I wrote this about a year and a half ago, so mind you, I was but a mere 14 and a half years of age. I've detected problems in the plot and grammatical errors, but I don't want to take away from what it was when I first created it. Thank you.*
There are times that I decide that I must stop, so I pause in my placid, scheduled routine, and wonder about life, and how I came to be such a disheveled human being. I stare at the repetitive pattern of white squares on the ceiling, count the squares a couple of times (it's always 54), and just think. My thoughts bounce around my head persistently, I can feel them hitting against my head, back and forth, back and forth, never stopping. They slither like evil, determined serpents, throughout my veins, around my face, between my fingers. My thoughts fuse together with my dreams, intermingling with my memories, desires, the lies I was fed every day as a child, and the constant anger so close to the surface, but for what reason it is truly there, I was never able to figure out.
Each time I feel the need to think, I start with the same beginning, that same beginning which my mother repeated to me so many times, every morning, every hour on the hour, every night. “You are Todd Stevens. You have beautiful green eyes, the color of emeralds. You are as quick as a fox, and as sharp as a needle. Your mama loves you very much. You've got a great future ahead of you. You killed your sister, Holly, but mama still loves you.” After that, which was so deeply penetrated into my skull, it would be impossible for me to forget it, my thoughts would wander and dwindle down the stream of consciousness.
On this particular day, my thoughts were focused on my current position in life. If I had such a great future ahead of me, why is it that I'd been locked away in an asylum for the past ten years? My mama never lied, she was the best thing that ever happened to me, except maybe Holly. She was my twin sister; we looked so much alike, we could get away with trading places and mama would never even know. We both had the same cropped tawny, brown hair, piercing green eyes, and olive colored skin. I looked down at my flesh, and saw my sister's hands before me. I tried to remember the last memory I had of her, tried to remember how I killed her.
“Todd,” she had called out from behind a door, the door my mama always told us never to go into, 'cause it was our daddy's workshop. “Todd, please help me.” she had whimpered.
“Holly, I'll help you.” I yelled, clawing at the door and grasping for the doorknob. It wouldn't budge. My mama was standing at her doorway, looking at me with the most pitiful eyes I had ever seen. She was sniffling a whole lot, and had one hand behind her back. I became entranced in her stare, and I immediately ignored the small cries of Holly from behind the door. Mama starts approaching me, and I saw something silver in her hand. And then it ends, just like that. I never saw or heard about Holly again. A lot of my memories ended that way, seeing mama come at me with a silver thing. But I always woke up, very happy, if not a little bit ache-y. She'd sit there and run her hands through my hair, and murmur her repetition to me, over and over. My name was still Todd Stevens, I still had green eyes, I was still quick and sharp, mama still loved me, I still had aspirations, and I still killed my sister.
Mama was always the best thing in my life. She loved me a lot, really cared about me. She never truly appreciated Holly as much, but that was fine by me. Sometimes, when Holly had been jealous, she'd yell at me, so loud that it pulsated throughout my head like the ocean waves on the shore. I'd never been to the shore, but mama showed my videos of it all the time. She never let us out of the house, she said she didn't want the other kids laughing at us. I would ask why anyone would laugh at us, and she would just smile and shake her head, and say, “Oh, you're special Toddy.”
I look up at the ceiling again, because I'm feeling too emotional, and count the 54 squares again. Thinking of mama always makes me feel funny, especially when I think of the day she sent me to the place I've lived in ever since, this asylum I call home.
It was all of a sudden, one day out of the blue. She looked at me with ferocious, hating eyes for the first time in my life. Without words, just her intense glare, she forced me to go to my daddy's workshop door. She was breathing real heavily, like she did when she chased me around the house and scooped me up into her arms, and kissed my forehead. This was not one of those times, though. She pointed at the door.
“Go.” She commanded. I never said no to my mama, but I was scared and stuck in her trance again, like I was when Holly was calling out to me. Mama began to walk closer to me, her hand still pointed towards the door, shaking. “Please,” she begged, her face instantly softening, “I can't do this anymore, I'm sorry. They'll take care of you, Holly. They're much better than me. I'm not a good mama. I ruined you.” She then began to cry, and I had never seen her cry before. It was all too much for me, so I twisted the handle and left that house once and for all.
I ran and closed my eyes, because I didn't know what I was going to find in daddy's workshop, and I didn't want to see Holly after all that time being so far apart. I didn't think as to why mama called me Holly, or why she abandoned me after so long. I left mama behind me, and sometimes, if I think hard enough, I can still hear her cries.
What I found behind that door was absolute nothingness, like a dream of black fog, thick and enveloping, not letting me go. Pictures appeared before me, quick and not ceasing. The pictures showed me and mama when I was born in a hospital a long time ago in a place I didn't remember ever seeing. One was of me and her, right when I was born. She looked so happy and at ease. Then, another picture showed mama with another baby, it must have been Holly. What confused me was that she was real blue, and wasn't crying, and mama's face was all contorted in this strange look of horror. I shied away from that picture, it made the anger come up again, the worst it had ever been. I screamed in this strange state of delusion, and that picture was replaced by ones I didn't recognize in the least. Mama was in one of them. She sat in a small cell enclosed with metal bars, and looked completely lost and alone. She looked much older; her once black hair was a shade of silver and her porcelain skin was cracked with age. I wanted to comfort her, to reach out, but that snapshot was then replaced with another picture, of me, with long brown hair, green eyes, and a door behind me. I smiled a goofy grin, and pointed at the name plate by the door. It read, “Holly Stevens.” Then, like a movie clip, it showed me opening that door, looking around a small white room with 54 white squares on the ceiling, sitting on the bed and smiling, then the door slowly closing behind me.
I look up at the ceiling once more. I count. 1, 2, 3, 4... Subconsciously, I knew I had just stumbled upon the truth, but I would never let myself admit it. After all, my name is Todd Stevens. I have beautiful green eyes, the color of emeralds. I'm as quick as a fox and as sharp as a needle. My mama loves me very much. I have a great future ahead of me. I killed my sister, Holly, but mama still loves me. ...51, 52, 53, 54...
