Havoc

Hello there.

Are you new?

I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before but then I don’t always recognise those like you here, there’s so many. There’s so many that I can count them on one hand but then next thing I know I’ve reach the thousands and I realise that I’ve double counted someone and another has changed their shape to make them seem new and I get frustrated and confused and I stop.

I choose not to count them anymore.

Don’t want to get lost in the numbers.

Then there are the ones without a face or a body and they’re just a voice. A voice in the wind, the walls, in the cracks. The cracks in the walls, the cracks in my mind, the cracks in my body, in my screams, in my soul. Cracks that are all around me, threatening to crumble down on top of me and crush what’s left of me.

I would watch out for those if I were you. Nothing good ever came from the cracks. Dark things lie in those cracks.

I should know, I was born in those cracks.

But perhaps you already know this.

Perhaps you’ve also come from those very cracks and are here to torment me.

Perhaps you’re just like the others and came from nothing and maybe I’ve already met you before but you’ve made yourself seem like new.

Not that it matters. We all become new eventually.

Most think we’re only new when we’re first born but that’s not true.

That is when we’re brand new, and we’re never like that again.

Then we learn how to talk and walk and once again we are new.

On the first day of school.

We are new.

The first time you make a friend.

We are new.

The first time your mother grabs your stomach and tells you that you need to lose weight. Don’t you want to be skinny and healthy and be able to wear pretty thinks?

We are new.

The first time someone make a lewd comment and you realise you’re not a person but an object.

New.

The first time your friendships break down and you’re left picking up the pieces of your heart and self-esteem.

All new.

The first time you fall in love.

New, new, new.

The first time that love crumbles and shatters and you learn love doesn’t exist.

New again.

The first time you die or the second or fifth or tenth time.

Shiny and new, except for the cracks. Watch out for those.

We don’t always remember becoming new, even though we remember the moments like they’re carved into our skin. I didn’t. I clung on to the person I was, not embracing the new me that was being born with every second, every new experience, every action and reaction, equal or opposite.

It was one of these moments. One of these reactions that led me here. Lying in a hospital bed, once again. Only this time I’m awake, more awake than I’ve ever been and this time I’m not filled with tubs to keep me breathing and fed and hydrated. This time the doctors and nurses have no need to zap my heart several times to make it work again.

Silly little machine, my heart. It doesn’t realise that if it stops then I stop too. Not that that would be an entirely bad thing.

This time, I am silent. This time, I am still.

You can join me if you’d like? I don’t mind the extra company.

There’s not much to do here anyways. It’s good to have friends and good company. Keeps the darkness of the cracks at bay.

All I do is stare up at the ceiling, watching the cracks spread like a virus in a body with a bad immune system. The patterns remind me of a spider’s web and I am the fly trapped in its pattern just waiting to be eaten. Waiting to be crushed.

The cracks aren’t real of course. I don’t always know that, I have to remind myself a lot but they’re not real. Or maybe they are and I’m just living in denial, waiting to be crushed.

Please be careful and mind the cracks. It would be a shame if you fell through or worse, get crushed with me. It would be such a waste. Such a mess.

This is what concerns the doctors and nurses now.

The fact that I’m silent and still. The fact that I haven’t spoken to anyone since I’ve arrived.

I think it’s been a few days now. Maybe weeks, or months, or years. But not actually, just feels like that when you do nothing but eat and stare at the ceiling.

At least she’s eating.

I heard them talking, the medical staff I mean. Maybe you heard them too, they think I’m insane.

They’re not wrong.

They’re talking about getting someone to assess me, poke around my thoughts like you and the others do but different and get me sent into the basement where the acute unit is.

Quite an odd place for a mental health unit, don’t you think? It’s like they’re hiding us, burying us like a mistake they don’t want reaching the surface.

They want to know why I’m not talking or why I do nothing but stare at the walls or why I keep humming the same tune over and over again like a broken record or a ghost child in a horror movie. I don’t blame them, the cracks and the song bothers me too.

The song. Here comes the song again.

London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London bridge is falling down my fair lady.

It’s a children’s song. A horror song. A death song. A song that has possessed my mind and soul but I don’t know if a priest or exorcist can fix this. I hate this song.

I don’t know why I’m not talking. I suppose I just don’t want to. I spent so long screaming and hearing others scream that I am simply enjoying the peace and quiet. Or maybe I can’t talk, I honestly haven’t tried. It doesn’t matter. I have a lot to reflect on.

The day it all started on campus.

The first few times I died in hospital.

The time afterwards I pretended that I wasn’t new in the most newest way possible.

The day the soldiers came.

The Doctor and his London Bridge.

The incident.

The others.

I will take you through everything, I promise. Even all the things you already know. Perhaps you can help me put everything into perspective, or maybe I’ll drive myself mad trying to piece broken pieces together in an attempt to recreate order. I’m not sure. It’s impossible to know.

I need a walk. Would you like to come with me?

I know this lovely spot with a great view. I’ve been in this hospital before, you see. It hasn’t changed much. I even recognise some of the staff but they don’t recognise me.

Not that I blame them. I’ve become new a fair few more times since I last saw them. I barely recognise myself sometimes.

They must be very tired and overworked, I remember what that was like, they didn’t even notice me as I walked by. Just assumed I was a normal patient going for a walk.

We’re not going on any normal walk though. We’re going to play.

The railing of the balcony that looked over the hospital reception is cold under my palms. It’s soothing in the most shocking way. It’s quite odd for a balcony like this to be in a hospital. Not odd like the basement of mentally unwell mishaps but odd because I’ve never seen something similar in other hospitals. They’re usually all closed up and confining. There’s something freeing about having the balcony here. Makes me feel like I could fly.

I can’t though, I need to remind myself that. Or at least I don’t think that I can. I’ve never tried.

Finding the answer to this was not the reason I climbed up on to the balcony and stood on the cold metal railings. It certainly must’ve looked like that to others who were nearby and began to panic but they were assuming that I would just fall to the ground.

They didn’t realise that I was new. Newer than I had ever been in my whole life. Almost brand new but different.

Alarms went off as I walked along the railing, balancing perfectly, more perfect than I ever had before. I wasn’t afraid too. You probably already know this but the me before I was me now was quite an anxious thing. She would’ve only seen the drop to her death and not the possibility of leaning towards safety.

Or better yet, discovering that we can fly.

She wouldn’t have though. I wouldn’t have. Not then at least.

I walked back and forth humming my sweet, screeching, haunting song as people tried to coax me down.

They thought I was going to jump. They thought I wanted to hurt myself. I ignored them.

They didn’t dare to touch me, too afraid that they would accidentally make me lean towards the side that had the greater drop.

That would’ve been a lot of paperwork. I should know.

I was happy in my little bubble of London Bridges and thoughts of flying when one person made the rash and cruel decision to pop the bubble by saying one key word. A special word I thought got swallowed up by the cracks in the bad place, the place where I was born.

One word.

That was all it took.

And such a weak, pathetic word at that.

“Emma?” said the voice.

Not one of mine, a real one and my song screeched to a stop as my eyes shot in the direction of the speaker like a bullet from a gun.

A boy.

No, no not a boy. Not anymore. A man. A man that I knew. Used to know. No longer know. He’s new too, just like me only not like me. He’s new in the most natural way possible. I almost didn’t recognise him with how new but the same he looks.

I looked down at him with head tilted to one side and a smile on my face.

“Hello Jamie,” I spoke.

My first words out loud since I arrived. No hiding now. No more peace and quiet. All there will be is talking and questions and I’m already annoyed and exhausted at the thought of it.

But at least I have you. You’ll stay with me for this bit, won’t you?