Acknowledgements
Many thanks to my family especially Dawn, Elyse and Peter Hubbard for supporting me in writing my first novella. You guys have been a creative inspiration to do what my heart desires. Thanks to my brothers in heart for supporting me Jack Lesko, Cameron Stewart and Mason Mars, you guys have been there to support me in my darkest times.
Main Characters
Please refer to if needed.
Unknown Name – This is the main character who’s journey you’ll be listening to.
Iris – Is the psychiatrist for the main character.
Fred – Is a voice within the main characters head.
Thomas – Is another voice within the main characters head.
Sandra – Is the main characters nurse but then later becomes a voice.
Contents
Chapter 1 – Memories
Chapter 2 – Voices
Chapter 3 – The Last Segment Of Freedom
Chapter 4 – A Prison Of A Home
Chapter 5 – The First Day
Chapter 6 – Close To An Ending
Chapter 7 – Illusion Of Reality
Chapter 1 - Memories
I remember sitting in class and thinking about the bird on the side of the road laying painless in death. The eyes had popped out and the guts were hanging out like a piñata lying on the floor with all the sweets exposed. I zoomed in to my memory and saw the big fat thick feathers; I wanted my father to stop the car so I could go get one. Mother would not agree with that. My mother would never agree with anything, I had this obsession with collecting dead insects and dissecting all the tiny piece and pining them against my wall. The first time I had tried to eat one, it was pinned on the wall like all the others, I wanted to bite the pin off with my teeth. Big mistake, I swallowed the pin. I coughed blood and I remember the pain becoming more and more enjoyable. My dad burst in; with his innocent and caring personality he was worried because he saw all the blood on the wall as well as the floor. I was rushed into the hospital and they had to cut me open. I still have the scar, somehow I believe this scar represents apart of my personality. Each part of your body tells a story and that story is not one of my proudest moments.
Miss Humbles always brought in an apple but never ate it, always left it in her draw. Those days of sitting there and imagining how rotten and grim her draw was. Life was like that we did things we didn’t enjoy because we thought it brought the best of our selves out. Maybe Miss Humbles didn’t enjoy the apple and the only reason she brought it in was so she'd look approachable or some admirer had given it to her and she would just let it go, she didn't want to be rude. Out side my house was a tree, a massive oak tree. I came home one day and the police had taped all over my front garden, it leaves you to wonder why, naturally. This is the first time I had heard about suicide, my next-door neighbor, Doris, had taken her own life by hanging herself from our tree. Which I know now is the most used way of suicide in the world, and gives a seventy percent death rate. Hanging is coded X70 and the definition legally is “Intentional self-harm by hanging, strangulation, and suffocation”.
Why my tree? I sat there in the class wondering away. My classroom had bright colours but somehow I had made everything dark and gloomy. I felt every time I closed my eyes to blink, with every blink they seemed to get heavier and heavier. Life is something we all should take as a gift or life is a gift, many people say that. But when you feel so dark and so envious of anyone and everyone that’s when the world seems to be the heaviest, that’s when you know you are in deep trouble. Not trouble with anyone else but just yourself. You feel like your soul and heart are broken from all the damage the world has caused, you start believing you can't fix it yourself, you believe that only one person can fix it but not you. When will I be loved forever? When will I feel the warm embrace of someone that will stay with me forever? I realize that I'll be alone forever, even if I am with someone, my father was with my mother for over thirty years before his accident. You see you can't judge a man if his manhood is taken away from him by someone who was meant to cherish his heart. Instead my mother waited for every bruise to get better to only make a new one. My father was so covered with bruises he looked like a smurf at times.
Through the years the one and only thing that aged was his eyes, he had developed these deep pained eyes that could tell his story. It was like his eyes were a vinyl record; all the bumps created a story and it only took a glimpse to see what broken genre it was. He would cry with my sister in his arms saying, “I'm sorry” over and over again. I think he was hoping everything would get better, but they didn’t. They never did. Life never got better, to me I could sit there and wish for life to get better but the truth of it was that life is something we all have to put up with. Or do we? Everyone has a different concept of life. No one lives their life without gaining any down falls, mine was drinking. Bottles and bottles of whisky just to stop one twitch of the neck.
I sat there in complete desolation feeling my head be slowly pulled forward into this memorization, into this illusion of faith. My head slowly turning as it was being pulled, 'Life is ending' I could hear coming from one ear and from the other 'For you'. My eyes starting to tear up, leading my mother to wonder what the hell is wrong with her son. Even though my mum was a drunk and an abusive relation she'd still have that little warmth for her son in her heart. After everything you wonder how she could still be loving, she could spend the days hating and suddenly turn round and start loving again. Emotions are unreadable to an eye and only visible to a heart or soul, so my mother would still need a heart and a soul to be able to care about me, even though it was random. She knew there was something wrong with me and I knew that too. It was like my heart had stopped pumping, only sucking every part of joy in life and making it into the deepest part of sadness. They say that being sad and being depressed is completely different, I believe them who ever says that because sadness is only a temporary state of mind and you can kick yourself out of it. I couldn't and can never just kick myself out of it. So I'm just sitting here, thinking about what life has to offer me and what it wants to give me as a human. It hits me, it will give me nothing if I don't try for it, do I want to try for anything?
I wonder why I was sitting there in the old boring classroom trying to learn. Won't I learn from watching the world go by? I go by drowning my head under any happy thoughts I may have had, the medication I'm put on makes my conscious mind into an unconscious state, making me a zombie of feelings and love. Its funny because all I’ve ever wanted was to be loved for who I was and not for what the world wanted me to be... the world wants everyone to be the same but yet no one is. We can be similar, that’s a given. Yet sitting here knowing that I’m going through school because someone told me it’s the right thing to do strikes me odd. I never thought the school I was in accepted me for whom I was but then it became clearly apparent to me that no one will. So that's why I'm here I think, I obviously know how I got here, well its unclear... a tiny bit blurry in the memory but I have a good idea how I let myself hit rock bottom. Life can be hard for anyone we just need to realize that and help each other out.
The story of how I got here is buried deep inside this mental lock I’ve had for years, I was irredeemable in my mind for a very long time, I knew something was wrong with the way I thought about the world. I would be shocked if everyone else thought I was okay... To me going to a doctor to tell me that I myself have a mental problem was mental. But yet again its always helpful to know for sure because that’s who’s opinion really counts, someway or another my mind had carried this thought of great dissolution of me being normal, the hours I spent absorbed to a computer screen trying to find out my problem was ludicrous. The first time I
was sent to a psychiatrist was when I was around twelve. Thomas Philander was yet another person who had deemed me a useless space waster. I couldn't argue with that because to me I am a useless space waster and weeping inside my head was a voice saying exactly that. He was showing me how he could lift someone over his head by their underwear... Its a cliché really, the person who was bullied became insecure and insane but I am different to that, my story is different to that. As soon as Thomas put me down I was crying and I felt like life had let me down once again, that was the first time I thought about ending life itself. I wasn't crying of the pain, no. Pain was no longer physical for me; I started to enjoy the physical pain. It was my punishment to myself that I took pride in taking because that was all I had showing me I was still human.
That implosive power of absolute hate was ticking away ready to destroy every part of me. Everyone either looked worried or they were laughing at the cruelty of my humiliation. The cleverness of my twelve-year-old brain figured his name out in class before and I started giggling to myself, quietly saying “Philander” because it meant to have a fondness of men. I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to gain the level of absolute brutality he was on. What pained me the most was that it was me who suffered from someone else's pain and not them. They did suffer as well but why force it out on me? You start feeling like someone’s punching bag, they throw everything at you then just walk away. Why do that too someone else. I remember my head feeling heavier but then lighter, it was like I was going through these tidal waves, my mind went completely blank to completely infused with anger. I have a lot of conflicts and many people remind me of what I have done wrong. I have done many things wrong in my lifetime and that’s probably the main reason I'm here. It’s a bit blurry on how I got here myself but I understand what and why. Not why I hit rock bottom but I understand that I did hit rock bottom. Once everyone stopped laughing and realized the hurt and pain I was going through, they walked away like I was nothing, like you turn the television off because there’s nothing to watch anymore. I started believing that I myself am nothing, there is nothing I am giving to this society and I’d say society wasn't giving me anything too. It’s hard for a twelve year old to start thinking about what some humans consider as scary. I was sitting and crying in the shame of how id let myself hit this humiliation. So I stood up and started running at this Thomas who was the size of a fully-grown bull and I was an ant in comparison. Screaming on the top of my lungs letting him know I’m coming. I imagined myself being a warrior in a film running slowly to his death or victory not caring what the chances were. My head was so hot, I felt the flames of anger coming off of me and showing to everyone the fury of bullying. He turned around and the shock on his face must have been engrossing because everyone turned around to look at him about to be demolished by an ant. When you hit a point like that everything can go wrong in a second because you aren't doing the math, I wasn't doing the math I couldn't at that time because my mind was to involved with my anger, I couldn't see that me an ant would get demolished myself. I remember that everything went slow for a minute because I realized what a mistake I’d made. I instantly hit the floor once more; his fist had landed directly in the middle of my eyebrows. I stopped crying at least. Obviously unconscious, but still quiet and peaceful. Maybe not the teachers who was walking to my aid. I don't know if they were walking or not but in my head I can see they didn't really care. There was only one teacher that really cared about me, she wasn't really a teacher she was a substitute... which I guess are teachers. She actually cared about what was going on with me, but I refuse to get to know her because that is the definition of sad for anyone, the only friend you have is a teacher. So that’s how I ended up in a psychiatrist’s room for the first time, I felt so alone that I couldn't cope with anything anymore. I needed to escape from the world and I needed friends. Friends that were from a perfect world that didn't judge or make remarks about how stupid or dull I was.
Chapter 2 - Voices
I gave up looking for these friends, it seemed like no one was going to come to me. So I ended up having a voice in my head to keep me company, which I know is insane but I told no one because of how I would be looked down on. In my head the voice was deep and croaky like the voice of a cigar smoker, kind of how I'd imagined Winston Churchill to sound. I called him Fred, Fred kept me in line, he was the one that made me look sane in so many occasions. Which I see is ironic, the one thing that was obviously insanity was making me look sane. I don't know why I named him Fred, I guess I always wanted a friend called Fred because it was so simple and so easy like our friendship which we didn’t have yet, but I know I’ll meet someone called Fred soon. The thing is whenever someone says their name is Fred I automatically switch to insanity and get really sensitive.
Its funny how you can look at yourself in the mirror and notice everything wrong with yourself and not see the good things. I stare at my beard and the long hair I have been growing for years. Not for a fashion statement nor some sort of style, just the fact when you feel as rough as I do, shaving and haircuts don't come into your mind as something you need to do. I had scars all over my face from where my mum had hit me as a child, my left eyelid was lower then my right. I was more then imperfect, I was a disaster.
Thomas arrived in my head, the boy from my past that had always bullied me was now combined with my mind. I'd always hear his high scratchy voice, it was like having a teenager going through puberty in my head telling me that I was small and useless. Still compared to him in my adolescence I’m an ant. I was sitting in the cafe near my work, which was a sales assistant for a technical company. Reason's for why I was useless in my job, A; I was a depressed piece of work, that wasn't afraid to show every customer that I wasn't happy doing this job. B; I had no idea what I was doing, if someone asked me a question, I’d just repeat what it said on the little card below the product on the shelf. C; Again I had no friends not even my boss liked me, she would take any opportunity to scold me. The cafe was called “A Small Part Of Italy”. I went to this place because it was the only place I wouldn't get disturbed by actual humans. If I didn’t go to this place and insist of having the same thing over and over again, it would close down for certain. I went there before work, in the middle of work and after work. It was a piece of heaven for me because they did the orders the way I like it, the coffee was weak with a tonne of sugar, the sandwich was toasted to the precise time of two minutes and thirty seconds and they gave me a free packet of cheap disgusting pork scratching’s that I would die for on any occasion. I was told once to enjoy the little things in life, I really do take that to heart because the little things are what irritate me the most.
But this time the coffee came out cold, maybe it was a bad day because I was just thinking about death and how it'll come to me soon but I snapped. Instead of asking why the coffee was cold I stood up brought the coffee to the cashier and shouted at the waitress, 'Why the fuck is my coffee cold’, after I had shouted, Fred was just saying 'Calm down' in a soft and loving voice, after I heard Fred say that too me, I blankly stared at the waitress, she was completely shocked, maybe a little bit of fear. I realized what I had done. I was panting, then the panting slowly became a quiet sob as Thomas was saying 'You utter mess of a man, you have no control, why bring someone else down, is it because you yourself are little', he was right. I was little and I felt that. I said sorry so many times, I think I left fifty quid on the cashier desk, I slowly walked backwards and then turned. When I turned I felt this big wall of guilt hit me, I thought of all the bullies that ever mistreated me because I was different. I was comparing myself to some of the people that nearly killed me, that actually did kill me.
I decided that I needed to get away from what I called my life, not only my life but also myself. I think when I decided to find somewhere else to call home I also decided to call someone else me. You see it was so confusing, because I knew I wasn't that person shouting at another, that wasn't me. I started believin
g it was here that didn’t accept me. I was in a complete dream thinking that somewhere else would accept me. I walked back to work, with the feeling of guilt dragging behind me, once I reached the shop where I worked at. I just said 'Anne Green' (My boss), there was no reply and by the time I had said it everyone just stopped what they were doing and stared at me. So I kneeled and started to untie my shoelaces, 'What are you doing' said Fred. I ignored him, this time I’m going to be insane. Taking my shoes off I said 'Shoes representing the labour of slaves' Then my tie, 'Ties representing the collar of society and this for all my of my colleagues' I put my middle finger up and walked out.
When I reached my car I was so pumped and I had so many ideas coming through at once, I quickly drove home, speeding through every light. I felt like a king, I felt untouchable for the first time in what seemed like forever. I felt the speed through the acceleration pedal. I opened all of the windows to hear the air beating my car, the wind was coming through from every side. It was like I had turned my car into a wind turbine. I slowly closed my eyes and breathed deeply, but when I opened them, I was in hospital. My car had turned ever so softly off the road and onto the steep small hill that was meant for peaceful beings, it put me in the air and turned me upside down. The last thing I remember was feeling weightless, with my eyes closed. I felt like flying but it was abundantly ruined as my head hit the ceiling of the car. I would tell you what I looked like but Fred wouldn't let me see myself, in the fear I had yet another scar to call a story and once again it won't be a proud moment. I still called it the best feeling I had experienced and it was worth the mental pain of being stuck in hospital.
We all have places we simply call our second home, not because we lived there but because we went there every so often. The hospital was my second home, everyone knew me in the hospital and everyone was so nice to me. I guess this was why I always had hurt myself to go see my forced friends. I say forced friends because I know they probably thinking 'What a useless piece of shit' but they had to be nice, I didn’t care at that time what they were actually thinking, all I cared about was the fact I found somewhere that was nice to me, where I felt like I belonged. That’s shouting out something to me, I felt like hospital was where I belonged...
Mortem Locus: Death Room Page 1