Life in the Sorrows

Where does it all begin?

Does it start when the ink hits the page?

Does life get woven into motion the second the story is bound?

Does it begin when the flicker of a flame ignites?

The beginning…

Where does it all end?

Does it cease when the pen leaves the page?

Does death come for us the second the story book closes?

Does it end when the flame burns to ash?

The end…

-The Beginning and the End, Claudia (24.01.2026)

I close my bedroom door and collapse against it, sliding my body down its rough, broken exterior. I feel the splinters dig into my exposed skin. The carpet below me isn’t soft like it should be, but one big matted mess. I can practically see it delaminating right in front of my eyes. I guess years of rough treatment will do that I realise, as I catch the strongest scent of stale beer. The blemishes of one’s heart masked by the many empty bottles shows through in the yellow discolouration of my once fresh, cream carpet. The yellowing stains are scattered all over the floor. The browner ones give way to the remnants of over-intoxicated men as the night wears on; sometimes even midday.

At least I think it was once a fresh cream carpet. You never really know when you’ve spent most of your life moving, from one housing commission to the next. They always come broken, in some way shape or form. They come etched with thousands of stories, from one person to the next, in every stain, in every splintered door, graffitied wall. If these walls could talk I can only imagine the horrors they might share.

I press my ear against the door and catch the last noises of the front door crying on its hinges as it gets flung open. I feel the vibrations of the heavy footsteps before their sound waves hit my ears, as the man I once called my father comes stumbling through the threshold.

He’s drunk.

The echoes from each staggered step, are about as obvious as one’s murmuring of unintelligible words, and the stench a slab of beer renders on one’s breath.

I used to believe in fairytales.

You know in the perfect happily ever after. Deep down in my once little bones, I hoped that maybe some fairy godmother would pop up out of thin air, turn that pumpkin into a fineclass limousine and turn me into a beautiful girl everyone couldn’t help but love. That I would rock up to the most important event of my life and my glass slipper would be my escape to a life; perfect, clean, neat and everything I could have ever wished for. That someday, somebody would love me enough, care about me enough to search high and low just to match that glass shoe to my not so pretty feet. Or maybe one day some knight in shining armour would place a kiss on my perfectly frozen lips and bring me back to life. My eyes would flutter open and I would realise it was all just one big terrible nightmare, as I woke up into a heavenly reality.

See I believed in the letters: P E R F E C T.

1. Having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be.
2. Free from any flaw or defect in condition or quality; faultless.

Then I literally rolled out of bed one morning, peered into a shattered glass mirror hanging on the wall, and realised it wasn’t ever going to end. I saw a girl much like myself peering back at me. But this girl draped her long wavy brown hair across her face to hide the hollowing of her cheekbones and the fear instilled in her eyes. Dark circles painted the under circles of her fear and her skin palled.

This girl I didn’t know and that… that’s the moment I woke up to reality.

I realised life cannot ever be faultless; that it’s one big mess of flaws as they collide and tangle much like my carpet, growing further and further till one day they inevitably self-destruct. Left in its wake lies a little girl that once believed in fairytales now helpless; hopeless.

1. A feeling of despair
2. Given no reason to expect good or success.

People like me don’t just succeed. We fall victim to an endless cycle. I’ve given up in believing somebody will come extend their hand into the depths of my life and clasp my lifeless cold fingertips; pulling me out, through the doorway of my escape.

I am the only one who will ever truly have the power to pull me out of this darkness; to break the chains that have wound around and around, repeating over and over again: To survive.

How? That’s the question.

The answer: I do not truly know.

Fairy Tales are just for little kids and that’s something I haven’t been for a very long time now. I mean in theory I’m 16. In my heart I might as well be 26 or something.

In 16 years I progressed through childhood and digressed through my teens. In 16 years I have more stories to tell than most 40 year olds. In 16 years I’ve learnt to keep those stories closed up in the depths of my mind. In 16 years I’ve gained just as much responsibility as any 30 year old. Life isn’t quite as simple as just escaping as I once thought.

Life’s got me chained to this bloody splintered door.

“Claudia!” yells my father. “Why is the house such a fucking mess?”

I feel my body start to tremble.

“Aye… I know you can hear me… Answer me!” He’s no longer yelling but practically screeching at me, as it reverberates down the narrow hallway and through the gaping holes between my door and the floor beneath.

“Dia, what’s going on?” I hear Bea whisper in terror.

Bea is my younger sister, just four years old she is. Way too young to witness, or hear any of this. Blakely is her real name, but to me she has just always been my little Bea. My precious, innocent little Bea. I can see her body begin to shake underneath the blankets as she lays almost motionless on our bed.

I slowly make my way across the room, careful to be light on my feet and avoid the places where the floor creaks. I force my rigid body to soften as I kneel down and join her on our single mattress held up by a five star bed-frame, we call… the floor. Perks of a lower class family with a dole bludger parent right? I wrap my arms around her, drawing her closer, hoping that in some small insignificant way, this can make up for just a tinge of the terribly short straw she was dealt.

I brush her hair aside as I gently whisper into her ear. “Nothing Bea, you’re safe. Close your eyes and drift back into those beautiful dreams now. I love you”

“I am safe. I love you D” I hear her mumble as I watch her beautiful deep brown eyes close.

I curse Bea’s mum for leaving her like this. How can any mother up and leave, forgetting to take their precious child with them. How could she just walk away and not once come back to get her?

That was over a year ago now, I was walking home from school and I saw my dad’s car flying down the road, Bea’s mum at the wheel. Her face stone cold, not a lick of emotion of remorse washing over her. She made eye contact with me for a split second as she sped past, and as I watched her trail off into the distance.

That’s when I finally saw the way the seats were piled up with bags, belongings and I felt my feet take off, pelting the ground, like the Australian sun to a poor europeans fresh skin. I flew through the door to find my father passed out on the lounge floor, he must have started on the booze early that day.

‘Mum!’ I can still hear Bea’s screams as she stumbles up and down the hallway looking for her mum that evidently packed up her things and simply vanished, while her poor daughter innocently slept, not aware of how much her life was about to be tipped upside down. I can still feel her cold body as I pick her up, launching her onto my hip and her sniffling as she tries to explain to me what I already know; that she can’t find her mum. But what she didn’t know was that she probably would never find her again. Her puffy red tear stained face is practically still etched into my mind as I lay awake motionless staring at the ceiling.

I don’t blame her for leaving, I would do the same if I could. But I will always blame her for leaving behind a confused little girl, who had no idea that when her mum put her to sleep that afternoon, she would never see her again. How could any mother care that little about their own flesh and blood? I think.

“Claudia! This mess better be cleaned up by the morning or…” I hear my fathers voice trailing off.

That mess.

I am sorry that mess as he calls it, is actually just him and the remnants of the life he chooses to live. I mean that mess is just an endless number of beer bottles scattered all over the house and the staling drops as they make their way out of the bottle and onto the surfaces they are in contact with. It doesn’t matter how many I clean up, an innumerable amount will replace them tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that.

That mess is an endless supply of take-away containers as he wastes what little money we have feeding his face, and his stomach alone. That mess is a pile of dirty dishes he leaves all over the shop, despite me being the one that supplied the food on them in the first place. I mean how dare he? But nothing has changed, and nothing ever, probably will.

I hear the slump as he undoubtedly finds his way to the couch, and my body begins to relax. Once he finds his way to the couch, that is usually it for the night. In a matter of minutes the lights in his brain will switch off as the alcohol takes its final toll, leaving a sixteen year old daughter to find him still passed out on the couch in the morning.

Some days I fear he will drink too much one night, and instead of waking up to my father passed out on the couch, I will wake up to a lifeless dad. I used to fear this a lot I guess.

What if this is the last bottle he ever has?

What if this will be the one to claim him?

What if one day he never makes it home from the pub?

What if one day that bottle turns to some stronger drug?

What if, in his motionless passed out body, he chokes on his own vomit?

What if he drinks himself to death?

One day though, I just stopped worrying about these things. I don’t know when. I don’t even really know why. It just didn’t become so important anymore. Those what if’s turned to when’s and I just stopped worrying about something I can’t change.

Then my mind comes back to Bea’s little tear stained eyes as her world slipped from her clutches and shattered all over the floor. I’m not sure she will ever pick up all the pieces. I know I never could; in fact I never will.

She is stronger than me though. I pray she is stronger, much, much stronger. Although I don’t really believe in prayer, but for her sake I hope it’s all real.

She needs a saviour. She needs something to believe in; a fairytale.

I tighten my grip on her, fearing that at any moment the world may take her away from me, as well. If I just hold her a little tighter maybe, just maybe everything will be okay. She’s my saviour; my fairytale. She is all I have left and every reason I have to keep on going.

I can feel her ribs as they stick out from her flesh and through her shirt. I can wrap my hands around her waist and feel my fingertips brush each other. She is so thin; so frail and I make a mental note to myself to make sure she gets a bigger portion of the food.

I hear the gentle rush of air as her calm body breathes in, breathes, breathes in, holds for a minute second and then slowly but surely, breathes out. I can’t help but notice the way the light from the window shimmers across her face and I admire her clear tan skin.

I would like to say the light is from a numerous number of stars shining their beauty in, but I would be lying. Instead it’s just a plain street lamp, standing up tall and solid like a soldier as it marches to meet its allies that it will never reach, as they dot the neighbourhood, street by street, distance by distance. Solitude in the damp, night air.

I would like to say her skin is tan from countless hours in the sun. Instead, I have to say it’s just mere genetics. Genetics, she nor I will never truly know, now that her mum took off. Just all mere speculations and never true facts. Our father won’t have the slightest clue. He can probably barely remember her name, for all I know.

He hasn’t mentioned her name once since she took off. Just woke up early the next morning to bea shaking his arm as she cried out “Mummy” over and over again. I swooped in and scooped her up the second I got wind of it, my mind going crazy with how in the world I was supposed to raise a 3 year old girl.

He stumbled to his feet, gazed around at our now half empty house, as I watched reality settle into his eyes. Then he looked over to the kitchen bench and spied an empty spot where his keys used to sit, a string of swearing and unintelligible words uttering from his mouth, as he ran full ball into the front yard where he found another empty spot. The space where his old beat-up cruiser used to be parked.

Then he staggered into the house refusing to meet my gaze as he marched into my room, pulled up the old window, grabbed Bea’s crib and launched it out. I spent the next half an hour picking up all the pieces, and wondering if it was possible to put them all back together again.

Bea’s mum had spent hours figuring out how to put that flatpack together as my dad mocked and snickered at her about it. Thank God, Bea was growing out of it now. She already knew how to climb the framing and make her way over the edge onto the floor. I have no idea if that’s normal for a kid of that age, but I guess it is.

She should have had a proper bed by then. In fact, that was a common arguing point between my father and Bea’s mum but it never happened and I guess he decided she never needed one in the first place, that day.

I soon gave up, throwing each shattered piece into the red bin. By the time I came back inside he was already sitting on the couch, an open slab next to him on the floor, and a stubbie firmly placed in his hand. So I inevitably found myself sharing a single bed with my little sister.

What do you do when your world turns upside down? Again?

The answers I don’t have. I am not sure there is an answer. At least not some philosophical, all purposeful answer. There is no meaning or comfort in the short answer I do have. There is no real definitive answer at all really. You just simply get up and move on. You just keep on living through each and every shitty day. And one by one, life moves on and day by day, you learn how to deal with it all.

I wish there was some philosophical book with all the meanings to life; with all the answers to each and every heartache, that told you how to deal with it all. But that is just another terrible fairy tale that will never, ever come true. And as I said, I no longer believe in fairytales, which means, I can no longer believe in answers.

Nobody can ever tell me why I got dealt this life. Nobody can ever tell me why Bea drew this short straw. And certainly nobody can ever tell me why my dad can’t grow up and put that bottle down.

I stopped wanting to crave those answers, a long time ago. I stopped wanting to crave anything, at all. But that doesn’t mean, I don’t want that for Bea. That doesn’t mean, I want Bea to stop believing in those fairytales as well. She deserves them. In fact she deserves everything in this whole damn world, but that’s just another thing I can’t possibly ever give her. But another thing I would spend my whole life slaving away at, to grant her.

I hear the silence settle over the decrepit house and my eyes and my mind shift to the window. I watch as the clouds pass by, minute after minute as their little white trails, now dark grey fade in and fade out. The little twinkling stars that struggle to shed their light are being drowned out by the fog and oppression of light pollution. I wonder if they will ever truly be able to shine unmatched.