The sleeping angel was like a newborn baby. The pure, white wings raised because of the rapid fall. The abyss was endless shades, but she at the moment was unaware.
I opened my eyes. My tears were unusually dazzling under the bathroom’s yellow and white light, making me almost could not see clearly the texture of the wooden door. The whizzing scolding by my ears was like vines, continuously twining my heart with their spikes. There were times when I wanted to just push the door and go out, letting the blade finish my restless life.
“ Come out! Come out if you dare!”
“ Put down the knife! Your daughter is at the door!”
“ You loser using your daughter!”
The fierce words were nightmares, they could not go away no matter how hard I covered my ears.
“ Stop! Please!” I could not help but cry out.
Please… let the world be quiet…
“ Shut up! It’s our adults’ business!”
My request was like leftover leaves falling on the water, only receiving a rippling response then disappearing without a trace, and never staying in anyone’s mind.
I was silent in the hustle and bustle as if everything was unrelated to me.
The woman’s crazy roar, the man’s imperative tone and the noise of a knife slashing against the door was my first memory.
My brother was brought back from Grandmother’s house when he was about two years old, but I had no memory of this. What I remembered was the scene of me teaching him how to lock the door. I dimly remembered that was still a stormy night. My brother’s face was dazed, but I could not check if he understood my words. I could only tell him what I could think of at all once, telling him to cover his blanket on his head if he felt scared, and then I quickly hid in my room.
The heat radiating from my body due to fear passed to the quilt, then again passed back to me. The warmth as if hugging me brought some fake consolation. My hands were still trembling, and my tears never stopped, but I already could get some sanity to observe the situation outside.
Shortly after, I started to go to school. The teacher said that family would not be mixed with benefits, and that occasional quarrels would always end at some point. I listened to my classmates muttering about the reasons for their parents' quarrel, and my heart calmed down somewhat.
I thought I loved my parents, so everything was normal. At least… that was what I thought.
That night, Father was still bellowing, and Mother was also holding a knife, but I smelled a trace of unusual, even the air was constantly tormenting me like torture tools, making me tremble and kneel on the ground.
It was just another ordinary day. Go to sleep… and tomorrow I would gain tranquility again.
I looked at the familiar room, trying to recall all the happy memories. I hugged the doll my parents gave to me, reading the cards written at school, self-mumbling the laughter of yesteryear, and attempting to persuade myself that I was happy.
The roaring outside and the sound of objects hitting never ceased. Out of curiosity, I secretly opened a door gap, snooping on those two people’s situations. I saw Father walk towards Mother, and I fearfully locked the door.
“ Ah — ” Father’s scream relentlessly stepped on my mind.
And then,
Silence.
My consciousness was back in my cage, and fear has already extended to my whole body, but I still persistently controlled my mind and made my hand reach the doorknob.
I had to go out and check.
If Father died, I would feel sad.
Sad?
…
No.
If Father died,
Then nobody would earn money to raise me.
My hand stopped in front of the wooden door. My blood froze because of this thought. My heart should feel uncomfortable, but I only felt that something collapsed.
“ Family would not be mixed with benefits.”
I never loved them.
Father did not die, only his shoulder was stabbed.
But these were not important anymore, because I never put them in my heart.
I was a terrible daughter.
There was a long time that I was afraid to look at Father’s shoulder. I did not know why, but only moved away from my eyes subconsciously.
Clearly, my reason smashed the truth in front of me.
I did not care about this family at all.
That day, I heard from my classmates that adults would quarrel over money.
Was it the same in my house?
Yes, I could not go out and work, and I needed food. It seemed like a real waste of money.
Then if I died, all of the problems would solve, right?
That night, the war outside was still going on, and I could clearly hear my shaking breath, then I opened the door, and stood in front of Mother.
“ Please…” I looked at her almost crazy face.
“ Please, kill me.”
The crisp sound scratched the dead silence. Mother threw the knife to the ground. My face was soaked with tears out of instinct, but my heart was unusually calm.
“ Don’t learn from your dad’s mess!”
“ Don’t you dare say that again!”
The world…
“ It’s all your fault! She becomes a lunatic!”
“ You went crazy first!”
The world was…
“ Don’t you fucking say that again!”
“ Go back to your room! Did you hear me!”
The world was quiet.
Mother’s face was distorted because of anger. The scolding whizzing past was clear to hear. The knife on the ground flicked dazzling light, but I could not feel anything.
The world seemed to be dead already.
Making me crazy,
Making me safe.
I begged for death and received shelter for my soul.
That year, I was seven years old.
The fire was flying monjusakas, turning the angel’s wings into morbid coals.
A new environment symbolized changes. It could be warm. It could also be a deeper, darker ice lake.
I once welcomed my new life in middle school with joy and did not think that cold arrow would again shoot me into the abyss.
I stepped into a hell named music.
The mocking eyes went back and forth on me like examining a commodity, like chains at an auction, wiping out every possibility of survival.
Then ran away, ran away to the place that belonged to me.
I stepped up the stairs in despair. My hands held the railings, snooping the outside world like a slave in a cage. The tiny view below made me feel dizzy, but I seemed to see it, that gradually spreading darkness was inviting me to the world on the other side.
And I unexpectedly felt pain.
Why?
That nothingness was gently accepting me, but I did not even have the courage to go into its arms.
Why?
Why.
Why!
“ Hey.” A call passed into my broken heart. I stiffly looked at the person, that person always stood on top of the cloud, walking towards me with merciful eyes.
Yes, it was class time, and I was not in the classroom. She should be sent by the teacher.
She seemed to care about me and reached her hand out, saying some soothing words, but I could not smile at all.
She was just following the teacher’s orders. I was no more than dust in the corner of her eyes.
I again glanced at that nothingness, and then followed her steps.
I had nowhere to go, and my only belonging was abandoned by me.
I was taken to the therapy room.
“ You can’t suicide, because it’ll damage the reputation of those around you.” The teacher said a lot to me, but only these words were imprinted on my heart, like a nightmare.
I was clear, that that was just the teacher’s unintentional words, but that easily doused my ridiculous pipe dream.
I did not even have the right to die.
My reason was broken in a moment. Even though all the social pressures were urging me, commanding me to act like a normal child, I did not even have the will to pull the corner of my mouth.
No matter whether it was the struggle for life, the desire for death, or the fear of staring into the abyss, they all disappeared at this moment.
I was drowned in the sea of memory, and saw myself from the past, that helpless, crying little girl. She raised her head towards me, seeming to beg for my pity.
Then I pulled out a gun,
And shot straight into her head.
I turned off all the emotional devices like a machine and lived according to the set itinerary every day. I did not care how long I slept, if I ate or not, or everything about me. The family madness and those despised eyes from the school all became another person’s memories.
I was reborn into a plain piece of paper, which may be contaminated with black this time.
I became unusually silent and could stay silent for a whole week. For all the exploratory eyes, I was just indifferent.
The abominable eyes decreased and became fear, fear of the existence of a monster like me.
I had my own world. Endless black saw through all the secrets, but also that gentle.
This was the junction between life and death, my final home.
Writing became my new daily life. I could arbitrarily create and destroy in my nonexistent world.
Me holding a pen was absolutely free.
Continuously erasing and reborn again, I walked through various stories. No matter whether they were those wishful thoughts from the past or every possibility after death, I experienced all of them.
Maybe those were merely delusions, but for me, those were truth.
I talked with those characters I created. They would not respond to me, but also would not abandon me. I continuously talked to myself, like a nut.
Yes, I knew I was a lunatic.
The final exam rankings were out again, and I was not the last one anymore. I stood in front of the blackboard, looking at my name blended in with others, no longer excluded from the world as before.
My heart had a complicated emotion.
“ Wow! The last one changed!”
“ How? She was just being lucky!”
“ She plays so bad. She’s still a piece of shit even though she’s not the last one anyway!”
“ Hahaha!”
Long-lost contempt suddenly doused my thoughts but also felt nostalgic.
All the hard-working was merely futile.
Contempt and hatred never required any reason.
I laughed, full of thorough letdowns towards the world.
Despair finally came, and I still gentle smiled. This was my last thing left to the world: a totally false mask.
I faced the mirror, practicing to smile over and over again until it covered up my inanity.
The angel opened her dead eyes, stopping the prayer.
My mask brought me a new appearance. I became a hard-working and optimistic existence. My smiles and lies deceived everyone.
Even my parents thought I became “ normal,” only in the dead of night, I would secretly wipe my bruises.
Those wounds were still bleeding, but were not painful anymore, even the divorce agreement that I stumbled upon could not leave a trace in my heart.
However, there was a small crack, like feathers, occasionally snatching my attention.
I still yearned for those illusions.
I saw the world’s real appearance, but why I could not erase those happy misrepresentations?
I was confused. I knew.
After my parents divorced, their frequency of quarrels lessened. I also used my “ mask” and made friends in high school.
This was my envious life before, but I could not feel happy.
Was it because I killed myself from the past?
The world was still broken. What was missing?
What was I missing, what I had been unwilling to face?
This was a tiny question, it was not even a problem at all, but all the cells in my body were screaming, asking me to find the answer.
I started to be lazy, doing everything possible to make me have negative emotions. My instinct was guiding me, that when despair came, I would have answers.
And I could not.
I could not go back to that nothingness.
Fear sucked my blood, making me collapsing fall to the ground, even my teeth were shaking.
Why I could not feel the dead silence again?
Were those stupid calms brainwashing me?
I was scared.
I was scared that I could not fall into the dark.
That world where even consciousness was gone was my only peace.
That was my home!
I wanted to scream, and I did.
I was the only one in the practice room with soundproof panels. I screamed like a sinner in hell, gasping for breath from collapse, then kept screaming.
But I could not do that. In front of people, I still had to play the “ normal” girl.
I took out the little mirror Mother gave me, putting on a smile that has been practiced countless times, inconsistent with my frantic messy hair.
I suddenly felt nauseous.
The girl in the mirror smiled sweetly, but I only felt mopish and disgusting.
That face was a sex slave trying to please her master, making me want to throw up.
“ I hate you…” I gritted my teeth and shouted at the person in the mirror.
“ I hate you — ”
“ I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!"
I used a utility knife to scratch the mirror with cracks, but it was not enough, so I threw it out.
I broke the mirror.
The light reflected by the fragments was the blade of that year, that angel guiding me. I remembered Mother’s twisted face, the school’s razor-sharp words, and the world’s dead silence, then I laughed happily.
I was home.
“ I got it…”
“ Hahaha…”
“ Hahahahaha…”
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
So what I lacked was to “ accept!”
I knew I was not normal.
I knew I was a loser.
I knew I was a lunatic.
But simply “ knowing” was not enough.
So at this moment, all the “ know” became “ yes.”
YES, I AM NOT NORMAL.
YES, I AM A LOSER.
YES, I AM A LUNATIC.
I feel more relaxed than ever.
The world is finally complete.
The angel spreads her tattered wings, smiling, and sings the funeral song of my soul.
This is me —
The angel returning from hell.
[ The End ]
Starwings
Starwings' Instagram
@starwings_flute
