Red Freedom, Blue Kingdom by Tonya Allen

Red rose petals fell from the sky, covering the scene in splashes of ruby wine.  Everything touched became soaked.  Stained.  Recognition of original and purest colors became biased to what sight could behold.

Reaching out to feel what she already knew, to touch what she feared would be true.  Nerves under fingertips jolted to life at the sensation to her fractured mind.  Warm and wet.  She had expected the one but not the other.  The feel of heat frightened her the most.

It ran down her skin as if there was something to gain from winning this race.  Twisting and turning her limbs, she felt in control.  Changing its flow and path, zigzagging through a maze.  Her puzzle of freckles and hair.  It looked as a net was laced across her arm.

Tick goes the clock but no longer do seconds exist.  Now and forever.  Tick. Tick.  It wants to be heard and she listens to what it wants to say.

“What have you down, you foolish child?” What a chastising clock she must own?

“Nothing that may bother you,” she cries, smearing her makeshift paint over its face, “nothing at all.”

Tick.  Tick.  Crash.

It fell to the floor, and laid in its small gears and gizmos for all to stare.  Shattered beyond repair into thousands of pieces.  Broken.  Destroyed.

No pity to spare but to be saved for self, she mourned nothing but the loss of sound.  Only she now lay there to the world to be found.

Her mother once told her this would be her fate.  The end to the trials of a wasted life.  Not to be loved nor to be cared, not being worth the thoughts or worry of those around.

“To have a worthless daughter, I have been crooked and conned by God,” her mother yelled, pointing a wicked finger to heaven.  Arms shaking in a storm of anger, “what sins have I cast upon myself to deserve such treatment and punishment, O’ Heavenly Father!” Her mother had cried out, ignoring the tears of a forgotten child.

Back to the wall, no fear to hold her at bay, she sat eyes wide open.  Wiggle her toes as her blood soon runs cold.  Watch the life still contained inside, while no little pigs will run all the way home this time.

Red is the fountain of life that gave color to the floor, brilliant and blossoming to a livid flower.  Pooling into petals and trickling into stems, no thorns prick her pale skin. ‘Beautiful,’ her mind whispered, sweeping fingers across its surface, leaving a tail to their path.

A mark in history, a tale to be told, she paints words and little stick figures to be left behind.  A penny for a thought would not go far when all her thoughts were without a care.  Nothing to bind her and hold her inside a box, she allowed her to wander and set sail in the sea.

With everything so grand and perfect now in the end, still no smile touched her pale pink lips.  This is what she had wanted, what she desired, but nothing could be done without some regret her and there.

Could it have been different? Maybe so.

Could she have decided a different path or fate?  Who is to know?

She had wanted to be free.  No longer to be chained to this pain that scorched her from inside.  To feel light and happy just like she had seen on the faces around her so many times before.  To laugh without crying.  To smile without frowning.  This was what she had always wanted but stood outside her grasping reach.

But not anymore.  Never again would she feel such sorrow nor the pain.

Looking down at her painted fingertips, so lovely and bright, she brought them up to her lips.  She knew the taste, it had always been that taste from before, but this time it was stronger.  Sweeter.  Better. But still it was the same.  Its underlying flavor was her desire and it had stayed the same.  Always the same.

So much of the liquid made of fire covered the world around her.  She felt as though she was in a portrait made by an angry artist.  Scorned for his art but dedicated to his vision.

“What a beautiful vision,” she whispers to the invisible man, knowing that he and no one else could hear her words.  Pushing her hair away from her eyes, red smearing against her face and darkening her brown ashen locks, “but I think the red is over done.” She giggles, cupping her mouth with her dirty hands, “Just a little.”

The red shimmered and shined.  Everything around her captured its luminosity and only intensified its defiance to the world of porcelain and marble.  IT defied the white walls and yellow screaming lights, reflecting itself upon everything in the color cherry Kool-Aid.  IT was vivid and strong.  This color was something that would never go away nor fade over time.

Reminder to who was here.  Who laid in red’s passion but sat at death’s door.

Thump.  Thump.  Her heart gave a flutter.

Thump. Thump. No, the noise was too loud and too strong to be the murmur of a rotten heart.

The doorknob rattled and shook, trembling over her head.  Her body lay prone and heavy against the doors wooden frame, as it rumbled with the golden knob.  Locked.

She had locked herself away only an hour ago, holding the object that was her key.  Chains to earth and prison to flesh.  She had shattered her walls and broken herself from the pain.  Her escape from hell.

The door did not cease its temperament and grew angrier with growling thunder rolling behind its solidarity.

“Hey, Marie?  You in there?  Come on, I need to go real bad!”

She heard her name but ignored the rest.  The door would have to wait to leave until she lay asleep.

“You hear me?  Unlock the door.  I got to go bad.” 

Persistent and rude that stupid door. Can’t it see she was in no position to set it free?

“You can go when I am done, and that is all I have to say,” she told the door.  How dare it ruin her peace on her last day?

The door shook in anger, not settling with her words of choice.  Then silence and motionless echoed though the room.  IT must have decided to obey and stay, for a t least a little while longer.  This was how doors should be in the human domain.

The rattling of metal and a soft thunder of wood, picked up quietly to her ears.  What trick was this door entertain?  The shimmering knob that dripped in red turned slowly and steadily until it could turn no more.  Her eyes watched it reflect the light from overhead.  Reaching out to touch it and turn it back around the other way it would do no such thing.  It stayed turned.  Unlocked.

She knew she should have brought the key to the lock inside with her, but who would have believed that door would set it free.

“Marie?  I’m coming in, so make yourself decent, okay?”

The door shoved and pushed at her wanting her to move, but still she sat there with her weight against its frame.  Another push and another shove, her body laid prone against the wall and crammed between it and the door.  This position wasn’t of any comfort to her body, her legs pushing against her chest and nose touching the wall.

“Jesus Christ, what happened here!?”

The door should know that, it had watched and stood there without whispering a word then.

“Oh my god, is that blood?”

The door slammed shut, red smearing underneath it and splattering against the wooden grain.  Without the support of it against her back, holding her up against its strength, she fell hard with the back of her skull hitting the floor with a crack.

Looking up to wide eyes of a friend, whose face looked paler than from memory, she laid there quietly wondering what step would be next in this play of words and actions.

“Marie, you’re bleeding!”  The person grasped at her, hands flying against her torso.  “What happened?  Where are you hurt?”  Touch her body and smearing the red against skin and cloth searching.  Hands froze at her arms; fingertips tickling down them until they reached her engraved wrists.

Gasping for lost air and to keep scream s from reaching trembling lips her friend sagged beside her quieting body.  Hands holding tight to her torn flesh, trying to stop the stream of red from surging outward.  Trying to prevent her from own ultimate achievement.

“God! Marie what were you thinking!?”

Drizzling rain fell from heaven against her cheeks.  Their warmth was almost stifling against the frigidness of her skin. The droplets ran down the crevices and curves of her face yearning for the shadows that hid upon her.  Her body was so light to the dark.  Floating.  Flying in the density that was everything.  But that wasn’t right.

Falling.

Falling backwards.

Trip and fall.  Her feet no longer able to carry her weight.  Pathetic.  Weak.

No one had cared when she had fallen.  Collapsed.  Became warped and distorted inside her heart.  While the false smile was painted across her lips in rosy pink petals, no one saw her pain.   The tears she cried into sullen pillows.  The small scratches and cuts upon her soft flesh. No one saw and never cared to look.

Smile.  No one will see the frown.

Laugh.  No one will see the tears.

Whisper.  No one will hear the screams.

Everyone thought her as eccentric and different. Weird.  Deformed.  Not right and not acceptable.  But what to do?  She smiled to be nice, laughed to be generous, and did what she could to be accepted.

Accepted.  Accepted.

Declined every time.

Always standing out and never able to stand within.  It wasn’t fair to be alive and not to live.  Tossed aside.  Thrown away by peers and family.  Never was she satisfactory to their standards.  Orthodox.  Unorthodox.  None of it was her, but it had to be everything that defined her.  Perfection made by shadowing imperfections that was all of her.

Her friends weren’t her friends.  They were friends with the person she had created.  False friendship.  Because of that they couldn’t understand her.  The true being hidden in the layers of the lies and deceits that defined the reality that was not her.  To keep them she had to keep hiding.  Keep herself hidden in the darkest corners of her mind.  Sacrifice.  Forfeit herself to the world.

“Come on, Marie!  Stay with me!  I called the ambulance; they’ll be here soon.  Please just don’t die yet!   Damn it!  I don’t know what to do!”

Her father once told her that he didn’t know what to do with her also, but after those scorned and anger words he had left.  Walked out the door.  Slam.  Everyone had been mad at her, but all she did was sit there.  She had sat there and stayed there.  “What’s wrong with you!?”  Always those words came from her father’s scarlet face, wrinkled with anger and age.  Spoken in a fit of rage and hate.

Hated because she wasn’t like everyone else.  Not perky.  Not friendly.  Not worth the effort of raising into being a woman.  Not who they wanted her to be.  Every day she tried.  Smile and laugh.  Laugh and talk.  But she felt as though she was descending deeper and deeper into herself.

“In here!  She’s right here!  Please hurry!”

The world was so heavy upon her weak chest.  Too much weight.  Not strong enough to hold it up anymore, she cracked.  Slowly breaking down.  She couldn’t do it anymore.  Living. Breathing.  It was too hard and she gave in.  She had surrendered to the dark mass of pain inside her chest.  IT became too much, too large to control, and gradually it became a planet contained inside a prison made of flesh.

Escape from it and find peace.  Freedom.  No more pain.  Nor more hate and anguish.  All of it would be gone forever and all she had to do was break the chains that anchored her to earth’s façade.

“We need to slow down the bleeding.  She already lost too much blood.” 

“Looks self-inflicted.  What happened here?”

“I don’t know!  I came in and found her life this!  Please, God, this can’t be happening!  Please save her!”

All she wanted was to be free from everything that had ever hurt her.  Free from everything and everyone who had made her cry.  Escape the memories of her failures and history.  Leave it all behind.  Run away.

“I need you to calm down and tell me what you know about her.”

“O-okay.”

“What’s her name?”

“Marie.”

She felt so tired. The energy and vigor that she had first felt when she had placed the rusty blade against her skin was now gone.  All she wanted to do now was sleep.  To dream and find everlasting peace.

A whispering thought echoed in the background of her mind, just underneath her conscious thoughts, “So this is death?” it had hurt at first, when the blade had cut nerves, but now everything was falling into quiet.

With eyelids closed, she watched colors dance across the world of black and red.  Blue stretching across in streams.  Green streaking across in neon shadows.  Orange and yellow showing themselves as speckles and glitter.  Bright red playing at the edges of vision.

“Damn it, we’re losing her.”

“Not yet.  We can still save her.”

Everything was beautiful. Her body didn’t feel so heavy and her heart didn’t give her pain.  She was happy.  For this final moment in an eternity she felt genuine about the flutters of butterflies inside her.  She wanted to smile and laugh, but she was too tired.

She had escaped her world.

No more sorrow.

No… more… regret.

No…

More…

Pain.

***

She had been walking the sidewalk by herself, watching her feet take every step.  Every stride.  Noticing the weeds and grass fighting to grow in between the sections of cement, challenging cement into trying to squash them.  Resilient. 

“Hey, Marie!  Wait up!”

Turning her head around, not stopping her forward march, she watched her friend come charging up to her.  Long strides with long legs and in a matter of seconds her friend was walking right beside her.

“Man, you walk fast.”  Her friend’s face was flushed pink with red blotches across two freckled cheeks.

“Sorry,” she smiled weakly trying to enforce her apology before chuckling, reaching a hand behind her to scratch it, “I was on a mission to get home.”

Her friend laughed, reaching out to slap her on the shoulder.  “You’re always on a mission.”

“Yeah,” she felt awkward in these kinds of conversations. What to say?  What to say?

“So wha’ you do’n this weekend?”  Her friend’s feet scuffled across the cement.  Too lazy to lift them properly to avoid the rough noise.

She thought about how to answer that question.  Should she tell the truth?  Maybe lie?  Not like it mattered either way.  Looking at her friend, who kept stride with her while waiting for her reply.  This person was her friend and maybe her speaking the truth could help.  She hated hiding these things.  They only added weight to the mass inside her chest.  Maybe her friend could help her.  Friends help friends when they are in trouble.

“I’m planning on killing myself,” she watched her friend from the corner of her eye, waiting for a reaction.  Any reaction actually because she wasn’t sure what she should expect.

Her friend stopped walking, face falling into confusion.  She didn’t stop though.  She was afraid to stop.  Scared. And with every time she felt fear, her body would act in survival mode.  Smile.  Smile and look happy.  Turning around and walking backwards, she looked at her friend with her self-defense activated and running at full power.

Her friend, once seeing the smile on her face, broke out into another laugh and chased after her once again.

“Nice one Marie, but what are you doing this weekend?” Persistent and smiling.

“I already told you,” she laughed, or was it a chuckle?  All her laughs weren’t real enough to know how to categorize them.

“No, no.  Seriously, what you do’n this weekend?” Her friend shoved at her shoulder.  Pushing her away fro the moment.

She laughed this time, she was certain this one was a laugh, and kept walking.  It doesn’t matter if her friend believes her or not, because she had already decided.  This had to be done.  She couldn’t keep up this act forever.  

She was tired of breaking.  Falling apart at the seams and losing herself in the dark world hidden inside her.

It was best for her.

And for everyone else.