markdanielsson

[markdanielsson]

A new feeling, which is love.

The screaming. The shouting. The crying. The shouting. I was in the front passenger seat of the car. My mum was in the house. And, I could hear almost every word being screamed out. The tears were flowing down my cheeks and I was motionless. I didn't even move. I don't even think I could breathe. I don't remember how much time had passed. I didn't even move.

"If you don't love my son for who he is, I don't want you to love me either!" This voice was the most clearest I had heard for what felt like an extremely long time. The sound of marching footsteps followed and the car door opened. My mum had got in and the engine was started. We drove away and I could see that the front door was already closed. Mum drove. And we did not stop.

We got to a park and the engine was turned off. I looked instantly at my mum and she sighed. Almost instantly she spoke for the first time, "Jack, darling, listen. I want you to know that I will always be here for you." Her voice began to choke, but she soldiered on. "And you must not let anyone else say otherwise. I love you and always will."

I let two arms surround me and the smell of my mums shampoo come across. She pulled me tighter and it hurt a little bit and I let out a slight yelp. The hug became less tight and she pulled back a bit. Her face was one of helplessness, but it was warm. She started to crack a smile and went on to say, "Your dad isn't going to be happy".

My stomach fell and I just stared at my mum. She was still smiling but I was dreading what was going to say, and out came the last thing I expected. "Your dad owes me twenty quid."

[markdanielsson]

A new feeling, continued.

Three weeks had past and I looked in my bedroom mirror. The blackened eye had begun to fade. The ribs had begun to hurt less. The cuts had started to heal. I stared in the mirror for a long time looking at myself. What had happened?

My mum was behind me putting away clean laundry into my wardrobe. The fresh smell of clothes filled the room as they had been hung on the line in the garden. I turned around and I went to sit on the bed. It was not as easy as a couple of weeks before. The pain was easing, bit still twinged. My mother sat down beside me. "Baby, who was it?" I just stared at her in silence. I felt silenced. I felt I couldn't.

My school had been sending work home as I was in my first year of GCSE's. Almost the most important years of schooling. A line of 'Get well soon' cards were displayed on my chest of drawers along with one signed from everybody in my form group. In front of the cards was a teddy bear with 'you're amazing' across its t-shirt.

Often in the mid afternoon conveniently after school time, the doorbell would ring and some of my friends would be standing on the porch to check up on me. I was elated to see their faces. They would make jokes about how I fell down stairs or decided to play a musical instrument and it won. Little did they know. They were never invited in as I needed to rest.

During this time there was an extended period of radio silence from my nana and grandpa. Not a phone call. Not a card. Not even a visit. My mother had begun to suspect something but I could never. I just couldn't. I had tried to avoid the subject matter altogether. My mother gave the best hugs. It was the only cure at that moment.

One windy afternoon I was sat at the dining room table with my exercise books sprawled across it, with my pencil case rammed full of multicoloured pencils and maths equipment. I was trying to figure out quadrilateral equations whilst dealing with a headache. I had drawn a blank.

Mum came rushing into the dining room and sat opposite me. The mountain of books was up to her chin and she got straight to the point. "Jack, baby, you can not hide forever. Who was it. I promise I won't get mad." I put down the pen in my hand and sat back in the chair. Almost instantly my eyes began to glaze over and my heart rate increased. Getting faster. Getting louder.

I was so emotional I could not remember if I had control of my voice let alone my emotions. Before I knew it, we were in the car driving quite fast and my mother felt like a statue.

[markdanielsson]

A new feeling.

I was in year 10. The day was boring as usual. I had done the seven hours of listening to teachers express their desires for their subjects. It did not motivate me in the slightest. It was Wednesday. It was also warm as the sun had decided to show its existence. I was off to visit my grandparents. Wednesdays I went to see them before continuing my walk home. I was walking with my best friend who lived along the road I was walking. We were talking about the usual hate for school and laughing at memes on the internet. About twenty minutes into the walk, we got to their house and we said farewell and I continued my walk to my grandparents.

I walked up the sloped driveway and knocked on the door and then continued to step inside. I took off my black uniform shoes and my rucksack almost fell to the floor with the weight of exercise and text books. I greeted my nana with a hug and she gave me some compliments and said I looked smiley. I was always so pleased to see her as she always seemed so happy. Full of life. She had been in the middle of skinning some carrots into a bowl on the kitchen table. She had been sat down as she had not long woken up. Nana worked in a nearby care home for the elderly and always worked night shifts.

I sat down at the table adjacent to her and we started a conversation about how I was. "Would you like some tea and biscuits?"

"Yes, please" I responded eagerly. She always had the milk chocolate covered biscuits unopened in a fresh packet which made them the best thing in the world. She got up to make me a cup of tea from the teapot that was a good temperature and presented them to me. She sat back down.

The conversation continued and I was always pleased to see her. It had been about one hour into my visit and I went to go to the bathroom. I came back and nana had now moved onto peeling potatoes which she put straight into an empty saucepan. The smell of a beef joint was beginning to fill the kitchen as it cooked in the oven. Everything was calm. Everything felt right.

"Nana" I pitched up. "I have something I want to tell you that has been on my mind."

"What is it, darling?" She was smiling. Everything was good.

This had been building up inside me for almost a year and I had not even told my friends. Not even mum or dad.

Hesitantly, gingerly, and with my leg beginning to shake I began my story. "I think I like boys and not girls". At that point my stomach was in my mouth and I remember it got warm. I looked up for the first time since I started and she was looking at me. She stayed motionless, peeler in hand. She put down the instrument and sighed quietly. I continued and whispered with a tear down my cheek, "I just wanted you to know."

Nana got up from her chair and leant over me and gave me possibly the longest embrace I had ever witnessed. She still had not said anything at this point. The hug was more than anything I could have wanted.

It was about 4.30pm and my grandpa was not home. He was on his way though. He worked as a lorry driver for heavy goods and was usually away from home a bit. He was a straight talking man but also loving. Quirky. Funny.

I had done it. I had done something that seemed strange. It felt new as I wiped away a tear from my cheek. My nana had left the kitchen and I was left there alone for about ten minutes just sipping my cup of tea. It had been refilled. I had heard a voice coming from upstairs but I was gleaming.

I had walked into the living room and sat on the single sofa chair on the far side of the room. I had a view of the driveway and could see a white BMW reversing. Was I excited? Was I petrified? Almost promptly, my grandpa was walking in through the front door. I could hear him taking off his work boots and unzipping his outer coat. At the same time my nana walked in through the living room door and smiled at me. She continued into the kitchen to finish off preparing dinner for them both. And there he was. Grandpa and I made eye contact.

I had got up from the chair and stood on the other side of the room. Grandpa looked neutral as he put his lunch box on the sideboard just behind the door. My heartbeat was pounding and I blurted out "Hi grandpa".

A plenum of thoughts had been running around my head. and I had started to walk towards him. "... I have something to tell you." I looked at him and the face remained the same. I was about to continue my speech when I was met with a spinning sensation. No pain. Nothing. Everything had gone black and almost instantly, pain began to set in. The sofa had been put on its side and the I was leaning against a wall of carpet. Grandpa had disappeared from view and a faint muffling was heard. This was a new feeling and, felt new.

The muffled voices had changed. The voices were of women talking. The light was bright. The walls were a light blue and the bedding was not my own. A sign on the opposite wall read "Ward 12" with an arrow pointing to the room I was currently lying in.

I turned my eyes to see my mum crying over me.

[markdanielsson]

This makes me smile.

[markdanielsson]

Am I enough?

It was a Monday evening and I had just been picked up from school by my mother. After three years it got tiring being asked the same question about my tedious day and I would roll my eyes. It was a windy afternoon and my school blazer was flapping open in the wind. I opened the back door of the car and stepped up into the front seat. I slammed the door harder than usual and wanted to just sit in quiet and be chauffeured home. Nothing had to be said. I was preparing myself for the next day. 

“Hello love”, said my mother with a lighter tone than usual.

“Yeah”, I mumbled back.

Note that that was not a question, not did I intend it to be. Confused, unsure, and a little sunken, a voice in the front seat called again, “Oi! Am I talking to a brick wall?”

“Huh?”. I looked up this time but I think it was too late.

Mother gave up at this point. It was confirmed by a sigh whilst I turned to stare out of the window. Somehow along the journey, we deviated away from the normal route home. The traffic was light and we started an adventure. An adventure unfortunately to the supermarket. I hated it in there. It was always full of boring adulthood. I would always look for something more interesting than a bunch of raw sausages behind the counter.  It was not until we were walking down the household cleaning aisle. It always had a nice smell of the different fragrances. My mind got unfortunately distracted once again and I walked straight into a shelf half full of toilet rolls. 

Luckily, they remained on the shelf and the shelf itself stayed up. I had unfortunately been staring at someone across the aisle who looked familiar, but couldn’t quite place who it was. 

[markdanielsson]

Who am I?

When I was twenty eight years old, my mother called me on the phone and told me, “you have a brother.” It is not the first time abnormal events have happened in my life. In all honesty, it has become a constant series of absurd events. I am a 90’s kid. Going through school… school is where it all started. I was 14. Had just started GCSE's. School in and out, MSN in the evenings talking to the other teenagers that I just spent almost seven hours with. Creating new backgrounds on Bebo and illegally downloading music to add to my profile when I should be doing homework set by almost all the teachers. I sit on anything other than the beanbag in my room playing Xbox, surrounded by coke cans that could make a miniature tower.

My family and I had recently moved to a small town in the west of England because their business had closed down. We moved to a ghetto of a place and when you are 14, you don’t think twice at the time. That always comes later. I was not leaving much behind. Just friends… friends that made you laugh. Friends that punched you in the arm and gave you a peanut (and if you don’t know what that is, are you really a 90’s kid?). I remember going to the new school and walking up to the reception with my mum. I opened the glass door and saw a light brown leather sofa and one single palm plant in the corner. Against the opposite wall was a glass desk with a woman behind it holding a huge mug of what I could assume contained weak coffee. Was this the beginning of a new adventure? Or more torture? 

I preferred to stick my head in a book and loose myself in fantasy literature where characters live in perfect worlds where they can be themselves. Plus, they do not need to cloak themselves in their own unique persona. I do that when I am at home. Or at least I think I do. I grunt when I am asked how I am asked about my repetitious days and go straight to my room when I need time to swear under my breath. All this to hide a question I have been frantically trying to answer for the last year. Who am I?