Balcony/Balcony
By Sydney van Bueren (Photo: Joshua Kallwood)
Sophie’s hands burned white as they gripped the cold rail, silhouettes against the cold blue sky, which was now overcome by grey and gold clouds. Her arms were red - bleeding - not by her own hands, but by the those of her drunken stepfather. She somehow found her tears to be red; she could not see through them and they blotted out the dreary sky in crimson. But perhaps that was her imagination. Such wasn’t uncommon. It hadn’t been for a while. Whatever did happen to the sunny days in this suburban place?
Sunny . . . The blood in the shower flashed before Sophie’s eyes. There lay the remains of her senile grandfather, fully clothed and cold while the shower pipe spewed, broken by his wise hands and clever mind. Surely her stepfather would cry - at least this one time. He would cry just as much as she did. Maybe it would cure him from whatever plague caused him to be so purblind. Probably not.
“Did grandfather have to die?” she seethed, “Did he have to? Damn, at least he was sensible enough not to get as drunk as this ‘father’ - this stranger in my house who cuts my skin, making me look as if I were harming myself and causing all of these other strangers to coo, ‘Aw, poor little Sophie. She needs a therapist!’ and he replies, ‘She certainly does. She is always so depressed!’ as if he is some victim . . . Hah! Depressed indeed. But I do still have wonder and hope in me.”
Sophie looked, through intensely blue-grey eyes, down at her arm. She wanted to speak to the cold railing some more, but she was afraid someone might hear. On the other hand, who would care? Carefully, she crawled through the window off the balcony and into her room, finding a clean rag and some antibiotics. She slowly applied the cream to her arm, knowing it would do very little to heal the pain. The cut was not too deep this time as she had been able to defend herself from her stepfather much more effectively. She attempted to quell the cold memory of the attack, and at the same time wished desperately she had a phone to call the police, but her stepfather never let her use the phone. He did not allow a computer, either.
“Control,” she mumbled, “All he wants is control. Is that all people want? What keeps troubled people like him alive?” She whispered to herself between shattered, sobbing breaths, hating him for his inability to die. “Under all of these circumstances - being more experienced in his depression than me - what makes him keep going, while I somehow subdue my thoughts with this deep wonder regarding other dimensions of reality, that which others call ‘fantasy?’ I don’t even know why I talk like this, as if I am reciting some Shakespearean monologue.” She clutched her head in her hands, confused, “I wish I could write it all down, but my mouth does no more than move . . . My arm hurts.”
Looking out her window, she remembered the times she’d had with her grandfather, and all the stories he had told her about dragons and faeries and night sprites. She closed her eyes and imagined she was flying, with untainted wings, over mountains and forests, her stepfather left down below. The world in her head (which all the jaded strangers called childish unrealism) would be reality, and her stepfather would be the unreal one. He would be the other world Sophie could not reach, and she would never want to reach it.
From another room came a loud crash of silverware and a scream from the drunk man. “Sophie!” was the word exploding from the cracked hearth of his lungs. Sophie’s eyes widened, but only for a few seconds as a click echoed in her damp mind. Unfeeling, she salvaged her ripped bravery and walked slowly towards her closet. Opening the door to her closet, she breathed, and picked up her writing and thought journal, her pen, a small pewter dragon, her stash of money, and her long dagger. Would anyone believe her if she said her stepfather was drunk so she ran away? Nonetheless she whispered, “I need to get the hell out of here.”
The crash of uncoordinated feet edged frighteningly closer to Sophie’s closed and locked room. She listened as the man boomed, “Sophie, unlock the fucking door!” He slammed on it with his hands and feet, exposing his clumsy drunkenness, yet she knew he was strong enough to break through. Numbly, she turned towards her window, throwing away all the fears of before. Exhaling, she spoke to herself as a distant acquaintance, “I will be off now. Perhaps I’ll go to my friend’s place miles away in the forest.”
Quickly, she changed her clothes as the banging on the door continued. She put on clothes her stepfather had never seen: baggy jeans and a plain red t-shirt. She pulled on a dark hoodie and over that loaded on a dark green, almost black army coat. She grabbed scissors and quickly, without another thought, lifted her long, light brown hair and cut it to just below her ears. She did not look in the mirror once, and instead wrapped a scarf around the bottom half of her face. The banging grew louder, and the entire room shook violently.
“Open the fucking door you piece of shit. Don’t be fucking around with me! I’m gonna beat your ass hard if you don’t,” yelled the man again. The banging on the door evolved into a cracking, and Sophie could see the wood splinter. Quickly, she jumped through her window and onto the stable metal of the fire escape. She then shut the curtains and closed the window as far as she could. With relief numbing her mind and body, she jumped all the way to the ground, uncaring to the pain in her feet.
Then, she ran.
