dinner.”

A beat of silence passed before you spoke again.

“I’ll meet you at the hospital.”

I frowned, even though I knew you couldn’t see me. “Sophie, I‘ll be there for hours. You know what A&E is like. There’s no point in giving misery more company.”

Many months later, I would learn that you absolutely despised hospitals. That they made you sick to your stomach. I should have clocked it earlier from the first time you told me what happened to your mum. Yet you still offered to make the hour and a half journey just to be with me in the sickeningly bright lights of the waiting room; the offer was weighted, even if I could only feel it later on.

When you spoke again, it was with a tone of finality. “Fine, but I’m still coming down. I’ll meet you outside your flat and I’m paying for dinner.”

”Sophie-“

”Nope. You’ve had a horrible week, you’ve potentially blistered half your hand and I’m coming to see you.”

And that was that.

It took me three hours to get through A&E in the end, and I walked out with a stiff back and my right hand wrapped in enough bandages to be a club. I sat there on the front steps of my flat smoking when you rounded the corner, a tired but fond smile that could be easily translated as ‘you fucking idiot’ while you pulled out your own cigarette.

We ended up ordering curry. Or really, you did, since you wouldn’t let me pay for any of it. Eating roti and mutton curry was a uniquely difficult experience with one hand, and you wouldn’t stop laughing at my struggle to not stain the bandages.

When I told you at first not to come, it wasn’t because I didn’t want you there. I didn’t want you to have to come all this way just to watch me sleepily wrestle bread into my mouth. But I’ll say it now: I was so deeply grateful you were there.

Eating by myself was a necessity and nothing more. I eat to stay alive, because human evolution means I can’t just photosynthesise for energy. It would have been a hollow night if I were alone, eating with one hand while the burns and my heart throbbed like a raw nerve.

But there we both were, eating the best curry we could order in town while YouTubers were on TV playing a video game that made us cry laughing. Your company alone felt like a salve to me, as much as the warming spices eased my withered stomach.

Everytime I order from that place, I think of you. I think of the lean meat, the buttery roti, the ruined bandages and you - there in my flat, making me tea like you had always belonged there and sending me to bed with the promise of breakfast in the morning.

There was a quiet ‘I love you’ in every action; love in the form of good take-out and soulful company.

[kez-writes]

You are going to kill yourself.

It is 10am on a Saturday. Your mum and dad will encourage you to eat breakfast - any of it, even a little - and your brother will comment on the dark bags under your eyes. It’s the end of a school week, but your attendance is barely hitting forty percent. You have no reason to be this tired.

In ten minutes, your parents will start doing the dishes and your older brother will go and play video games. You will go upstairs to the bathroom. Your brain will have checked out, and you will walk as slow and heavy as a pig on a farm, knowing it is to be slaughter but unable to do anything but follow the pull of its chain.

You are going to take a bottle of bleach and attempt to drink it. It says lemons of the bottle; it will not taste of lemons.

This future is set in stone, but the path diverges here. What will you choose to do?

> CHOICE A

You will drink and keep drinking. Your throat will burn - but you will survive. Later your psychiatric nurse will tell you that bleach can’t actually kill you, and that your attempt was for naught. But the outcome will be the same: a hospital bed, an involuntary section, your teenage years falling to darkness, and the wilful refusal to believe that there is anything else out there for you.

There is no such thing as a bad choice, but it is not the right choice. Go back to the start and begin again.

> CHOICE B

You will drink, and stop. The chemical will hit the back of your throat and suddenly the rush of adrenaline will spike through your blood.

You don’t want to die.

You will stumble out of the bathroom and call weakly for your mum and dad. They will rush upstairs, wash your mouth with water, wash your mouth again, and then make you drink a glass of milk. They will be scared, but they will hide it. You will be terrified.

Here is the second crossroad. Will you:

> fall into complete despair

> choose to live

IF > fall into complete despair, go back and follow CHOICE A.

IF > choose to live, follow below to TRUE ENDING.

> TRUE ENDING

It is 7pm on the 31st October. It has been somewhere around ten years since that Saturday. You live with your partner and your dad’s birthday is next week. You will go to work, and then get dinner with your parents. They will smile and laugh; they still worry, as parents do, but they will glow with pride.

On this particular day, it is your three year anniversary You have not tried to die in three years.

You will go and lie in your bed with the TV on while your partner makes you dinner. Your assignments for class have been completed, and a horror game let’s play video is playing on the screen. Your cat will sit on your face until you feed him. Your friend will text you about meeting up the next day. There will be nothing remarkable about this day. You will go to sleep, and life will continue.

Only one thing matters: you are alive.

The earth cycles another year and the bottle of bleach is no longer a weapon weighted with your past actions. It is simply a bottle of bleach. You use it to clean the toilet and thinking nothing more about it.

You will go to sleep and forget this day was ever important. You chose to live, and you will continue to make that choice every day. It will never be as simple as choosing that option once - the choice to live is a conscious act you must make. But you made that choice then, and you’ve made it every day since, and you will continue to make it every day in the future.

This is the true ending. It is also the beginning.

[kez-writes]

Hi!! This is a place for me to share and backlog my writing. If you decide to follow along - thank you!!