Trigger Warnings and a short introduction: Someone with more time than me would find a way of hiding the below post behind an affirmative consent box - but I have neither the time nor the audience to really justify that. This short story contains themes of depression and self harm. It is not autobiographical but it does draw inspiration from my own experiences of poor mental health, and those of people with whom I have crossed paths.
Original Post: 2017-01-16
Today I fancied writing a story, and as Mr. Evans is once again launching his 500 Words story writing competition (for children), I thought I might give it a go. Here it is.
Outside it was raining, from time to time the sun would make a hopeful bid to break through the clouds, only to be stifled by a weightier darkness. If she were to look through her bedroom window, and were a poetic type, she might have felt the weather was some sort of reflection of her inner self. But she doesn’t look up, and she isn’t a poetic type, and it wasn’t pathetic fallacy - it was Leeds.
Beneath the duvet the last heat of the 3am hot water bottle seeped away. It hadn’t worked. Nothing worked. Last night, like the night before, and so many nights before that, she hadn’t slept. She kicked the hot water bottle out and rolled over. Today would be another day like the day before and the days before that. Minutes, hours, and seconds passed as one. She reached out her arm to pick at the seam of the wallpaper beside her bed, the cold air brushing against her exposed wrist. Cold air meant the heating had been off for at least two hours, she hadn’t heard the post come so it was probably about eleven. She pushed her foot out from under the covers, then withdrew it again. The kitchen was too far away.
She teased the paper away from the wall, then pushed it back and, with an almost inaudible sigh, rolled over. The little sunlight that had made it through the clouds and the closed curtains reflected dimly off any surfaces it could find. The lens of the dead alarm clock, yesterday’s mug of cold tea, the blade off a pencil sharpener. The crumbs from last week’s toast irritated her leg. Her foot emerged from under the covers again, followed by the other, and with herculean strength she threw off the duvet and sat up. The face she’d drawn on the back of the mirror grinned aimlessly across the room at her. She hopped lightly through the detritus of her existence and pulled open the door before walking heavily to the bathroom.
The cold toilet seat tempered the relief of emptying her bladder and she caught the eye of the reflection in the mirror, the scars on her arm were temporarily visible as it shot up to kill the light. She contemplated a shower as she washed her hands, then splashed some water over her face and walked back into the hallway then down the stairs to the kitchen. The cold tiles on her bare feet sent a shiver up her legs as she filled the kettle. From the back of her mind a feeling was growing, swelling. Tea in hand she returned to her bedroom, the light glistening off the surface of her fresh tea, the old tea, and the blade from the pencil sharpener. Days, months, weeks ago she might have fought it. She sipped her tea staring the blade - her feelings down. The scars on her arm were temporarily visible as it shot up to kill the pain.
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