Chasing Rubies

I could see myself again, the other version. The fake one. It was standing over my bed staring at me, it's eyes filled with worry. I watched as it turned it's head and crept towards the corridor. I followed it. It was turned away from me blocking the front door. I could tell by the way their shoulders were moving they were crying. They were always smiling, never crying. Why were they crying now? I crept closer to them but they opened the front door to run away. 

-----

I ran after them but I found that the door didn't lead to my own street. I was at my own 12th birthday party. I watched myself sitting at the head of the table, like an outsider to my own film.

It was the last birthday with all of my family together. Together, but falling apart. I could hear mum and dad arguing in the kitchen while I was supposed to be blowing out my candles. I watched myself, her, at the dining table waiting, her friends surrounding her in an awkward silence.

Eventually, the arguing stopped and they came out of the kitchen holding the cake with plastered smiles. Everyone started singing happy birthday with extra cheer as if their song could stop her from crying. It didn’t. I knew the wish she was making over and over in her head. A wish that was so painful in it’s impossibility. I just want us to be together. I just want to feel together. Togetherness was her wish but she felt so distant from it that it hurt. 

I remembered that’s when “it” had appeared to me for the first time. In the window, beyond the happy birthday singing and the fake smiling faces, I had seen a figure running from the house. I watched, her eyes widened, as she watched it stop and turn to face her just beyond her garden. It was herself.

Her parents were asking her to make a wish but she couldn't hear them. She was watching it standing outside of the window, behind the unruly hedge. The other Ruby was smiling too broadly and waving politely. Everyone had gone silent, worried by her anxious stare and pallid face. Ruby are you okay? Aren’t you going to blow out your candles?

I watched the colour drain out of her face. But I was not as shocked this time, this had happened before. I started to run outside. I listened as I heard her, my younger self, shove the table away in the distance, her chair crashing to the ground. She'll be too late. I ran ahead of her through the house to the front door. But it didn't lead to my old garden. 

-----

I was in the forest just outside of town. I looked to myself. 16, a typical teenage rebel. I thought it was cool at the time to hang out with guys in their early 20s who drove dangerously and bought me booze. They were illegally raving in a forest just outside of town. It wasn’t the first time I'd drank but it was the first time I'd drank so heavily—too heavily. It was the first time I'd taken drugs that weren’t green. Kier had been filling me with all kinds of narcs all night. I'd known that he was after me—he had been for months but I wasn’t really interested. I looked to him and remembered why—he was, inside and out, disgusting.

There were several other guys there and one other girl Tina. We'd hated each other. Tina was on the guys side, she was more one of them than me and we both knew it. I'd always be the subject of crude and cruel jokes, never Tina.

I could see I was so drunk I could barely stand. I felt cold, disconnected, I didn't want to go over this again. I watched as Kier tried to take her on the cold forest ground. I watched as she started screaming, she'd noticed Tina recording her on a phone in the darkness. I turned to the forest as she suddenly went silent.

I remember I was thinking of the babbling brook. You laugh like a babbling brook her dad used to always tell her.

There was a light giggle echoing through the forest. She shoved Kier off herself and crawled to her knees to chase it. But, it was already skipping away, becoming a ghostly figure in the distance fading amongst the trees. I ran after it, the sound of myself throwing up fading into the distance. That was the second time I’d seen it. I ran through the forest chasing my own shadow into a thick darkness. I came to a wall of black, passed through it like a portal.

-----

I was back at my flat. It was earlier that day. I'd turned 21, alone. I could see myself curled up in my bed, someone was banging at the door but she wasn’t moving. I'd been hiding away in my flat for nearly two weeks. My mum still kept trying to talk to me but I was ignoring everyone.

My mind was filled with too many thoughts. The outside had become too loud, too dangerous. Often I'd feel like everyone was whispering about me. She looks like a junkie. I think she needs help. She’s not okay. My eyes would twitch awkwardly when I went up to the till to pay. Then I'd feel like my face was burning up with shame. It was an awful cycle of embarrassment that I was trying to solve by escaping from reality. By being alone.

I told myself that day was the last day I'd be taking any drugs. I’d promised myself to stop after my 21st birthday.

I looked at the poisons which lined the side of her mattress ready to be taken. She stirred as the door went quiet, she sprung up ready to finish with a bang and take everything she had left. Shrooms, speed, weed—all of it. I watched her take it all in fast-motion.

Soon she was in a drug-fuelled haze, completely gone. I watched as she lay down crying. As she fell asleep, as she started choking on her own vomit. I went over to try to shake her but my hands passed through. Where am I? What's going on? I was so confused. Her eyes had opened slightly but I could tell she wasn't really there.

I thought it was laughing again when I first heard something outside her bedroom but it didn't sound like a babbling brook—it sounded too jarring, too intense. My laughter sounds similar to the way I cry but much louder, like painful hiccups. I was sure I could hear myself crying.

I crept outside my bedroom and looked down the corridor. "It" was there with its back turned to me. I could tell by the way their shoulders were moving they were crying. Whenever I'd seen them they were always smiling, laughing, skipping—never crying. Why were they crying now? I moved towards them down the corridor. Then I realised I’d been here already. Why weren’t they running away this time?

They turned towards me and screamed in my face. We’re going. We’re going. There’s nothing to chase anymore. There’s nowhere to run. Vomit poured out of its mouth in thick waves. I could feel my throat being filled with hot bile, like I was suffocating. Dying. I could hear the sounds of choking getting weaker in the bedroom behind.

I ran back to watch myself, to try to climb back in but the bed kept jumping away from me, escaping into the distance as if I was on a treadmill. What do I do? I screamed at it. It gargled as it spoke through a continual wave of vomit. The bed became a small object in the distance, a dollhouse bed. Stop chasing. Open your eyes. 

For a moment, I wondered whether that's what I really wanted.

-----

Open my eyes.

My eyes are closed as I think back to that time. I open my eyes. I'm looking in the mirror and seeing myself—just myself. I’m 30 years old today. It’s been years since I chose to open my eyes. Since my wake-up call. I really did stop everything after that birthday. Well...I did gradually with a lot of help. So far I’ve never seen the other Ruby again. I hope I never will. I've come to realise 'it’ was just the version of myself, the part of myself, that I felt was running away from me. The version I felt was worth chasing. I see ‘it’ in the mirror everyday. They smile more now. A real smile. It is me.