Teacup

Screaming pain, itching wails, spine-grinding shrieks. 

And from that there was silence. 

I vowed to never speak, and my brain took this much too literally. 

They’ve created a name for it, this thing that I have.  Conversion disorder.  I hate the word.  Disorder.  A mess, a problem, a cluttered cabinet.  It makes me sound sick, ill, and unconventionally stupid. 

I can’t speak. Not even if I tried. Not even if I wanted to.  But why would I ever want to anyway. 

It’s been two weeks since- the accident.  Hospitalized for every minute gone by.  I’ve traced over every inch of this room with my eyes.  Every inch of this empty room, with my empty eyes. 

I haven’t felt anything in a long time.  No one realizes this, of course.  How could they, if I can’t tell them. 

These walls nauseate me.  Who decided that grey would be a good colour to paint a room?  Though, I can’t look at the ceiling either.  When I stare at it mindlessly enough, long enough, I can feel it start to spin.  Enclosed in this twirling teacup, but I can’t seem to ever get off. 

My only safe place lies beneath my eye lids.  Everything is dark.  Everything is still.  Not an ugly grey or bit of polished china in sight. 

This is when I’m interrupted. 

“Hello Harper, I hope you got some rest,” 

Her voice was not irritating, nor shrill, it was even quite nice, but it annoyed the life out of me.  She came here every day, multiple times a day, to check on my vitals and see if maybe, just maybe, I’ve decided to start talking. 

“Today’s the day,” she said much to cheerfully. 

“Are you excited?” 

I did not dare open my eyes, at risk of gaging.  But I could feel her smile fade.  Waves of sadness rippling from her like a drop of rain in a small pond.  Echoing, repeatedly, reaching me, then fading into pure nothing. 

“I’ll come back when it’s time to leave,” 

And she did.  So did my therapist.  So did my doctor.  Each giving me a positive message.  Yes, because that will surely cure me. 

My brother, Damian, did not come up to my room to take me away. Instead, he sat in the car by himself and opened my door from inside. 

“Aren’t you a ball of joy,” he’d say. But now, nothing. He knows better than to tease me, because I, like he, am still in pain. He still can’t sleep. He still can’t eat. He still can’t breathe without feeling guilty. 

Because in a way, he is. 

We don’t go home.  We can’t.  So we end up parking the car in our grandfather’s driveway, next to his old Porsche, in front of his old two-bedroom home, where the old porch light has yet to ever shine. 

“Hello Harper, Damian,” he greets us at the door. 

“Come on inside, it’s freezing out there,” 

The walls are warm, the pillows are fluffed and there’s milk boiling on the stove. I’ve never felt a stranger to this comfort given off by the structure around me. 

Such a kind man, my grandfather. Never once has he been rude, crass, or an ounce of mean.  The kindness in a single tooth from his smile, might cure the world. 

“Some hot chocolate to warm those chilly toes of yours,” He would usually offer tea. But he knows not to this time, yet he does serve us with teacups. 

A dark teal, almost evergreen. Polished so cleanly. Each cup lined with gold, with its matching plate, and a small gold spoon. 

“It’s real you know, the gold that is,” he’d tell me as a young girl. 

“A pirate found it on one of his voyages, and forged it into this cup, in hopes it might grant him magical ability,” 

“What happened,” I had asked. 

“He never got to drink from it, so no one really knows,” 

I admired this cup. Its simplicity, its given tale. Each sip I took, I’d close my eyes, let my pink lips brush the magic gold, and wish with every bit of what I had, that I might be blessed by its touch. In a way, I was.  Blessed, or cursed rather, with life.  So this time, I dare not wish, nor close my eyes, and tried my best to pour the sweet liquid chocolate down my throat, without my skin coming close to the ring of gold. 

I can’t express in words how good it felt to have the creamy drink trail down my throat. Then again, I can’t express anything in words, only thoughts.  I thought to thank my grandfather, I thought to remind my brother to take his feet off the coffee table, I thought to tell him to drink up before his hot chocolate got cold. Thought, thought, thought. 

A week’s gone by and they’ve decided I must go to school. Who is ‘they’ exactly? ‘They’ is my doctor, therapist, and apparently my brother. I think he’s gotten sick of looking at me all day. Regardless, I can’t participate in school. I can do the work, which I won’t do. I can write tests, which I won’t write. I can cooperate, which I won’t even try. But I cannot say anything. They’re putting me in a place, where one’s right to speak is their only weapon.  Like throwing me in a lion’s den, with no clothes, no weapon, to be eaten alive. 

‘They’ say it’ll be good for me. It’ll help me move past the traumas I’ve experienced. It’ll possibly help me speak again. 

The thing they fail to realize is that, I. Don’t. Care. 

Why would anyone hold onto materialistic things in life like speech or school when you could die today. Foolish. Pitiful. Useless. Life. 

I see my old friends as we pull up to the building. I say old friends because they too are simply materialistic, and we will all die one day, and our “forever friendship” will not do a damn thing to change that. 

I would scream and throw a fit right now if I could. But I just sit, as my brother pierces me with his eyes. 

“Get out Harper,” he says and reaches across me to open my door. 

“You’re going to need to face life eventually, so just go and get it over with,” 

“I no longer believe there is a thing such as life,” I’d say. 

“We are just in this fake reality of false hopes, counting days to death,” I’d tell him. 

“And when he comes, I shall greet him with open arms,” I’d insist. 

“Why on earth would I go and do something that won’t matter, when I’ll be dead soon enough?” I’d ask. 

I’d scream. I’d fight him on it. I'd yell at him. He’d give up and sigh and drive me away from this place. But no. 

I get out, and he drives away without me, right as I manage to close the door. 

I feel like a kicked puppy. Everyone looks at me like I’m so fragile, but really, broken glass cuts as deep as a knife. 

I try to ignore the staring for a bit. Then I don’t give a crap so I just stare right back. 

For hours I stay, hidden from anyone who might try to talk to me. The day ends, I go home and do the same the next day, and the next, and the next. 

“I don’t know why they sent you back there,” my grandfather tells me. At least he understands. 

I lie with him and fall asleep, only to wake up and go back to that lion’s den. 

No one has talked to me yet. I’m relieved. But nothing lasts forever. 

I avoid anyone I’m close with until they finally find me. 

“Harper,” they shouted, like I was deaf. 

“It’s so great to see you again,” Do they really think I can’t hear them? They’re mouthing everything they say so I might read their lips. 

I was once one of these daft-minded girls. I longed for Taylor’s long blonde locks and craved Emily’s deep blue eyes.  They both look the exact same. I wonder how I must look in their eyes. How much I’ve changed. 

“I’m not deaf,” I’d say. 

“We were so worried about you,” they continued to yell. 

“You are both wasting your mere existence worrying about me,” I’d tell them. 

“Maybe stop obsessing over your looks, and just hope you don’t have to count to many days for death to knock at your doors,” I’d insist. 

I just stared at them, and before they could ask or say anything else, I flipped them both off, and walked right past them. 

Pointless. 

I left the school and walked away. I did not know where I was going. I hoped I might be the first the find nowhere, and I'd stay there, forever. I wish I might’ve somehow told my grandfather where I was going, but not even I knew that. 

I just kept going. Until I remembered exactly where I was. Exactly. 

My eyes opened wide in order to see it all. All that was left of my once home. Now ash. 

I stepped through the rubble. The fire hurt so badly against my skin. My parents screamed. That ridiculous tea.  That stupid stove, engulfed in flames. My idiot brother, with his idiot friend. 

It’s all here. It’s all coming back to me. 

Screaming pain, itching wails, spine-grinding shrieks. 

And from that there was silence. 

I was here, living it over again. Screaming again. Dying again. 

Because in life’s lack of life, there is nothing. I may scream once more. I am screaming once more. But they’ll never know. Because I will never tell them, that in all this nothing of the world, I can speak again, because it won’t matter, once death comes to my door, and I shall offer him a cup of tea, on a plate, with a gold spoon, and a matching dark teal teacup, with a rim of solid gold.