Me Myself & I

ME MYSELF & I

  This is dedicated to

  Mrs. Trish for teaching me about my love for writing

  My mom for listening to me rant and rave about writing and English for days and for pushing me (relentlessly) to publish.

  My dad for being knowledgeable about computers and teaching me to SAVE IT EVERYWHERE

  All the people that ever told me this dream was a waste of time. You gave me the drive to prove you wrong. Thanks.

  THANKS TO

  All of the above mentioned along with my other family members who love me unconditionally and support me on all of my crazy endeavors. All of my friends but particularly Cassidy, who is always encouraging me and even playing editor, Cali and Hannah who are my sisters and best friends ever. You guys are always there for me, thank you and I love you.

  ME MYSELF & I

  My eyes stung as soon as I opened them. A light wind blew salt air into my face and pushed my hair from my shoulders. An ominous violin song floated over the landscape from nowhere the eye could see.

  I faced a sheer cliff atop it stood a bent, crooked, and dead looking tree. Its limbs stretched to graze the perfectly round moon as if the tree its self were holding it in the sky.

  In front of me there were two girls, both of them stared at the hauntingly beautiful seen as I was doing. They both began to walk forward. The older, taller girl, walked fast with her arms crossed over her chest while the younger jogged to keep up.

  Suddenly I became aware of not only their presence but their feelings and they were polar opposites. The youngest girl radiated joy and determination. She wanted to be the best at everything. It seemed to me the only thing that could upset her was the older girl beating her up to the tree. The older girl was nothing more than an arrogant, angry child slowly dying inside the shell she called a body. I had the feeling that every smile she put on for a long time was a lie, just like almost everything else about her.

  I felt sorry for the younger child because I knew eventually she would lose her childish view and trust in the world the same way the childish roundness would leave her face. I envied her because of her view on the world. Everything to her was black or white, good or bad. The older girl I felt pity for. She wasn't even alive. Constant depression, sadness and anger isn't living; it is barley existing.

  "Azrella!" I screamed in hope of my friend appearing. Azrella exists only in my dreams but she is the friend I need most sometimes. She didn't appear, the universal sign for "figure it out on your own."

  Seeing the girls get further and further away gave me the need to chase after them. A twisted, uneven, and decaying cobble stone path stretched out in front of me. I took it watching the tree slowly but surely grow in size and begin to eclipse the moon. The closer I got to the edge of the cliff the stronger the smell of salt became. I could hear the giggle of a small child, huff of an older, and the lapping of the waves on the shore over the eerie song.

  My legs burned and ached as I lost sight of the girls. When the giggle was replaced by a wicked laugh fear sat in my stomach like a rock. I didn't know what I was running from but I needed to reach the top of the hill. As my legs carried me up the steep face of the cliff I found myself realizing that I wasn't running from terror. I was running towards it.

  The base of the tree was in clear sight as I reached the top of the hill but my trip there would be prolonged. It was then that I tripped over a lose cobble stone. My face was mere inches from a giant stone, the last on the path. It depicted one simple word, "ON." I looked over my shoulder to see many other letters and numbers carved haphazardly into the stones. A blood curdling high pitched scream got cut short by the twang of a recoiling rope. The same wicked laughter made my head snap up and body pull itself from the floor.

  I followed the laugh and found the small child I envied swinging from the rope around her neck in the light breeze. The older girl stood on her perch among the branches and held her stomach laughing. Anger and sadness mixed together in my stomach and tied it in a knot. Rage boiled my blood at the murder of this little girl.

  As if all the stars and moon had been swallowed by the night the world was engulfed in total blackness. A hand, so pail it was glowing, reached out for me but suddenly made a move towards the little girl. In an act of idiot heroism I moved to block the hand from the little girl and it recoiled. I looked into the blackness where a face should have been and knew I was looking into the face of death. I knew this but was not afraid. We were already acquainted. The pale hand of death collided with my chest and shoved me into a pile of decaying leaves and broken twigs.

  I couldn't decide if I was burning or freezing. Either way it was all I could do to curl into a fetal position and pray for the seemingly endless pain to subside. All the while the little girl swung from her rope like a pendulum, never losing momentum, to the haunting song coming from nowhere.

  In an elaborate gesture Death waved a cloaked arm over the little girl. Then she was gone, engulfed by the night. The painful numbness left my body but still I cried and screamed. I wasn't sure if I was crying for the little girl or for myself. Before I could stand another gust of wind blew my hair into my face and Death had vanished into the blackness with the remains of the little girl.

  The older girl jumped from her tree. I prayed it was to her death but she landed just fine in front of me. Our eyes connected. There was no sorrow in hers but I am sure there was in mine. I watched the girl age, she grew lean and tall. Even her face slimmed out, but her eyes were the most captivating. I watched them sink with depression and redden with tears. For a moment they shone with determination but it was quickly extinguished and replaced with pain. Her eyes began to flutter closed as her skin became pale like newly fallen snow. Soon enough the older girl collapsed in a heap on the ground. Her fingers were died red with the blood running from her wrists.

  I looked around in a desperate hope of finding Azrella but she was nowhere to be seen. I noticed that the music had stopped and only the gentle lapping of waves on the sea shore far below me disrupted the quiet. More blood trickled from the older girl. I had never been sick before at the sight of blood. And I wasn't then, I was sick at the sight of death. With my head between my knees and hoped that some kind of explanation would become clear.

  "Please don't cry," said a soft, unsure child's voice accompanied by a hand on my shoulder.

  I looked up to meet the milk chocolate orbs on perfectly white eyes of the little girl. Her eyes bore in to mine and mirrored their sadness.

  "No, don't be sad." I said taking her tiny, chubby hands in my larger ones.

  The little girl threw her short arms around my neck and gave me a shockingly powerful hug. As my neck was released from her death grip of loving compassion the little girl kissed my tear stand cheek with an over exaggerated "mmaaww" sound.

  I found myself looking into her soft loving eyes. There, in her eyes, I saw a reflection I didn't recognize at first. Here, in my dreams, my appearance changes at my will, but that didn't matter. This girl saw me exactly as I was. She saw me free of makeup, piercings, and hair die. That is when I realized that her face was my face, just with a childish roundness I had lost over the years.

  The little girl had blinked and replaced my natural reflection with the one I am more accustomed to seeing. She poked the ear rings dangling by my neck and stared at my lip ring quizzically. I watched a question slowly form on her lips but a rustling interrupted her. The little version of me turned to face the bloody girl who sat up and stopped bleeding. With the exception of her wrists all of her skin was white like a fresh sheet of copy paper. For the first time I recognize her face.

  "Those who love us never really leave us." The little girl said looking me in the eyes again.

 
All around us brightly glowing white figures appeared putting the stars to shame. I saw my grandparents and even animals from my childhood. There were also people I could only somewhat recognize from pictures. I looked across their smiling faces as they vanished all too soon, leaving only the two other girls and myself. The older girl was still smiling shyly at me.

  "She is proud of you, you know?" The little girl said into my ear.

  I rose to my feet and picked up the smallest girl balancing her on my hip. She didn't fight me or struggle as we walked toward the other girl. When we were standing face to face I recognized her. I recognized her because she had my ears, my lopsided smile, but more than anything I knew her eyes. Her eyes were still sad, disappointed, and ashamed. She was embarrassed by what she did. I knew that feeling. My eyes showed the same expression for so long. This girl was me, just a younger version of who I am today. The girl looked me up and down, slowly dragging her eyes up and down my body like an elevator. I was doing the same to her. She smiled when she reached my face for the third time.

  "I am sorry,” she said earnestly, "for everything I put us threw."

  "It is ok," honestly, it was. The scars had faded and that part of my life was over.

  Our three way hug was only awkward because we were all different heights and sizes. Another gust of cold wind blew off the sea, flipped our hair, and cast the world into darkness. We all stood hand and hand. The youngest girl held my left hand while the older held my right. There we all stood, facing death.

  The youngest squeezed my hand not out of fear but as her way of telling me good bye. I squatted down and kissed her forehead. She smiled and walked towards death.

  The older version tried to hide behind me. Silently I hug her trying to say that everything would be ok. When she let me go I pushed her hair behind her ear and saw how much fear there was in her eyes. Pride swelled in my chest because despite that fear she slowly walked forward. All at once the moon shone bright again and the girls vanished alongside death.

  No music played it was only the gentle lapping of waves against the sea shore that accompanied my thoughts. In my mind as well as my heart I knew that those parts of my life were dead and gone. I was no longer a naive, blissfully ignorant child but I wasn't a depressed and angry pre-teen either. Those parts of my life were over, gone, and never going to return. Yet those girls are a part of me and affect me differently every day. As for Death, I am not scared of him anymore. He still hurts me when we touch but maybe when the day comes, he'll embrace me as a friend.

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  My name is Shannon Garrety and I am fifteen years old. I live in Louisianan with my mom, dad, and brother. Later in life I would like to attend the University of New Orleans or Louisiana State University and major in English but for now I am in high school. I am on my school swim team and my school Cross Country team. In between I write, read, paint, draw, and take pictures. It would be a dream come true to live in New Orleans and write books. I believe that the only thing that will stop me from accomplishing that is New Orleans eroding into the Gulf of Mexico. “Courage is all it takes to live your dreams while you’re awake” ~ Blood on the Dance Floor.

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