Snowfall

Her eyes slowly opened, but all she could see was white. The same colour of her writing paper that had stared at her mockingly on the dining room table, her house mate's table. She had gotten rid of her own since it had been too large. She couldn't recall what she had done with it, thrown it out? Or had she donated it? Sold it? She could not say anymore, even if she had that table since she had moved away from the town she had finished her high school career in. High School? She had been to two, but she found it hard to recall the names of them now and the Primary Schools were even blurrier. She had was sure that one of them was the password to her Mygov account? She can not get you any longer. Who was she? More importantly, she could barely recall her own name, let alone another woman's, whatever her relationship with her was. Turning her head, she found it sunk into the white substance, the texture leaving her reeling since it would seem her own mind couldn't place it. Lying down would continue to get her nowhere, pushing herself onto her feet she looked around and then, there was more white. Like snow from a game. Like the blizzards from The Legend of Zelda, the Breath if the Wild. Zelda? Breath of the wild? Was this truly what a blizzard was? She was never seen one in the near twenty-nine years she had lived. She looked around to see if she could spot any other colour, anything other than white. Purity, white is pure. There was nothing pure about her, someone had made sure she knew that before she could speak in a way that was understandable. Speaking like a teletubby was only cute for so long. The white continue to fall and fall, until flashes of colour caught her eye. It looked like a small gum dispenser, glass was broken in the snow and the small gum balls were shattered about. And then, screaming and fighting. She could not make out what they were saying, but she knew she had to walk away from the scene as there was nothing she could do to help the children standing behind the gum dispenser, the cheerful red bottom and top marked the angry she could feel around her so perfectly. You can not change the past. You can only accept what happened and move on. You're father never touched you! Something about the woman's' statement was wrong and like that statement would change as the years went by, never to suit her and help her, but to help someone else and allow someone else to control a narrative. Like gaslights being slowly turned down, while everyone pretended nothing was a miss and that she was the crazy one for pointing it out. No, she thought to herself, that man did put his hands on us, but around me he won't put his hands on my brothers -my children, my babies- not like he had done with myself, my brother and sister. Mum was useless in this aspect, always had been. Always would be. She put her hands on her head, to block out the yelling and walked away without a second glance back. Those two children were children no more, there was nothing she could do for them. Placing one foot in front of the other, she continued to walk away from the scene and before long it wasn't snow that fall, it was coins. Old Australian coins, coins from the early two thousands. You cost me fifty cents! Did her life really mean less than fifty cents to the woman who brought her into the world? Was some of those horrid voices her own mother? If the woman spoke to her like then, then why she would want to be near her. She chocked on fifty cents because her brother had thrown it into her mouth! She was lucky they lived next to a retired nurse or she was sure that she would have died? And the person who was meant to be keeping an eye on them? Where was she? The past cannot be changed. Only accepted. Why did she have to accept it? She chocked on something and her stupid parents didn't think it important enough to take her to a doctor to make sure nothing happened to her throat! Wouldn't be the first time either. The past cannot be changed. Only accepted. Fine, she thought. But she was soccer-punching the b***h the moment she stood before her, lousy woman worrying about a fifty cent coin over her child's life, she was sure that caramel koala was super important. Continuing to walk away from the coins and sound of children's laughter, that soon turned into screams of horror. She wondered if her brother never forgot about that day, wondered if it locked itself into his mind like hers. Wondered if he had nightmares about his older sister dying in front of him because he had done stupid. Would that be the reason he would push me into traffic and pull me back? she thought. Had she ever wondered what he had gone through? Did their useless mother sit down with him and tell him that it wasn't his fault? That what happened was a tragic accident, that she knew that he didn't mean to almost kill her as he was at most only five years old. Did she even blame him? No, she wasn't him. She wasn't Matthew, Matthew was the one who didn't let s**t go and didn't think about the age of the person who had wronged him. He might almost twenty-seven, but she bet he still told people that she had given him scars on his face when she was two years old. Or that she sat on him when he was in the hospital, two months before her second birthday. Emily was much the same. But she was the one who used to s**t in the wardrobe when she didn't get her way or tell people to kill themselves. A crime really, she thought as she continued walking down the snowy path. Only her thoughts giving her company. Emily was the one who'd s**t her pants and piss herself in public because she wanted something and was told no. Not her, but yet, why did Mum love them more than her? Why would they get away with tormenting her? But when she bit back, she was the villain in the story and they were the victims? Why was it that they could send their friends to bully her, but she was the one who was told not to tell anyone she was related to them. Why? Just why was she never good enough to be loved. Why was she the one who had to stop being a child at nine to help Mum with Jacob, allow him to sleep near her bed and wake up with him because she had trouble sleeping? Why did she never help her with that? Or the fact that she wet the bed until she was fourteen years old? Why did Heather -her mum- never tell her anything she needed to know as a teenage girl? Why did she call her useless when she gave up her teenage years to a second mother? She was the one at eleven and thirteen that would do the groceries because even at the age she knew it was stupid to expect a heavily pregnant woman to walk an hour to the store and then an hour back. She was faster on her bike. She was the one who waited for Emily to be done her extra activities because she shouldn't be walking by herself home. She was the one in fifth and sixth grade, while Emily was in second and third grade. The past cannot be changed. Only accepted. Continuing to walk, her foot sunk further than before. Beneath her feet something is hard, like pavement. But there was something near her foot, something was buried beneath the white snow. Falling to her knees she brushed aside the snow, revealing two small cat figures, then there was a small dog brown figure. One ginger. The other ginger and white. It wasn't Ichigo and Kakashi, no those were Tempest's -her house mate's- cats, no these cats would have been much, much older than those two had they still been alive. It was Baby, Thomas and Apple. One who ran away and the other had been ran over. It been William's -her dad's- fault, he wouldn't allow them into the moving van because he didn't like cats or creatures that competed for attention away from him. It was most likely why he had gotten rid of Apple, because she, Matthew and Emily would spend hours chasing after Apple. Going through people's backyard's to catch her and bring her back, only to have to do it hours later. But then, when they had Apple they lived on the Highway, she could have easily gotten hit by a car like Thomas had been. She still apologised to people if they tell her they drove on the high way, William had the horrid habit of going outside butt naked and pissing while smoking, like they didn't have a backyard and a bathroom. She was scarred by him walking naked. And when she had s*x with men, it would bring her back to those moments and it just ruined s*x for her. And that was before she was raped by the two people and sexually assaulted by another four people she thought she could trust, stupid naive little fool. The past cannot be changed. Only accepted. Like she would now accepted a sixteen year old teaching an eleven year old how to French kiss, she huffed putting the three figures into her cross body bag she had been carrying around without much thought. She wanted to keep Baby, Thomas and Apple with her, they were the light point in her life. Her little slices of heaven on earth before William took them away from her, because the prick was selfish like that. Thomas used to sleep on her pillow like a guard dog…. well, he was a cat. So he was more of a guard cat, Baby would hiss at everyone but she loved him with all her little six year old heart could. She didn't meant to shove one of their heads into a shape sorting toy… if that even that ever happened to begin with, she had to question things Heather told her since the b***h had lied to her more than once in her life. Continuing to dig, she found another little figure. This time she found another figure of a bunny and another three cats. She didn't know if the rabbit had a name, but she knew the cats name. The tabby was Heaven, the plain black cat Salem and the black and white cat was Artemis… even Artemis was male and went against everything she knew about the Greek Goddess. But Emily was the one who named Salem and Artemis, even if she was the one ended up with them. Before they ended up with Siobhan, before passing away from a poisoned mouse and a flipped stomach. Heaven was her first cat… Baby might have been, but back then she couldn't have stopped William or Heather from doing anything to do them even if her tiny body shielded them. But Heaven? She was the first cat she looked after by herself, learning everything she needed to know about cat care along the way. Until 2022, the worse year of her life and that included 2013 the year she had been kicked because she had been blamed for cutting her sister's hair in her sleep. Even if she had no record of cutting people's hair, cutting their clothing to stop their bragging, yet. Hair, no, that was Emily through and through, did Heather think about that before barging in screaming her head off while she was trying to help her fix her phone. Ungrateful b***h. She started screaming back, but only because she thought Heather thought she had stolen her phone. Which made more sense than her cutting f*****g Emily's hair in her sleep, while she wasn't even in the f*****g room. Heather told her to leave and never return, she had spent years telling her that once she was gone she was gone. Threatening to kick her out at sixteen like William's brother had done to his eldest daughter. Like some sick and twisted family tradition. Even in seventh grade she knew she would 'move out' at fifteen or sixteen. She had totally called it, she bet even Geelong High School was shocked when it happened since she had been spot on about the age. The past cannot be changed. Only accepted. If there was anything about forgiveness in there, then the male like voice in her head could chock. If those two sensed she might have forgiven them then they'd tried to re entire her life like a bad case of vertigo. And vertigo wasn't fun. It was like spinning in a circle, but your head never stopped spinning and neither did your stomach. Stupid ears. Rolling her eyes, she put the figures with the others. Before she continued to dig, and dig. It was craved stone, something she had seen out of a cartoon once or twice, maybe that one Disney movie with the Gypsy and the perverted priest… she had a priest or two in her family tree, along with a few Staints in her family tree. Along with a few King's and Chinese Emperor… she was also related to Mark Anthony, but well, the stupid had to come from someone in her tree, along with the crazy but she was blaming the fact that she was related to the last Roman Emperor. "It's just a gargoyle," a voice said. "Well," she huffed, "it doesn't belong in the ground, it belongs on an old creepy church that I want to burn down." "You didn't regret like how I thought," the voice said. She just stood. "Look if you wanted an normal reaction, you would have gone to literally anyone else," she said, "not the person who can barely remember anything until something else pops up. Plus, I hear voices allllll the time, see things to. On the floor, in the curtains but when I try to tell people thing they think I'm lying for attention. Hell, at one point I told a friend I had voices in my head and she told me to stop lying… last time I told her anything about my health." "I'm sorry," the voice said. The snow was falling down lighter, she walked away from the gargoyle and it's sad resting place in the snow. Walking away, she could see something in the distance but it had nothing to do with her past as it slowly showed itself to her. "Don't be scared," the voice said. "I got nothing," she replied, "feelings aren't something I feel unless it's in the extreme cause otherwise it's not safe." "That's alright, feelings can be hard to name," the voice said. "No," she said, "I am an empty shell of a person, I'm only not worse because of the antidepressants I'm on. And it's a high dose, to the point my doctor has to contact Medicare for me to get my prescription." "You are in the In-between, the world that lies between familiar and what's possible," the voice said, "between the old and the new." "And why everything is coming back slowly and why there are giant gaps in my memory," she said, "unless I came here with those." "That you're is wonderful," the voice continued, "it means your on the edge of change, of growth and of moving forward. This world will act like a mirror, if you let it, it will not always be comfortable but that's okay, looking at the old with new lenses is always uncomfortable." She just stared at the icy realm around her, it was white because she herself had nothing? Like a blank piece of paper? But then there was the gumballs, the coins and the small figures in her cross-bag. That must be a sign that she wasn't completely empty, right? Would that question why the blizzard behind her was thicker than in front, because the past was always harder to see than the future? "Why am I here?" she asked. "To find your way out," the voice said, "to do so, you must know yourself, what this word needs for yourself to see you, not what others think of you… or what you think they think of you." "Autism for the win," she muttered. "Be curious," the voice said. "Sure, I'll try," she promised, "but what if I don't like what I find? What if what I find it better buried. My brain choose to forget it for a reason, what if afterwards I can no longer stuff it back into the cage it belongs in?" "It's hard for someone to see themselves," the voice said, "those who have accepted the challenge have never regretted it. They learn something new about themselves, you'll be surprised." Something was appearing in the corner of her eye, but was it truly there or was it a trick of her mind. Like the cricket and the spider had been? Like the voices behind her arguing about the death of the child? The man who had been ran over the bus? The woman who had been stabbed in front of her by a man, or how the tree outside one of the houses she lived in came alive threatening to eat her whole. She hadn't told anyone about some of these. She didn't want people telling her that she was doing it for attention, that her suffering and the fear growing in her chest meant nothing. It was better to retreat into her mind when things like these happened, it was safer to mentally be away when someone that wasn't meant to be there. Was. It was the reason she didn't like to leave the house, it caused her distress not knowing if someone was meant to be there or not. But if she knew what a room was meant to look like, what her skin was meant to look like and what other people were meant to look like, then she would be okay. Because then she would know. "I thought we had more time," the voice said, "but all places have rules and this world is no different."