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My Prison
He looks in the mirror at his face. What ever happened? How did he find himself here, and like this? He grasps the porcelain sink, and feels the cold against his hands. It feels as cold as the tears that streak down his face.
Looking in the mirror he sees his big blue eyes staring back at him. They are sunk deep in his sockets, from fear, tears fall down his cheek. He takes the bloody rag out of the warm water, rings it, and wipes the blood from his face. Taking his hand and running it across his swollen cheek. The handprint is still there, beat red where he was hit across the face. The bruises that he is so use to are now starting to form, his eye is starting to turn black and his bleach blonde hair is matted red with blood.
"John, what have you gotten yourself into?" he asked himself. "I can't belive what just happened. Why would he do this? Why would he hurt me? Why?" He screams at himself as his eyes, normally the color of the blue ocean, turn a darker blue and produce more tears. John walks over and sits on the toilet next to the sink as pain shoots up his body. He pulls his legs up to his chest and holds himself. Crying to himself, feeling the worst feeling in the world, lonliness. He can barely see his surroundings through his tear soaked eyes. He can make out the ugly white tile on the walls with the brown mold covering it. He can see the shower across the way with the shitty green shower curtain, torn at the edges. He looks at the floor with the pink and gray roses that decorate the hard white tile. They once were a bright white, but over the years have turned yellow. He puts his bare feet on the floor which feels cold as ice. The floor is covered with blood. His blood, his sweat, and his tears. John pulls himself up and walks to the window, pulls the musty purple curtains back and looks outside. The sun is going down, and as it does the shadow of the bars creep across his face. He grabs onto the bars to pull himself up so he can see outside just a little more. The sun is setting, casting orange and pink across the sky. Just like a beautiful painting, he thinks to himself. There could be no such beauty in such a lifeless place. He looks back behind him; listening close to make sure that he didn't hear anyone at the door. His house once use to be bright and beautiful like that sky. Now, as he looks at it he can see how dark it has become. The corners no longer have light in them, only darkness. The once beautiful white tiles all over the house are slowly turning yellow. The furniture and curtains build dust and the smell of must, cobwebs have grown along the ceilings and corners. It all has gone to hell. His hell. He turns to look outside the window again at the beauty laid before him. The sounds of laughing children catch his attention. He looks across the street at two boys a little younger than him. Playing catch and running from each other. They are laughing, running, screaming and having fun. "Why can't I have a life like that? Why can't I live a normal perfect life?" The questions of why fill his head. That is all he ever asks himself any more. "Why?" He looks at the house across the street, and takes in the beauty that it holds. The hard wood sidings make it look like a cabin that sits distant in the forest. The perfectly shined windows with burgundy curtains to the sides. The slanted roof that leads to the chimneystack where a fire must be burning as smoke trails out of it. The heavy wood door to the house opens and the boys' father walks out onto the sturdy porch with the heavy wooden side railings that run across the whole front of the house. His footsteps echo loudly from the solid wood porch. He begins to yell at them to come inside for dinner. John smiles as the kids plead for just a little more time outside.* * * * * *
"Please dad just a little more time!" "No, John, your mother has worked hard to cook you a wonderful meal for your birthday." John looks up at his dad as he forms the puppy dog face that he knows his parents can't resist. "Please dad just until the sun sets?" "Well..." John's dad looks at that face. The face that he can't resist the one that he has watched from the very start. He slowly starts to sway and his pride for his son builds in his chest. He gives a slight smile to John. "Alright, I guess. You're fourteen now. You can make your own decisions as of now." John runs up to his dad and gives him a big hug. Grasping him tightly, he can feel the love from his father flow into his body. "I love you dad!" John says with a great big smile across his face. "I love you too, Johnny!" A big grin comes across his father's face. John looks up at him and smiles and gives a pretend stern look. "Dad! You know not to call me Johnny! That name is for babies!" His dad smiles back and messes up his hair. "I know, John. I forget at times that you're a big boy now."* * * * * *
John snaps himself back to reality. He wishes that he were those kids outside, like he imagined, pleading for his father to give him a little more time. He realizes, though, that he's stuck inside this ugly bathroom, his prison. He continues to look outside as the sun begins to set, watching the color leave the sky. The beauty that he just caught a glimpse of slowly begins to darken and turn black. John replays his own face in his mind. He remembers how his cheeks use to be rosy pink and how he had so much color in his face at one time. Like the sky, though, through the years the color slowly left his face and left a bony, sunken, pale skeleton behind. His deep blue eyes begin to fill with tears again as he falls to the floor in his own blood smeared across the once shining white tile floor. "It was my fault! I let it happen! I should have gone along with it, but I'm tired of it! It's my fourteenth birthday and it has been going on for two years! Two years that should have never happened!" He thought while his eyes begin to swell again with tears falling past the flood gates. John rubs the tears from his eyes as he looks at the prison surrounding him again. "I hate it! I hate you! I wish you would just die you bastard!" Pounding his fist on the floor and screaming. Smearing his blood everywhere. John collapses on the floor exhausted from his rant as his tears flow more, mixing with his blood. He grabs on to the floor as if holding on to it for life. It was his life he was wanting, his life to control, and his life to be sturdy. Instead it was like the cold floor smeared with his blood. His life was smeared, and not in his control. The blood was covering him all over. He begins to crawl across the floor until he reaches the bathroom door, twist the knob and fights with the door. Pulling on it with all the the strength left in him. It's locked though, and it won't move a bit. Locking him in his prison. In the musty smelling house with the worn furniture, torn up wall paper, moldy tiles, creaky stairs, and dark corners. John begins to pound on the door as tears fill up in his eyes causing him to bawl again. "Let me out please! I'll do whatever you want! I'm sorry, please let me out!" John collapses, giving up his fight. "There's no use. My cries aren't heard. They never will be heard. I'll be left alone all my life, left to suffer and cry. I've never cried so much before." He spits on the floor and notices that it's not spit, but blood. Crawling to the sink he runs more cold water in his mouth. It burns, but is refreshing at the same time. Looking around at all the blood smeared everywhere. He looks in the mirror, he doesn't look the same. Not like he did when his mother was alive. "I miss you mom. Why did you have to go away? Things aren't the same without you here. Dad..." John trails off as his voice lowers and he ducks his head looking at the sink. He mumbles just slightly out of hearing range, "I mean Daddy isn't the same any more. He's...he's gone mad, Mom." John wrings his rag and begins to clean up all of the blood off the floor. The blood doesn't pick up that well though. All it does is smear more across the floor. Staining the floor red. It seemed like forever before he had it all cleaned up. The rag was all red as well. He holds it in his hand; he lets a little laugh slip out of his mouth, "Use to be white." He laughs out loud to himself. Filling his little heart with a little bit of joy from the amusement, "Bastard." He throws the rag back into the sink that is filled with red water. He gets up off the floor and gets a towel out of the cabinet. This was his mother's towel. He looks at it hoping to see her in there somewhere. The white towel with purple and pink flowers embroidered on the edges. John runs his fingers across the neatly sown patterns. Taking in all of the bumps of the thread. Lifting it up to his nose he takes in a deep breathe. "I can almost smell you mom. Almost as if you were here to make everything okay again." The only thing in the house that didn't smell of must. This prefect white towel neatly folded and placed in the back of the cabinet. He never used her towel. He wanted to keep it like it was. Instead he neatly placed it back where it belonged and grabbed another towel. This towel was green with holes all over it. Barely a towel at all, it was justa a piece of cloth. It was all worn out from numerous uses. It smeld of must and it was hard, not as soft as his mother's. He slowly puts the towel on the rack next to the shower, hanging it such that it looked perfect. He leans in the shower and turns on the water, running his hands across the stream of water. Making sure he gets it to the right temperature. John steps back in front of the mirror, and slowly pulls his shirt off. It hurts to even pull his arms over his head to do this simple task. John looks at his bare chest in the mirror that he stands in front of. He slowly drags his boney fingers across his ribs. His fingers run up and over each bone in his ribs. The bruises on his chest from last week are beginning to turn yellow. They are finally going away. He runs his fingers around them, taking the shape of it in his mind. Their odd shapes bewilder him. John likes to look at the bruises on his body. They are a form of art anymore to him. Each time he gets a new bruise it seems to hurt more than the last one, and is always darker and a different shape than the one before. He runs his finger across the one on his stomach that he received last week, "Ah, shit!" He jumps back in shock to the pain the bruise brings to him. This bruise however wasn't as big as they usually are. This one was caused by him being beaten with a broom stick. He thinks back on the pain that he felt when it happened. John runs his fingers down to his pants and unbuttons them. They were jeans that he had got two years ago. He just realized that he had grown a lot over the past two years. His jeans had turned into high waters and had holes all over them. All his clothes were all worn out, and too small for him. His father refused to buy him any new clothes. He hasn't got new clothes since he was twelve. John pulls his pants down and lifts his sore legs slowly out of each pant leg. He lays both his shirt and pants across the toilet lid and takes his underwear off. Standing there naked, John looks at himself. Bruises, cuts and dry blood cover his body everywhere. "I believe this is the worst beating I have ever received." John pulls his beaten body into the shower, and begins to rub the hot water over his body. The feeling of cleanliness comes over him as everything begins to wash away. He runs the water through his hair as the matted blood begins to wash out. Looking down he can see the red water running down his body. He could feel the heavy plastared blood leaving his hair. He still couldn't believe that this was happening to him. John washes the water over his naked body making sure he has washed every part of his body. Making sure everything was clean. John begans to scrub his body with the rag. The hot water washing all of his blood away. He began to scrub at his body frantically. As he scrubbed, his body more frantically his skin began to turn redder. Tears fill his eyes as he began to take his anger out on his own flesh. "I'll never be clean! Never! These germs won't go away!" He continued to scrub and scrub and scrub until he fell in the bathtub of exhaustion. Bawling he curled himself up in a little ball. he began to rock back and forth as his insecurities began to take over him. "Get over this John. You can't act like this the whole fucking time!" He continued to sit there, the water from the shower hitting his body. The water was running over him, covering him, washing everything away.* * * * * *
"Why?" "Why what, honey?" "Why do you want to take the bath from me?" "Well dear, because it takes me longer to get ready." "But Mom, I just got the water running the right temperature." John is sitting on the edge of the bath tub filling it with hot water for his bath. His mother stands at the door looking at him with her hands on her hips. "Johnny please it takes me forever to get ready" "You know, Mom, you're the only one that I allow to call me Johnny!" "I know. It's because you love me the most" "I do love you the most" "Good. Then you'll let me have the bath!" "No I won't" John begins to laugh. His mother walks into the bathroom slowly giving him that glare. "Oh, yes you will!" She laughs and pushes him in the tub with his clothes still on. She jumps in with him and they both began to wrestle. Splashing water at one another and laughing.* * * * * *
John gets up and turns off the water thinking of that day. He missed his mother and wanted her back. He reaches out of the shower and grabs the towel hanging on the rack. He dries himself in the tub and wraps the towel around his waste. "I wonder why I haven't heard a peep from Dad?" Johhny wonders to himself. Looking down he pulls the curtain back so he can get out. He looks up in time to feel a hard smack across his face. The only thing that he remembered was the powering blow to the side of his face knocking him back in the bathtub as his head hit the faucet and everything went black. Chapter Forum