Sunday 15 January 2017

This isn't Felix.

I looked into the eyes of the person I had shared my darkest secrets and sweetest moments with. They were different, emptier and darker, like something was missing. Felix, a gentle and damaged soul, who you'd expect of all people to have eyes filled with hurt and feeling. And yet, I was staring into a blank face. Blonde hair falls around his soft cheeks, a look, different to the five hundred I'd seen before and memorised. His skin had paled and his wrists were thinner.
'Jess, you ok honey?'  Felix squeezed my hand, giving me a look of concern. I squeezed back.
The hospital room was bleak and sterile, smelling of disinfectant and sickness, if it had a smell it would be this. I should have been overjoyed to see him after months of surgeries and waiting. What was wrong with me? Something hadn't felt right for weeks.

This wasn't him, not my Felix. Something had happened during the surgeries, he had been replaced by somebody identical. I slipped my hand out of his, my fingers trembling. The man in the bed looked at me, creating a facade of confusion and hurt, masking his true intentions.
This was an imposter.
Engulfed by fear and rage I began to strangle the man in the bed. If this were really Felix he would have been able to overpower me but this man was much to frail and weak for that.
' I need to see the real Felix, WHERE IS THE REAL FELIX?' I spat, tears spilling onto his chin.
'Jess! Stop!' His weak voice shrieked, he grabbed my wrists in vain, pushing me away. My hands pushed against his brittle throat, why wouldn't he tell me where Felix was? In minutes his fingers slipped from my wrists and those beautiful eyes that had been stolen slowly closed.
Harsh hands grabbed me by my coat, ripping from the bed and taking me away. The doctor and nurses ran to the imposter's aid.
'FELIX WHERE ARE YOU?' My screams echoed down the halls as I was dragged from the pretender's corpse.

The next day I awoke in another bleak and sterile room, but this one was different. I was alone, there was nobody by my side, no Felix. Why weren't they looking for him? Nobody had even tried.
My wrists were raw and hand cuffed, as I stared into the mirror before me, a red eyed, blotchy faced girl looked back, scared and exhausted. I could never forget his warm hands and soft cheeks. His sad stories and sad eyes. Nobody knew what it was like to stare into the soul of somebody you loved only to realise they had been replaced, by a pretender, an imposter. Nobody.








Wednesday 11 January 2017

Thursdays are for Overthinking.


I'm a writer, a dreamer, a thinker and yes, a cryer.  I like vintage//thrifted fashion and horror films. And please, don't label me as one of those who deliberately strays from the crowds. I merely refuse to agree with the idea that we're all the same. I don't believe that people can be ordinary, as everybody has their own unique and ingenious thoughts that seperate them from the masses and make them different. That is, after all, what we are I believe. Irreplaceable and one of a kind. All born with the potential to be good but when life and our minds test us with its cruel ways we are forced to choose between a million paths that lead to a million different possibilities and a million different endings. And through all these millions of paths, possibilities and endings you are here, and that is more that can be said for many so be glad that you're buried six feet under society's expectations and not dirt. You're here so be happy for you a stronger than you think, don't look up to people, look up to yourself because you are the reason that you are still here.




Monday 9 January 2017

Fool's Paradise

His hands trembled in mine. Tousled and sweaty hair, collapsed over his delicate features. His dark eyes filled with a familiar emptiness, and a sort of madness that failed to conjure empathy, but instead, memory. Jack was much weaker than I, and it was quite obvious, that this boy was bearing a weight too heavy for such a fragile creature, as broken and innocent as he was.
Most could take the inevitable blankness awaiting them. We were far from okay but would continue to remain alive. Others, like Jack, weren't able to withstand the pain and were murdered by their shaky minds. However, was the only shaky mind left to keep me going.  He was my brother, my dear brother, and I would not allow him to become another statistic, with a heart as unfairly broken as his was.

Jack and I were born into the black and white. We had heard stories from our grandparents, of the world before our generation, a world of colour.
'What is colour Nanna, why can't you explain it?' Jack would ask.
'It is something we do not deserve.' The light in her eyes would dim as she says this.  It was always something that fascinated the children of our generation. A beautiful thing that our seniors could never put into words or show us.
So beautiful perhaps, that people would pay thousands to see it with their own eyes.
There were no historical accounts or photos. It merely seemed a legend that the senile elderly had conjured up for whatever reason.  If colour was everywhere then why wasn't it here now?
'We were punished.' Grandad would say. ' We took something that was good for granted and in moments it was gone.'  He never elaborated on this, nobody did. Since we could not see it, we did not believe it. All accept Jack, of course.

When Jack and I were adults, a revolutionary drug had found its way into Melbourne. A week had passed, everyone was addicted. 'FP' it was called. Later we learnt it stood for 'Fool's Paradise'. The drug allowed the user to see colour for what felt like too short a time. People in this saddened city were happy for once, and rightly so I had thought. Imagine, what it would be like for everyone to see the most beautiful thing in the world, at once. The grass beneath my feet was 'green' as nanna had called it, and so were my eyes. Some lips were pinker than others and Jack's skin was like porcelain. Life had been brought to the city and with time, people had their meaning. In moments, their meaning was lost.

The drug had started off as extremely cheap but over a year the price had risen to unaffordable heights.  I could never shake from my mind, the day I couldn't buy another pill. The day my happiness was  forcibly ripped from my firm grasp.
'Mum all I need is a little loan, please it'll all get back to you in a month or two I promise.' My mother would look at me with her broken blue eyes and run her shaky fingers through her bright red hair.
'I've got none left.' I felt myself sinking into the ground. Or at least, that's what I wanted to do. My lips throbbed and my throat clenched itself.
'What do you mean 'none left'?'
'I spent it all on the colours sweetie, can't you see?' She collapsed onto the floor in a pool of her filth and tears and I left her there, on her own.
That day, I was able to distinguish being alive with living, for I never lived again.

I was able to suppress my feelings, like most of us had done and we went on. Without colour. Our lives had ended here and yet we still continued. Somewhere between life and death. 'Limbo', as Grandad had called it. Even time couldn't restore ignorance.
Jack, the little boy who was fascinated with that beautiful thing he couldn't see, was never able to regain any part of him that once was. We were all broken but Jack was shattered, like a china doll.
'Dear sister of mine, did you know I dream in colour?' He placed his wet head on my shoulder, his eyes unnervingly dead.
'No, I didn't know that.'
'I am forced, every morning, to wake up and face another uncoloured day and pretend that nothing had ever happened to us all. The worst and best nothing.'
Jack squeezed my hand tightly and looked out of the window beside us, wincing at the sight of bland nothingness.
'What did we do to deserve a world with no colour?'
'We were living in a fool's paradise.'



Friday 6 January 2017

Tooth & Co.

Lost and Found

Light bounced from every sharp edge, illuminating purples and greens, sprayed on the worn out walls of this old brewery. A sense of idle loneliness crawled through the forgotten machinery. Rusted and consumed by its memories. As broken glass and moss engulfs the unsteady ground I am reminded of the state loneliness leaves us in.
Oh, how easy it is to believe that you are forgotten by the world, when in fact it is impossible. In your darkest days, think of this brewery, with a broken back and yet it still stands. Lost, and found again.