The Escape - a fiction piece, final draft

Aliya Smith

Intro to Creative Writing

Professor Horvitz

25 October 2012

The Escape

            “Surgery just wouldn’t be possible,” the doctor said with a subtle frown sneaking to the corner of his mouth. “I’m so sorry.” He meant it. And after that, I don’t remember much more than inaudible murmuring—explanations of potential complications—and the thick thump of my heart in my throat. That was two years ago tonight.

I can’t keep living like this. The piss-stained, hand-me-down sheets of at least four generations, the cotton candy colored walls that everyone assumes a girl’s room should have, and the fact that I have to share it all with a sister – a twin sister – a goddamn conjoined twin sister – makes becoming a teenager almost completely unbearable. It wasn’t always so tormenting, though. When we were toddlers (and until we were about eleven), Daniella and I were inseparable… obviously. But we absolutely loved that we always had to be side-by-side. We were best friends. Once we really started to grow up, though, I guess I tried to ostracize my sister. The attempts were useless. Showering, eating, sleeping together – every waking moment, Daniella accompanied me, so one day I asked my parents if we could try to get separated. That’s when the doctor gave us the news that surgery would only risk a rupture of our intestines.

I’m always going to be alone, even with someone constantly stuck to me. So I’ve decided I can’t leave it up to anyone else. I need to find my own way out of this anatomical penitentiary. Until I really have time to plan everything out, though, I need to sleep. My head is hot and my stomach’s twisting in ways I don’t know how to untangle.

“Goodnight, Karla,” my unknowing sister whispers.

“Night,” I say, and my body lets me drift off and leave any schemes behind.

            A deafening siren screams from the small alarm clock on the bedside table. A blinding beam of scorching sun stares in through the east-facing window in my cramped closet for a bedroom. A numbness crawls down from my right ribs to my knee immediately following a thick, sopping puddle that pushes itself beneath me. Damn it, she pissed herself again. Angry and ready to kill Daniella, I shoot up and before I know it, I’ve quickly crashed into the hardwood floor at the sight of the ocean of crimson seeping into my bed. I glance to my right and where Daniella would normally be is a poorly sewn recent wound. I try to let out a scream but no sound will come out. Scared, stiff, pale and sweaty, I reach over and slam my hand down on my alarm and stumble over to my window to shut the tattered curtains in hopes that no one would look in upon the mess. I turn around to face the left-behinds of some bed battle and a scrawny arm is languidly lying out next to a bedpost. I fall once more to the floor to yank who I assume is my twin out from the dark and when our skin touches, I fly back into the wall.

            She’s so fucking cold.

            Before I can think of what to do, I hear the far-too-chipper, every-morning “Rise and shine, breakfast time!” from my loving mother downstairs and without thought, I shove Daniella completely under the bed, wad my sheets up, throw them in the old, green duffle on the floor, and turn my mattress over so no one would see the murder scene, so it seems. But god damn it, I hope it’s anything but that.

            I can’t think of anything to do so I pace, hastily and heavily, around the outline of my bed where it juts out from the wall in the center of the room. My heart is heaving and I’m choking back sonic screams of terror. My feet won’t work right so I knock over a lamp, but thank fucking god I manage to catch it before it shatters. Fear makes me fast but I keep getting clumsier, so I keep my hands at my side but quickly find myself pulling out hair and digging soon-to-be-scars into my arms. I look back at the bed and there’s blood creeping out from under it. My body tries to vomit but I’ve eaten nothing, so I dry heave and nearly pass out. The pulsating pain of the messy slash on my side isn’t helping.

            “Sweetie, come downstairs! Food is ready!” my mom yells up, slightly losing patience.

            “C-c-coming mom,” I scream in a cracking hoarseness. The scent of hot Belgian waffles slips under the door and forces itself up my nose. Daniella’s favorite. Torrential floods race from my tear ducts down to my lips and I can taste the saltiness of my confused horror-sadness. Almost as if autopilot decided to take over, I change into unstained attire, leave my room, feet stuttering down the stairs and I go to the kitchen where there is not two, but one plate of waffles, stacked probably ten high, and they’re all for me.

            “Well it’s about time! Your waffles are getting cold, dear,” my mom says, seemingly oblivious to Daniella’s absence.

            “W-w-what about D-D-D-Daniella?” I ask with hesitation, again ready to puke at the thought of my dead sister. My mom’s eyes dart down and she pours herself a mug full of black coffee and adds nothing to it, which isn’t like her.

            “Who are you talking about, sweetie?” my dad asks, but he also avoids eye contact with me. I just shake my head and cut my waffles, but I can’t stomach one bite, so I just sip at the ice water next to what should be my sister’s breakfast. When I finally come around to trying the food, my mother bolt over—still looking away from me—to hand me a new two-strapped book bag. I don’t know what to do other than grab the “gift” and leave as quickly as possible.

            When I walk outside, the rusty, yellow bus is at the end of our driveway and the windows are filled with gazes from wide eyes. Some kids yell from the almost-open broken ones, urging me to hurry up, but I can’t bear to step foot on there. I know that everyone will see that Daniella’s no longer attached to me, even if my parents won’t admit to noticing, themselves.

            So I run. I can’t stop until I’m completely out of sight. I find myself under a dead tree in the fall-struck woods, crying again and ready to throw up all of my insides. I look up at the tree above me and notice it’s been split in half and that it’s only partially dead; the part standing is barren of leaves and life. The fallen half is flourishing and covered in green.

            What the hell is going on? I swear to God this wasn’t what I wanted. I have no one to talk to until I look to my right and see Daniella’s body hanging off of me, half covered in dirt and dead leaves, but she looks up at me and screams, letting out nonsensical talk about her dead sister. I can no longer move or breathe. My head falls forward and my legs are decaying, maggot-infested, dead. I manage to let out one screech and shoot up in my bed, yanking Daniella to unexpected consciousness.

            “What the hell was that for, you psycho??” Daniella, now red-faced and pissed off, yells. I want to cry again but all I can manage to do is latch onto her even more than usual and smile as I dig my face into Daniella’s shoulder. The alarm screams and the sun stares in.

            “Rise and shine, breakfast time!”

The Escape - draft 2, a fiction piece

          “Surgery just wouldn’t be possible,” the doctor said with a subtle frown sneaking to the corner of his mouth. “I’m so sorry.” He meant it. After that, I don’t remember much more than inaudible murmuring—explanations of potential complications—and the thick thump of my heart in my throat. That was two years ago tonight.

I can’t keep living like this. The piss-stained, hand-me-down sheets of at least four generations, the cotton candy colored walls that everyone assumes a girl’s room should have, and the fact that I have to share it all with a sister – a twin sister – a goddamn conjoined twin sister – makes becoming a teenager almost completely unbearable. It wasn’t always so tormenting, though. When we were toddlers (and until we were about eleven), Daniella and I were inseparable… obviously. But we absolutely loved that we always had to be side-by-side. We were best friends. Once we really started to grow up, though, I guess I tried to ostracize my sister. The attempts were useless. Showering, eating, sleeping together – every waking moment, Daniella accompanied me, so one day I asked my parents if we could try to get separated. That’s when the doctor gave us the news that surgery would only risk a rupture of our intestines.

I’m always going to be alone, even with someone constantly stuck to me. So I’ve decided I can’t leave it up to anyone else. I need to find my own way out of this anatomical penitentiary. Until I really have time to plan everything out, though, I need to sleep. My head is hot and my stomach’s twisting in ways I don’t know how to untangle.

“Goodnight, Karla,” my unknowing sister whispers.

“Night,” I say, and my body lets me drift off and leave any schemes behind.

            A deafening siren screams from the small alarm clock on the bedside table. A blinding beam of scorching sun stares in through the east-facing window in my cramped closet for a bedroom. And a numbness crawls down from my right ribs to my knee immediately following a thick, sopping puddle that pushes itself beneath me. Damn it, she pissed herself again. Angry and ready to kill Daniella, I shoot up and before I know it, I’ve quickly crashed into the hardwood floor at the sight of the ocean of crimson encroaching on my bed. I glance to my right and where Daniella would normally be is a poorly sewn recent wound. I try to let out a scream but no sound will come out. Scared, stiff, pale and sweaty, I reach over and slam my hand down on my alarm and stumble over to my window to shut the tattered curtains in hopes that no one would look in upon the mess. I turn around to face the left-behinds of some bed battle and a scrawny arm is languidly lying out next to a bedpost. I fall once more to the floor to yank who I assume is my twin out from the dark and when our skin touches, I fly back into the wall.

            She’s so fucking cold.

            Before I can think of what to do, I hear the far-too-chipper, every-morning “Rise and shine, breakfast time!” from my loving mother downstairs and without thought, I shove Daniella completely under the bed, wad my sheets up, throw them in the old, green duffle on the floor, and turn my mattress over so no one can see the murder scene, so it seems. But god damn it, I hope it’s anything but that.

            I can’t think of anything to do so I pace, hastily and heavily, around the outline of my bed where it juts out from the wall in the center of the room. My heart is heaving and I’m choking back sonic screams of terror. My feet won’t work right so I knock over a lamp, but thank fucking god I manage to catch it before it shatters. Fear makes me fast but I keep getting clumsier, so I keep my hands at my side but quickly find myself pulling out hair and digging soon-to-be-scars into my arms.

            “Sweetie, come downstairs! Food is ready!” my mom yells up, slightly losing patience.

            “C-c-coming mom,” I scream in a cracking hoarseness. The scent of hot Belgian waffles seeps under the door and force itself up my nose. Daniella’s favorite. Torrential floods race from my tear ducts down to my lips and I can taste the saltiness of my confused horror-sadness. Almost as if autopilot decided to take over, I change into unstained attire, begin out from my room, down the stairs and go to the kitchen where there is not two, but one plate of waffles, stacked probably ten high, and they’re all for me.

            “Well it’s about time! Your waffles are getting cold, dear,” my mom says, seemingly oblivious to Daniella’s absence.

            “W-w-what about D-D-D-Daniella?” I ask with hesitation, nauseated at the thought of my dead sister. My mom’s eyes dart down and she pours herself a mug full of black coffee and adds nothing to it, which isn’t like her.

            “Who are you talking about, sweetie?” my dad asks, but he also avoids eye contact with me. I just shake my head and cut my waffles, but I can’t stomach one bite, so I just sip at the ice water next to what should be my sister’s breakfast. When I finally come around to trying the food, my mother bolt over—still looking away from me—to hand me a new two-strapped book bag. I don’t know what to do other than grab the “gift” and leave as quickly as possible.

            When I walk outside, the bus is at the end of our driveway and the windows are filled with gazes from wide eyes. Some kids yell from the almost-open broken ones, urging me to hurry up, but I can’t bear to step foot on there. I know that everyone will see that Daniella’s no longer attached to me, even if my parents won’t admit to noticing, themselves.

            So I run. I can’t stop until I’m completely out of sight. I find myself under a dead tree in the fall-struck woods, crying again and ready to throw up all of my insides. I look up at the tree above me and notice it’s been split in half and that it’s only partially dead; the part standing is barren of leaves and life. The fallen half is flourishing and covered in green.

            What the hell is going on? I have no one to talk to until I look to my right and see Daniella’s body hanging off of me, half covered in dirt and dead leaves, but she looks up at me and screams, letting out nonsensical talk about her dead sister. I can no longer move or breathe. My head falls forward and my legs are decaying, maggot-infested, dead. I manage to let out one screech and shoot up in my bed, yanking Daniella to unexpected consciousness.

            “What the hell was that for, you psycho??” Daniella, now red-faced and pissed off, yells. I want to cry again but all I can manage to do is latch onto her even more than usual and smile as I dig my face into Daniella’s shoulder. The alarm screams and the sun stares in.

            “Rise and shine, breakfast time!”

Mardi Gras Madness - a fiction piece

I was eight the first time I had sex.

Purple, green, and yellow draped New Orleans. Tits caught the eyes and beer spoiled the minds of the entire city on yet another Mardi Gras and I had to stay inside for the night while my parents collected beads and booze.

“We’re going to be out all night,” said my neglectful mother, tipsy and adorned in a shiny, silver “dress,” I think is what she called it. Whatever it was, she looked cheap in it.

“I know” was all I said. I wasn’t surprised. I just didn’t look forward to what my dad had to say.

“Jeff is coming over to watch you while we’re out.” With that, he and my mom walked out the door and I waited no more than ten minutes before my chubby, balding nineteen-year-old cousin came strolling in the house with a six-pack in hand. He went straight to the den, sunk into the couch and turned on some adult channel. So I made myself a turkey sandwich, sulked my way up our creaky stairs, and went to my room where I had to shove a chair against the door in loo of a lock.

At around 3AM, heavy, clumsy feet stomped their way up to my room. I thought the chair would’ve said that I didn’t want to “play.” Almost instantly, though, the door flew open and threw the chair into my dresser. I wanted to scream but I found a sweaty palm cupping my open mouth and heard another hand anxiously pulling at a zipper.

I was used to Jeff’s hands but he had different plans for that night. My dress turned to tattered rags around me and within seconds, I had a red face, two cracked ribs, and a new longing to die. He couldn’t give me that much though. If he couldn’t party on Mardi Gras, he’d find his own fun.

I was eight the first time I was raped.

Lucy - a nonfiction piece

           “I still don’t feel it.” Thirty minutes in, it was his first time and he was a jittery, quickly-turning-pale mess of skin and bones and his heart seemed a little too anxious to let anyone hear its thump-thump-thump in the key of nervousness#. I put my hand over his chest and his pulse felt like fresh bricks—stiff and thick—quickly ricocheting against his insides in a violent sort of manner.

            “Yes you do and that’s how Lucy says hello,” I said, nonchalantly and ready for the night to begin, when I noticed it was 1AM! Holy shit, we’ll be up all night. I quickly let go of any worries, though, because that night was for him. I only felt the pounding heart punches too, but soon enough we’d start to feel. It was going to be difficult though because he wouldn’t stop psyching himself out – worrying about any twitches or blurred lines being purely placebo.

            “Maybe so but I doubt this is it.” If he’d stop being so obnoxious and just let himself ease into it, he’d actually enjoy tonight.

            “Well, we’ll see.” And with that, I really let it all go. Instead, I thought of us and how even at his most annoying (which really isn’t very annoying at all now that I think of it), I adore him wholeheartedly. I thought of how over the past… twelve days.

It was a mere twelve days into our relationship—not even two weeks in. Dear god we’re moving fast. Only a few days earlier, we’d spilled the big ‘L’ word, which made my teeth chatter, spin hunch, eyes dry, skin turn to rough scars of acupuncture, stippled and stiff, because the last time I’d said “love” to a guy was eight months prior right before said guy told me he no longer wanted to use such a word with me. So now it felt right but weird; it made our eyes twitch and skin crawl but we said it anyway ‘cause we were sure that we meant it. This is something real, but I guess real is relative. Never before, however, had he quite literally seen his skin crawl, but about an hour into our “vacation,” he started to see movement.

            The way that Lucy makes walls breathe and the air twitch and your skin move, the way she introduces you to her fun-house ride of distortion mirrors and pretty lights is something we call wonky. It starts off slow and this time was no different, evidently enough by his earlier impatience and anxiousness to “see shit” as he so eloquently put. Well we certainly “saw shit.” His wide-eyed gazes, abrupt and sharp double takes, and increasingly oblivious tactile attention to his hair, face and hands made me smile. I remembered my first time and my indistinguishably similar initial reactions and I realized what it took was vulnerability. My first time with Lucy, I was completely vulnerable, already in tears before I met her but not from sadness. I’d told him off the bat that Lucy’s friendship was different to everyone, but she kept one aspect in tact from friend to friend and that was her letting moving objects have seemingly magical ways of leaving outlines of themselves behind to follow in blue, rose, green, beautiful.

            We weren’t (and we still aren’t) sure why things that moved left pieces of themselves behind in their initial places. We call these after-images “tracers.” Why tracers? I always think about that when Lucy is around. This time was no different. These… things more so chase or trail after the original object or image. So why not call them chasers? Why not trailers? I mean, I suppose they’re not alcoholic follow-ups or mobile metal homes, so tracers will just have to do until we come up with something more fitting.

            “I think I’m seeing tracers! My hand! It’s going hand, hand, hand, hand, hand.” He didn’t even need to say that much for me to know what he was going through. His hand waving vigorously in front of his face and his jaw, dropped and rigor mortis-esque, gave hints without need for words, but there we were regardless, chatting away.

            “I told you you’d see them!”

            “But this was so much more calm than I’d expected.” He was right. Hype about Lucy makes most people think that she forces you into intensity quickly.

            “I know. You’re easing into it. So just relax and let it happen. Have fun.” So he did. And I did. And we did. We had fun watching each other and ourselves and the floor as it rippled like water after rocks falling in, and the popcorn ceilings really popping and we could almost hear it.

            A couple of hours in, probably, time began to trip up on itself – hour hand growing and shrinking, minute hand fast slow fast slow stop fast slow. Walls wavered, melted. Crawling carpets kept us kicking, uncomfortably twitching, restlessly reaching to touch things not there—rug bugs, creatures creeping counterclockwise. Three, four hours maybe and we danced dizzily around the saffron-stained setting, whispering and watching paintings dance, sending themselves into third, fourth-dimension strokes, brush marks convulsing. Blunt synths sterilized stern air, forced us to fold into each other, arms crooked and locked in pretzel-twist turns, legs languidly leaning against one another.

            Without a word, he turned on a newer song of his, one that I loved from the second I heard it but this time was far different. Chimes resonated and sat in front of us in the air, drums felt thick and encompassing. It kicked us violently, forced itself tightly around us and in an instant, he cut the noise and heavy stage curtains of silence fell. Almost instantaneously, we quietly led one another to the bathroom, to the mirror, tricky and taunting. We watched shaped lights plant themselves all over our faces and we cackled uncontrollably, but we tried not to wake our neighbors. We saw bugs in the tiles, little red dots in circular symmetrical slow-paced formations. Synchronized crawlers, everywhere we looked. I’d never noticed them before but they were an interesting addition to the already-fantastic and ineffable night. We squealed and screamed and were squeamish to the little red dots so after what was probably an hour, we left the cramped bathroom, reluctantly abandoning our reflections that didn’t match our real faces and we hydrated because oddly enough a high heart beat makes you thirstier than usual. And orange juice was a hair shy of what felt like satisfying an addiction.

            As with everything else that night, though, we had to play with and use the refreshment for things other than its sole purpose. We tried blowing bubbles with it, we poured it on countertops and finger-painted in it and all too soon did a few friends drop by and it seemed as if they were hanging with Lucy themselves. They were loud, abrasive, invasive, uneasy. Immediately, we clammed up, cleaned up, and moseyed back to the living room where we hoped to find serenity. But to no surprise, they all joined us, sat around us, filled the space and suffocated the air that was a mere moment before beautiful and open, welcoming. Clamor cluttered our atmosphere and with that, we feared our night was ruined. To our avail, however, three at that point unrecognizable disruptive masses simply left. And again, silence fell. So we focused.

We focused on the aesthetics and became ascetic-like, still in thought and body, though quickly we began to tremble and twitch because Lucy wouldn’t let us be still for too long so we wavered back and forth, heavily.

            But we were unwavering. We were clear with one another and that’s something we’d both so fiercely searched for within ourselves. And we finally found it. The thought so clearly rung in my skull, ricocheting and evidently making some racket because the next thing I knew, he thought it too.

            “Clarity,” he announced concretely to the world, population two that we’d built for ourselves, as if we’d had the silent back-and-forth before. With that one word, we stretched, smiled, sat, sunk into each other, silently stealing the night. Quickly though, he took my hand, guided me gently through a half-open screen door to a purple pink orange sky where the sun decided to paint warm reflections on the 6:30am clouds that we weren’t sure were real in their sometimes-geometric, other-times-floral designed movements. We morning-dreamed at the air around us as patterns rippled, shook, shivered rapidly reminding us that real is relative.

            I felt a warm hand glide over mine, touches trembling. We turned together, stared together, laughed together as we watched fractals form rivers and melted our faces.

            “I love you,” he whispered, sincerely.

           

            “I feel it too now.”

            This is real.