Life

Ever since I was little, I’d known that I was different. Nobody else was like me. The long hours I’d spend sitting on the counters painting faces on the mirror. The people would stare at me when I was walking down Main Street with my mom, looking slightly terrified and confused. Everybody can talk, unless they’re mute, but everybody can talk. So can I, but I choose not to. Furthermore, people like me who never want to talk are pressured by society to talk, even if it hurts. People don’t understand that, right? When I was little, I hated going places where I was supposed to talk. Maybe that’s why I would draw pictures and write stories, I don’t know. Maybe the reason was the voices in my head, telling me what to do and who to be. I can’t disobey them, it’s almost like they’re possessing me.

Ever since I was ten, I’d known I was sick. Socially sick, that is. Depressed, not really, but I was still very sick. Bullies never bothered me, even though I had no friends at all. The voices told me they were jealous, and not to care what they say. So that was exactly what I did. Mom feared what was happening to me, she noticed my hands were always cold and I would move strange ways at strange times. That wasn’t why I was sick. Poppa wanted to put me in a straitjacket, but Mom wouldn’t let him.

Then we really noticed I was an alien when I turned thirteen. It wasn’t that puberty hadn’t attacked me yet, because it sure did, the voices told me a lot more that day, they weren’t as quiet. In a way, I liked it. I didn’t feel alone, but I knew that it was reality that I was alone. The voices always reminded me that. The people on Main Street still stared, Mom and Poppa noticed this even more since I was older. Mom told me that Poppa had blown some pretty intense punches at some people, because they were looking at me “the wrong way.” Whatever that meant. School, I can hardly remember a single day from school that year, I don’t know why. I usually have a great memory, but the voices sometimes tune out what’s happening in reality. The voices aren’t why two plus two equals four.

I remember one girl, she was different, not like me but she was different. She had a name, too. We all have names, titles. If we have the wrong name, someone can pick on us for it. I’m glad my name isn’t Daisy or Carol. Those names don’t fit me. I am a strange girl, and I will not deny that fact.

Remember those invisible ink pens that you could only see what you wrote in a certain type of light? Every wall in my bedroom was floor to ceiling in stories. That’s what worried them the most. Don’t worry about who they are yet. It doesn’t matter. It will soon, though.

Mom and Poppa wanted me to take classes to talk, they wanted to send me to boarding school and shove me into counseling. The voices always helped me, though. Even when they put me in a straitjacket, made me scream, and put me in a yellow padded room, the voices kept me company. They told me not to be scared.

Ever since I was little, I’d known that I was different. As of this day, January seventeenth, 3021, there is no doubt that I am different. People describe me as demonic, people are strange. There are no separators between one man and another, the world is one big reproduction factory.

I remember, people talking. They’re all talking. Voices everywhere. Some of them monotone, some of them loud and happy. I saw people’s mouths moving, I heard the words coming from their mouths, but no sound came directly from any one man’s mouth. Not one person could say one word from their own mouth, the words came from the abyss of nothing, air. As I was constantly thinking about why this was, why the words spewed from the air. But there was no good reason. Maybe I didn’t talk because of this, because I didn’t know where the words would come from.

            So now I’ll bet you’re wondering, who are they? Who am I? Well, the second question is easier than the first. I am Adaria, I am different. Moving to the first question, which will be extraordinarily hard to answer rationally, they are members from the DSHP. Or, unabbreviated, Disabled Society Hospitalization Program. Mom and Poppa think I’m disabled, so they got me in this mess with them. Moving on, the boarding school they sent me to was entirely run by them, so I was always in the pool of disabled. Not good enough, I wasn’t accepted by my own mother and father. The voices accepted me, though, they said I was perfect.

            I have not heard the voices for three months. I have not spoken to anyone for three months. The yellow walls aren’t so scary anymore. They gave me my computer so I can write, they’re hoping giving me the computer will help me talk. I get food, and water, I can leave the yellow room, but I can’t leave the facility. As I close my eyes, the fire alarm goes off, and the voices come back. I am no longer alone, I don’t have to worry anymore.

            You still want to leave, Adaria? This is your chance. Go now, before it’s too late.

                “But I can’t go, I look like a patient now.”

            Go anyway, we have to get out of here. If we’re here too much longer, something will happen. Take our words for it, please girl, Adaria, we need you to leave now, we can’t control you. This is all up to you.

                “I’ll do it, I remember how to get out.”

            We have to go again soon, but you won’t expect it or remember we’re leaving. Just get out of here, there is a blue car outside, a Volvo Honda hybrid, that’s for you, use it so we can get away from here. Try to get to Alaska or Maine.

                “Okay.”

            My words are not out loud, they are merely projected through my mind to the voices. I have someone to talk to now, and I don’t have anything more to worry about. I ran out of the building, seeing as it started to flame, and hurled myself into that car.

            “Keys, where are they?”

            They’re in the glove box. Look in the glove box, quickly.

                “Okay.” So I did exactly that.

Epilogue

            They say this place is another world, and in a way it is. The people here are less robotic, but this is still America. This place is a reproduction factory as well, but there is a bit more life here and less gloom. Welcome, my dear, to Maine. It is different here, but they want me back.

            Ever since I was little, I’d known my town was ghastly, but I had never known that my town doesn’t exist. It’s not on any maps, computer programs, or In Between browsers. My town, the one I grew up in, is apparently nonexistent. Imagine that, living almost eighteen years to find out that you were living in a fake city. I remember my mother would always say “we’re all human, but we can’t all be the same. But you, my daughter, you are not of this planet.” Those two sentences were the ones I lived by for a long time.

            But now I’m done. With everything, even breathing. I’m tired, tired of my heart beating, tired of the pain, tired of being different. I’m tired of being a mistake. I lived almost eighteen years with a life structured by lies, not a single truth behind the majority of them. I refuse to believe that a single word that came out of my parent’s mouths, except the obvious of telling me that I should, by all means, tie the rope around my neck and get off the chair. I’m not that high class, that quick, easy death is too good for me.

            Ever since yesterday, I’ve known that I was a low class prisoner to this reproduction factory. Everybody used to tell me I was crazy, nobody believed a word I said. But I now know that nobody said a single truth to me, so was I the only one who didn’t lie? That question will be the last of mine. I feel as my heavy eyelids droop, and like I never did exist, I felt myself lean off the edge of the cliff and begin falling. Swift and graceful, no ropes. The last breath I took was a finally of my terror.

            There is no heaven or hell, there is no God, but there is the Inbetween. This place is beautiful and peaceful, because God had a pretty insane sense of humor- watching people die. Tormenting Adam and Eve, yeah, sure was such a king.

            Those voices, they weren’t really voices. They were my sisters and brothers, the ones dead killed by Mom and Poppa. The ones here in the Inbetween. I never had been hearing voices, I was, alas, different, but only from the liars of the world. The ones who claimed of things, and here in the Inbetween, we can choose what form we want to take in our second life. But you always have to start off as a human, so I was a new soul. The lot of the world has tricked themselves and ended their lives. Their souls lurk on Earth, roaming around looking for a cause.

            Only the Different, the special, go to the Inbetween.

            Ever since I was little, I’d known that I was different. But I had never known that being different was my best feature. Suicide, for me, was the best option.

Reborn

            They had every fact wrong, the human scientists. Every animal that they thought they knew about, they had very wrong interpretations for. I chose to be a deep sea jellyfish. It’s peaceful here, the only threats are what try to take a bite out of me, whom get stung. The malignance of humanity is gone, the sweet scent of rebellion stays strong, and every inch of my boneless body is simply perfect. The traffic of the streets has become a murmur of fins, as the blaring horns from cars has become a distant memory.

            Once I was reborn, the Different soul, everything made sense. I remember sun bathing on the sand as a human, but I never knew the wonders of what lurked underwater because I was afraid of the sharks. Some people, humans, said that mermaids existed, some said they existed but they were scary, and others believed they were beautiful creatures underwater. The truth is, they vary. Some of them are scary, some tiny, some big and gorgeous, but not one the same as another. We are all from the Inbetween, we are all Different. This fact is one we embrace.

            As one life ends, another one begins, but one life is the equivalent to fourteen deaths for humans. The phoenix is a beautiful example for explaining life, one dies and its ashes become the next bird. My next life, I want to be a dragon. A creature hidden from Earth due to the Inbetween keeping its endangered species safe. The dragon is the protector of Earth, but the humans were the hunters and huntresses of it. Give up, dear earthlings, give up on being the perfect being, it’s not worth it when you can’t get anywhere afterwards.

            With the so-called God, you only were given two lives. One in the hell pit of humanity, and another in heaven or hell. Honestly, I would have rather gone to hell. Way less rules there. Tortured for eternity? Another reason God had a strange sense of humor. I hope you all see it now, I’m your new worst nightmare.