They were arguing again. About what? It didn’t matter. They didn’t arguing about specific things, they argued about who they were, things that happened, things that didn’t. Their arguments were mere shouting matches about who hated the other more, with the winner being neither. Every time. Every day. They argued about any and all things.
“WHY IS THE DINING ROOM DOOR OPEN?!”
“WHO TOOK A SHIT IN THE TOILET?!”
“WHY IS THERE HARDLY ANY MILK LEFT?!”
Any and all things. Everything that occurred in nature was a personal affront to them. If their shoes weren’t perfectly stacked, it was the other’s fault. If they were late to work, it was someone else’s fault. Anyone and anything was at fault, aside from them of course. But more than each other, the universe and all of nature, there was one person whom they felt to blame for more things than any other force in the universe. Their son.
He sat on his bed, in silence. His ears pricked at phonetic vibrations through the floor, years of training to pitch exactly the sound he knew meant him. They were yelling from room to room, he blaming his work and she blaming her child, the volume slowly creeping up, as it always did. The inevitable moment came.
“..well if HE hadn’t fucking..”, he, being him. The son. He sat upright, rolled his neck and waited. Here they came. One stamp, two stamps, all the way up the stairs. He remembered every time before this in an instant. He always did. He’d yet to meet a friend, girlfriend, anyone outside family who liked them, mr and mrs him. They played a good game of happiness around others, but even family, who saw the mask slip frequently, no-one helped, spoke out, did anything. His parents had fallen out with all of their friends, had argued and fought with family on each side, had argued with strangers even, and yet still it was anyone else but their own fault.
He glanced around the room, checking what else he could have done wrong this time. His walls were white, devoid of individuality, devoid of him. No posters or self expression allowed, so he knew it couldn’t be that – unless his mother had eyed another microscopic mark or imperfection she’d decided was his doing. HIs socks were on the floor – best to swipe them up before he was called lazy and untidy. An empty mug was on his bedside table. Quickly he tucked it into a draw – drinks were expressly not allowed. Never mind that he was a 21 year old man who worked a full-time job, they still told him how and when and not to act. He knew he’d already showered, trying to scratch away any blemish they might fix to – although! What if the shower were wet on account of him using it, that was always one they easily grabbed as a weapon against him.
He wondered if the depression was inherited or induced – nature vs nature. Either way he lost. He’d tried to tell them how sad he was as a teenager, told he had no reason to be sad and to cheer up, told that mental health was a joke. Imagine the horror of a crazy in the family. Although whenever he tried to free himself, tried to cut himself from reality, they reeled him back, not yet done with him. FInally, after University, after his mother telling him she couldn’t wait for him to die, that he was a worthless thing, they had given their blessing in seeking mental health. He spoke to a doctor whose only advice was that he was beyond help. Antidepressants wouldn’t work, he’d need to embark on a years long quest to rectify this. But to what end? To be dragged back down by them, from any progress he made?
He’d been so happy at University. FInally, he lived how people lived, no pressure or weight upon his mind from the dark, he was free to walk and live as he decided, to talk and laugh, to make noise, to be drunk and merry, to joke, be imperfect and make error. All gone now. Stripped away, like his ambitions and hopes, like his freedoms and liberties. He was a caged bird, all the worse for having seen the outside. Let fly for a moment then pulled twice tighter. He wished he’d been dumb. The dumb wandered through life, they fought and consumed and left no mark, ignorant of their own illness. Not for him. He was made to be present, conscious, aware. From youth they had taught disdain for others, hatred for adequacy. Normality was at once their greatest hatred and ultimate esteem.
They sneered from car windows – “Fucking Muslims”, “Fucking Polish”, “Essex scum” – no one was guilt free, no-one as perfect as they. All the while he sat and listened, music upon music, anything else but the reality of noise surrounding him, anything to drum out the internal. KIll yourself, kill yourself, it loved that mantra. He thought he was happy. Any time he was away from them a joy would seep into him, into his pores of essence. He travelled abroad and struggled to grasp the idea of others liking him. People smiled when he spoke, they wanted him there, his being was rid of it’s life sentence.
As a teenager he’d sought solace in girls, any girl. He’d done too many stupid things to count, but liked to kid himself it ultimately matched his pursuit of love, acceptance. Any family but his, any person who looked at him with less than disdain. He sought out the family types he knew he needed, the loose, easy going – uncaring and immoral, his parents had labelled – places he was free to laugh with adults, to drink, to fuck, to be himself. He found his skin in other homes, in other companies. Next to no part of him belonged to his biological home. Perhaps the scars of depression, anxiety, self-doubt and loathing, nothing else.
They had money, mr and mrs perfect, they had money and they loved it. They would argue in the morning, in the evening, in the night – they would wake him to yell at him, they would mock his beliefs, his views, his being – but they had money, and so all must be fine and forgiven. What did he have to complain about? He had a roof and clothes, did he not? Had they not bought him games as a child? Had they not bought him a ticket for his trip abroad? Yes, all of this and more, he confessed to himself, they had. They had offered finance in place of emotion, penny in place of empathy, but he must have been wired wrong. His heart pumped blood not finance, he sought truth and beauty and art where they sought anger and fury and rage.
The screaming, the screaming. He shook at the thought. He walked the house on cusp, always fear, never ending torture of close danger. He had always committed an affront of some kind, always of error. Here he were, a fat, pathetic, unloved and dying thing, imperfect, bleaching in the sunshine of their kindness. If he answered the door, he had taken too long. If he ate, he indulged in too much. If he were out, they demand his return; inside, they demand he leave. They lamented his difference, wished he were more alike his peer, they shouted ‘I DON’T CARE ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE’ if he dare reply.
He tried being silent, he tried sitting alone in the dark, nothing ailed his plague of being. He was guilty of all crimes to commit and yet be committed, he was guilty of thoughtcrime, of all erroneous conjunctions of choice. But could he face anger with itself? No. Never. ‘CHEER UP, STOP BEING A FUCKING ASSHOLE’ they would bellow. No ill mood could sneak across him, no slight hesitation of eye, no quiver of eyebrow. Any contempt or rage snuck into him came of it’s own bearing, they decided. No input of theirs beared consequence. All of his anger was his own, theirs was his too. As was the strangers.
They opened his door. Come to take their daily sacrifice of any left goodwill, kindness or love in his heart. Soon there would be none more to take. Soon he would be away, through death or movement, away from this, away from this tarring of soul. He had left a jacket on a banister, he had left a shoe out of it’s place, he had left a teaspoon in the sink. Flecks of his presence scarred across mr and mrs lives, ruining their idyllic home, of no love or lust or emotion. They bonded only over torturing him. They left again, arguing over shirts or ties or cereal or clothes, again it didn’t matter. He didn’t cry. He had no more to spend.
Work tomorrow. Get drunk. Get stoned. One day it must end – and he had the advantage. They would die first.
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