Scars

OK, so before you start reading this, there are some things you need to know...

1. This is a fictional story I wrote in English
2. It does not in any way relate to any experience of my own
3. I do not need to see a councelor cause I am not an emo

Scars by Hannah Dilger

I reach out my hand to the fish that is swimming slowly underneath my boat. My fingers make ripples in the smooth surface of the lake; my presence disturbing the water like it disturbs everything else. The fish flees as my hand approaches it, running away from me like everything else does. So I’m saving them all the bother and running away myself.

I look up at the warm autumn sun. It’s running away from me too. Running to the hills in the west where it gets to spend the night away from me. I feel sorry for the sun; it has to glare at me all day, everyday. Even I don’t like looking at me; even my Mum doesn’t like looking at me.

The wind comes as the sun touches the distant hills, making the sky shine pink-ish red. That’s the colour people go when I catch them staring at me. It’s a colour that means ‘I got caught doing something I shouldn’t have been doing but was doing anyway’. But they always do it again. Just like tomorrow night the sun will make the sky blush pink again as it turns away from me once more.

The wind gets stronger, carrying me away from the world that hates me. It blows my chocolate brown hair over my face; helping me in my quest to hide my abnormality. The wind is my friend. It is helping me now like it has helped me so many times before. I remember how it helped me all those years ago on my first day of Kindy. It was with me when Mum dropped me off. Everyone else’s parents walked them in. The wind walked me in. It blew a kiss at me and ruffled my hair as I entered the classroom. Then the teacher shut the door; blocking out the wind and leaving me alone with the stares and comments of other kids and their parents, comments they didn’t expect me to hear.

Grown-ups don’t like the wind. They are always blocking it out and saying how annoying it is in their gardens; making a mess of the tidiness they prize so dearly. The wind likes ugly things. It blows the leaves of trees, leaving them an ugly mass of bare branches. It spreads rubbish down tidy streets making them disgusting and gross. Yes, the wind definitely likes ugly things. That’s why the wind likes me.

Some days the wind isn’t there. On those days I’m all by myself; an ugly duckling in a world of swans. I think that the wind must have lots of ugly friends and that’s why it never stays too long with any of us. We have to share.

All through primary school teachers were telling us about that - sharing.
‘Jonathon! Share that truck with Ben.’
‘Hannah, if you’re going to bring your Barbies with you then your going to have to share them with Krista.’
But they never told anyone to share with me. I haven’t once heard them say to anyone, ‘share with Lacy’. I just had to sit in my corner hiding away from people who wish I wasn’t there. Who wish they would never have to look at my dishevelled face again.

The wind is getting stronger. It is tossing my boat around on the rough surface of the lake, tossing me like the piece of filth I must look like. Up and down, up and down. It’s making me sick. I want to get out, but I’m better of out here with my friend, the wind, than I am back there where I’m just a nuisance, a waste of space.

I am rocking uncontrollably on the rough water. The wind is too strong for the little wooden boat to resist. It flips, and in an instant I am thrashing around in the freezing water of the lake. I need to go up to breath, but I don’t know which way is up. Even if I did, I don’t know how to get there. No one would ever bother to teach someone with a face like mine to swim. My lungs are fighting my mouth. My mouth is closed and my lungs want it to open. I do as they say. Water flows freely through my body as I try to scream. I feel myself go limp as my consciousness drifts away.

I wonder if people with scars like mine are allowed into heaven.