push them away [garners]
Apr 14, 2023 2:53:01 GMT -5
Post by d6a georgie cham 🍓🐢 frankel on Apr 14, 2023 2:53:01 GMT -5
F L Y N N G A R N E R
It has been weeks since I watched the last pile of dirt compress above Johnny’s coffin.
Just a rotting corpse now. Any empty shell that is turning into nutrients for the soil that surrounds it to absorb. Now he is just sketchy memories that I am clinging onto. I hope they don’t fade, sometimes I really need to dig hard to even remember what Tommy used to sound like. Back in the days before the club’s voices began to break. Back when we were just kids. Now they are all growing up, cutting strings, and grabbing life by the horns. While I sit in this big house alone, with all the lights switched off and the laundry piled high.
There have been a few knocks on the door and persistent voices calling my name as I sit away from any of the windows. They don’t need me; they can’t help me. The only time I have answered the door is for the delivery of the homeopathic calming drugs that the Capitol has sentenced me to take. Just a few pills to take whenever I feel the emotions coming, seems a fair deal compared to what they have written for me if I don’t take them. The harm to my friends and family skewers my heart harder than the last line of harm to the patient.
It is why I have pushed them all away, I am a magnet to death. Dad and Mom have enough to deal with after the whole Grandpa thing and my sisters are safer living with them. There is no need for them to call by, I am quite happy eating cans of beans and shadow reviewing papers written by medical students. The urge is still there, crying out loud for me to step out and put the blue scrubs back on. But I can’t. They will all be there, and I am a magnet to death.
Morning is slowly fading into midday; the sun is trying so hard to knock through the blackout blinds in my bedroom. That is a shame, I don’t even think I have slept yet. Time is lost when I am alone, I don’t even have a working clock in the house anymore. I have no routine either, just a pile of papers to read. The end goal is to get the pile down to just a few inches, a perfect alternative to a clock. The only time I have been stepping outside is to mail back to papers to the college, drop by the market for a few bits of food all while incognito. Steady life for someone that will have to face the parade of the victory tour soon and be swept out of this isolation for just a moment.
I have not been downstairs since last night; my stomach is crying out to be fed but the pile of the papers on my desk is not at the right height for me to take a break.
There is a noise outside. Or was it from downstairs? Some kind of shuffling and mumbling, I am not expecting a delivery today. If it is Jodie, or Dale, they really need to give up wasting their energy on me. I just sit still on the desk’s chair for a moment, listening. The noise doesn’t stop. It just gets louder and louder until the voices become familiar. It is dad, Nessa and I think Dorothy. How have they gotten into the house?
Fucking idiot, they have a key!
I can just hide in my bedroom; forget they are down there. Pretend it is like the years where we all used to live under this roof when I first came out of the arena. Or I can go downstairs and tell them all to fuck off and leave me alone.
I drop the paper on the desk, shuffling out of my bedroom door and with every step down the stairs, I make it very obvious to everyone down there that I am here with each thud. There is a sizzling noise and a very strong smell of cooking oil coming from the kitchen. They have their own stove back in their own house, why are they here?
”Who said you could just come into my house?” Nessa and Dorothy are sat at the kitchen table, messing about with plates and cutlery. Dad is stood at the stove with a frying pan and spatula. This used to be a regular sight, back in the days when everything was just right. ”No you need to get out, leave me alone!”
But nothing is right anymore. Nothing is working.
It hits me like a bullet train. A sweep of emotions that drowns my face with tears as I literally break down in front of dad by the stove. They should not be here, but I need them. I need some comfort from dad right now.
But there is comfort in the bill pottle that is in my trouser pocket. I fumble about in my pocket, pulling out the bottle. Clumsily I pull off the lid with too much force and every capsule within the bottle erupts across the kitchen, odd ones rolling underneath the cabinets and disappearing from sight. I drop to my knees on the kitchen floor, trying my hardest to capture the retreating pills but I just breakdown again. I can’t handle this. ”I can’t lose these, help me! I need them, they help with the-.” My hands begin to shake as I scramble all over the dusty floor on my knees, trying to pick up just one of the capsules to administer. My face soddened with tears begins to burn, I am a mess. It is embarrassing, being the puddle of suffering on the kitchen floor in front of my family. I know they’ll try but they can’t help me. Just like I can’t help them.
