Georgia

Her knees collapsed beneath her, and she sank to the ground like a dying swan. She felt like a dying swan, too. Her feathers muffled her from the world outside, and muffled the world outside from her. A swansong emerged from her heaving chest, an animalistic cry of pure grief and loss. It felt as if she herself was dying, as he did. A painful, prolonged death from a wound that never heals. Her insides felt hollow and echoing. She distantly saw shapes moving to help her up, to comfort her. But what was the point? He was gone. And if he was gone...there was no point left to the world. ---   “And stay in! We have visitors.” The door slammed behind Cadel Meriwether. The lock clicked as he stumbled into the dank room, still reeling from the vicious shove to his back. The musty, lumpy bed creaked warningly beneath his weight as he collapsed onto it fully clothed. Cadel felt restless and uncomfortable all over – mind, body and soul. His slightly-too-small clothes itched. His legs felt like they wanted to run and never stop. His mind was twisting and turning, running over the events of the day and committing them to memory as it always did, not caring that they were nothing new and nothing that he particularly wanted to remember. Cadel lay on his back, staring at the dusty chandelier that dominated the room. It swung high from the ceiling of the tower, metres above him, and simply dripped with ancient candle wax and forgotten grandeur. He rolled over, buried his pale face in the paper-thin pillow and felt like he wanted to scream at the injustice of it all. What had he ever done to them? What had he done to deserve such a thoroughly miserable life? Locked in a fading, peeling mansion, never allowed into society, forced to experience the world secondhand via atlases and encyclopaedias thieved from his father’s study. Things had been so much better when Mother was alive. He sat up sharply and shook the treacherous thoughts from his mind. It did no good to think of Mother: she was gone, and there was no way she was coming back. His aunts were here in her place now – oh, how he hated them! Cadel could almost see their smug, flabby faces floating in the shadows, gloating over his misery, squandering his family’s fortune, taking over and destroying the place he once called home. The loathsome pair had moved in the very night his mother had died, under the guise of ‘looking after their poor, dear brother and his sweet little son’. He had believed them, then. How could he have been so stupid? But then, he had been only eight. An eight-year-old could be excused for wanting to believe in the sugarcoated facade they displayed to the world. But soon the pretence had crumbled and blown away in the proverbial wind. They were self-centred and domineering, manipulating Cadel’s father (who had never really liked him) into mistreating him, wasting the money his family had amassed over centuries on hideous new dresses and ridiculous luxuries (for themselves, of course), like dodo meat, and gemstone studded coats for their pet pugs, who were just as horrible and bad-tempered as their owners. The light filtering through the single, high window into the depressing tower room was crimson. //Sunset,// Cadel thought//. Dinnertime – for everyone but me.// If he listened closely, he could hear the high pitched, piglike, squealing laughter of the loathsome twosome, with a backdrop of the buzz of conversation and the occasional //chink// of cutlery against crockery. A smell of roast meat crept under the locked door, and his empty stomach rumbled. Cadel reached for the silver, long-handled mirror lying on the bedside table. It was the only spot of brightness in the unhappy room, and the only remnant Cadel had of his mother. He traced the intricate engraving on the back of the mirror with his fingertips, and felt the familiar lump grow and boil in his throat. The peeling grey wallpaper and imposing, dusty portraits on the walls all faded into one great depressing blur. He still felt hollow when he contemplated his mother. It had been nearly five years, and he still felt her loss. The tears spilled down his cheeks, and he threw himself down on the bed and into a silent crying fit. The part of his brain that always remained logical reminded him that if he made any noise at all, he would be punished. So he contained the sobs and screams that ached to be released, and waited for the storm of emotion to pass. A while later (still hiccupping a little), he sat up, flipped over the mirror and stared at his reflection. He observed what he saw as though he was a stranger in another’s body. He saw a boy about thirteen years old, with straight, shoulder length black hair. His eyes were large and dark, and currently red from crying. Tear tracks traced down his pale cheeks. He was skinny for his age, and his clothes hung off his frame as if he was a scarecrow. The view didn’t improve matters. He carefully placed the mirror back on the rickety table, and rolled off the bed. He padded across the room to the old dresser, where he wrenched open a drawer and grabbed his thin grey pyjamas. He changed quickly, shivering at the touch of the cold air against his bare skin. Once changed, he raced across the splintery floor and leaped into the unwelcoming bed. He curled up in a tight ball under the thin, ragged blanket and squeezed his eyes shut. Gradually his eyelids loosened and he drifted off into a dream, a dream where he wasn’t always cold, and where he always had enough to eat, and a warm pair of arms held him tight and told him he was loved. --   A pale, sterile, soulless hospital room. A battered and tattered girl lies beneath the covers. Another girl sits on a hard chair beside the bed. ** But you said- ** I KNOW WHAT I SAID. THAT WAS THEN. ** What’s changed? **  You. Everything. Nothing. I don’t know. (pause) It’s raining, you know. ** I know. **  (pause) I just don’t see how you could- ** Because I had no choice, ok? **  (a tear drips down a face) You had plenty of choice. You had a world of choice. (pause) ** He loved you, you know. **  He never liked me. ** Do you think I don’t know what I’m talking about? He never shut up about you. All I heard about was you. Never me. He wasn’t ever mine. **  (struggles for breath. machines beep and feet rush towards the closed door from the hallway outside) ** He was always yours. **  That’s bull. You know it. ** Do I? ** ** --- **