What Does Blue Feel Like? (2 page)

the blackness inside her

that is pulling her in.

she screams at herself.

You are stupid.

You are ugly.

No one likes you.

Get out of their hair.

What she doesn't see is her friends think she is

smart

pretty

talented

and a beautiful person.

that Char is wearing blinkers.

She sees what she wants to see.

Hears what she wants to hear.

Believes what she wants to believe.

And like a stubborn racehorse,

Bronwyn thinks,

Char can't see she's galloping into trouble.

Char pulls away from everything.

Her dad thinks it's a phase.

Julie cannot believe that something would be wrong with

her perfectly (perfect) well-adjusted child.

Char is a separate entity.

She wants to be the well-behaved, polite daughter

but the effort is too much.

 

when she first felt like this.

It didn't happen all at once

but like the tallest tree which grows,

slowly but steadfast,

until it gets ripped out by the roots in a storm

and flays mightily in the wind until it

gives

in.

At school, strangers who resemble friends ask,

‘How are you?'

She gives the standard supermarket operator reply.

They teach Char how to

smile with teeth

act jubilant and carefree

and use her face as a pliable, trustworthy mask.

Content, strangers

sidle away.

Char

escapes (with parental permission)

to a party at a friend of a friend's.

She is drunk

on tequila

and escapism.

She dances wildly into the night

and hooks up with Jim

who tastes and smells like beer

but she can fall asleep with him on the tatty sofa

that has been dragged into the backyard

and rests on dewy grass.

In his arms

she feels

safe

safely

safely alone.

 

Her parents,

in each other's arms,

feel afraid

for their child

of their child

with their child.

 

What happened to the way things were planned?

by Bronwyn Mackay

OK, so I wasn't drinking (or eating) at the party, right? Because, like, alcohol has so many calories and your body breaks it down first, and then, like, all the other stuff you've eaten basically just gets turned to fat. Anyway, like, some of the girls at the party were eighteen already, and they went off to the bottle-o, right? Char went with them because, like, she's pulling away from our group and stuff, and anyway she came back with a bottle of teq. Not just a hotel room mini-bar size one, like a full one where you, like, even get a little red plastic hat. And she was, like, sculling it straight from the bottle. Everyone was fully amazed, because Char is so not that kind of girl. It was like this strange alter-ego clone of Char and even then it still felt like something you would only see happen in a dream. I don't know how she was drinking straight teq anyway, and she tried to pour some in my Diet Coke. Like, no thanks. Then she was dirty dancing with the bottle-o girls, and Jim walked past and pinched her ass. Like, if someone did that to me, even if I was drunk, I would slap them down. But Char followed him. They went off and, like, fully got it on. She drank almost half of the bottle of teq that night. Can you envision the hangover? She won't talk to me about it, I can bet you that. I rang her today, but her mum said she was asleep.

Upon waking, Char feels

hungover.

There is bile in her mouth,

she is being trapped

by the dead weight of Jim's arm.

They are in disarray.

She feels dirty

and shamed.

Her mother asks, innocently, ‘Did you have a good time

last night, dear?'

She gags on her reply, and for the first time tastes what

she has drunk.

A shower does not wash away the

shame

which makes her feel sicker than the hangover

itself.

Just take your life

Pretend it's all right.

Escape into the night.

Dream of a better time.

Your dreams will fall with you.

But I will still be here

To pick you up again.

Take your time to stand.

Another time to fall.

creative

interesting

and disturbing.

every weekend with Jim,

whose parents either don't realise

or don't care

what he does. They drink

Bourbon

Rum

Whiskey

Vodka

Beer

Kahlua

Goon

until they spew, or pass out,

or both.

It is escapism, pure and true

and since Jim provides it all from his

parents' liquor cabinet,

it is also free.

She is free.

Her teachers gather

in a corner of the staffroom

amid their lattes and armfuls of paper

and talk about how

they are watching Char, comet-like,

throwing herself away with reckless

abandon.

Abandonment.

Leaving a fiery blaze

scorching those around her.

Leaving them

burnt out.

 

One teacher tries

to bridge the gap

and be friendly, compassionate, understanding.

Char, despite her teacher's efforts,

can't bring herself to do more than

mime a smile.

A smile that never reaches past her lips.

Isn't it funny how eyes never lie?

 

The teacher, resolved, moves away.

There are more problem kids:

— the anorexics

— the bullies

— the drug addicts.

She cannot fix them all and,

as it wasn't mentioned in last meeting's agenda,

perhaps it is not her job to do so.

 

The knives in our kitchen mock me.

They know,

just as I do,

what I couldn't bring myself to do

all those weeks ago, standing in the

cold kitchen.

I wish I had the courage.

I am scared

of dying

of not dying

of being alive.

And that thought

makes me cry.

Sometimes Char cries in her sleep.

It is the only time I see her cry.

She cannot be having nightmares

because she looks sad, mostly,

sometimes afraid, but mostly sad.

When I ask her, she blinks in the garish sunlight, wrapping

her hands around the coffee mug she always uses,

and says, ‘I do not remember.'

Out of control.

About to fall.

Like a fun house with no doors.

It's not fun at all.

I want to get out.

I want to escape.

Can nobody hear me shout????

Char is

proud

of her little masterpiece.

Her concerned teacher

asks her if there's anything she'd like to talk about.

Char thinks,

Not with you — nosey old bat!

She is looking for a cotton bud

in the medicine cabinet

when her gaze is steadily diverted.

Her hand moves of its own accord.

She hears the crackle (cackle) that the pills in their little

plastic pockets make.

They are very strong painkillers.

They could do harm.

They are tantalising.

She stares, for a long time.

Tempted.

Guilty.

Ashamed.

Indecisive.

Scared.

Until her strongness breaks

and she weeps,

flooding with tears,

sitting on the bathroom floor.

Bronwyn asks Jim if he has noticed anything about Char.

He lies, says, ‘No,'

because he does not want to think about it.

The desperation in her eyes.

Needing to be held.

Needing something he is not sure of.

Needing something that he cannot give.

She stays out all weekend with Jim,

drunkenly playing chicken with cars on the road,

threatening to jump off the roof,

throw herself down the stairs.

She accidentally stands too close to the bonfire at

one party and is singed.

Jim is worried, but she only replies,

‘Do you know witch burnings used to be a

spectator sport?'

 

and I am hurting.

I do stupid things

to see what will happen.

Try as I might,

I can't make myself care.

It is at Jim's one night

that things really go

wrong.

She is drunkenly making sandwiches

with a sharply glistening knife.

Suddenly

there is blood,

blood everywhere.

Where did it come from?

Oh no, feeling dizzy, Jim, help me please.

 

Jim tenderly bandages her wrist

tries to

kiss it better.

Char is crying, like a small child,

and cannot stop.

Jim holds her tight, strokes her hair,

until she curls into him, kitten-like, asleep.

Jim thinks,

What the hell was that about?

It was, after all, just a scratch.

They've

come again.

Every night, uninvited.

I wake up shaking, sweaty, on edge.

I cannot sleep.

I daren't sleep.

Embers of yellow light

wend like drifts of faint smoke

around the edges of the

bedroom door (impenetrable wall)

signalling the awakened state of the occupant inside.

She cannot sleep

preferring light to darkness,

restlessness to nightmares,

reality to dreams.

 

Blackened thoughts, cowardly,

course the same path through her mind,

slipping in through the cracks,

taking over,

like a fog.

‘Skin and bones, Char, you're nothing

(You're Nothing) but skin and bones,

skin and bones, skin and bones.

Eat something for goodness sake,'

her mother says.

How does she explain

it's not worth the effort

and nothing tastes good any more.

Skin and bones, skin and bones,

she is taunted.

Nothing but a pile of skin

and bones.

Jim makes Char go to the school's guidance counsellor.

She only half drags her feet,

worn with frustration,

submissive from lack of sleep,

numb and hollow with nothing to blame.

The counsellor asks

many questions, most rhetorical.

After the cross-examination, it is proclaimed.

‘You might have depression.'

(You are labelled. You are labelled.)

Char feels odd,

oddly quiet.

At least she knows now, it's not just her imagination.

The other, more sly, persuasive voice in her head whispers,

‘You need to live up to your label.

Don't let the team down, Char.

It's hopeless now.

Give up on yourself
because they already have
.'

The voice in her head is gentle, persistent, and tells her it is

So damn right
.

The voice speaks

and she, compliant, listens.

Julie and Paul

have always thought they were

Good Parents.

They pride themselves on knowing, really knowing

what's going on in their

children's lives.

But,

try as they might,

they can't quite seem to grasp

what is happening with Char.

 

They ask her

over and over

What's wrong?

What's the matter?

And always

always

there is the same answer.

Nothing.

Char hears an urban legend

about a man

who hung himself from a doorknob

with his tie.

She observes her inanimate school tie

hanging on her doorknob

and she thinks,

‘He really was dressed to kill.'

                             Like sunshine and rain,

                             no one can predict

                             on which day you should

                             take an umbrella.

handle Char much longer.

She is in pain, he knows

and he does not want to make it worse.

But ...

his younger sister shrills,

‘Char's crazy,'

and he doesn't know whether to agree or not.

Jim knows about many things,

but Char

and her demons

he doesn't understand.