AHH…
I stifled the scream, wanting to let out my frustration, but knowing that somehow I couldn’t, the weight of who I am supposed to be weighing heavily on my shoulders; the weight of the knowledge that screaming did not fit exactly together with the persona I should, or rather, the persona I was supposed to project.

Yet…
I turned over in bed in a daze for a second, trying to remember what day it was, and what I had to do.

In a flash, the reality that was lost, thankfully in the calm of unconscious sleep, came back to me.

“Hmm!” I sighed.

Seventeen years old today, but like every other milestone in my life, I could not help but view it as another opportunity missed.

“Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!”

My stepmother’s crooning came from across the room as she stepped through my bedroom door.

Normally, stepmothers were painted as ‘evil’, but mine, Mrs. Annie Jacobs, was unbelievably sweet and caring; almost too good to be true.

But then again, maybe it was too good to be true.

I looked at her, a serene beauty that was fluent in five languages; a brilliant academic and an expert homemaker.

She had everything going for her, but like each one before her, she gave up her dreams to fulfill the family traditions; to pretend.

I could see the distance in her eyes as went about her chores, and I could see me there, see my future, a complete façade.

Her voice brought me back to the present; she was saying something about the party tonight that was supposed to be the grandest thing Airy Hall had ever seen.

“Almost everyone confirmed,” she went on, and I tuned her out again.

Another milestone wasted, and I wanted to do so much, wanted to see so much.

Lazily, I got out of bed and accepted Annie’s kisses.

“Oh, Nessa darling! You are going to look so beautiful!”

As she whirled me towards the dress she had brought in, I smiled because as much as I knew it was all a farce, I could not bear to add to her misery.

She smiled one of her rarely seen smiles, and looked giddy with excitement, as if it was her birthday.

I manipulated my face to stretch my smile wider.

“Thank you for everything, Annie. I will get dressed and see you downstairs. There must be a hundred things left to do.”

Stubbornly, she asserted her authority. “Of course not! The others and I will take care of everything!”

Feeling a little dejected that I now had an empty day, I could not help but envy the ‘others’, my father’s small army of seven servants.

“Very well. I think I will go for a walk down by the river,” I decided.

My father, Will Jacobs, was a wealthy man, and our two-storey home stood just off Airy Hall’s main road, overlooking a winding river that separated us from the forest.

Like many of the other elites in our society, we too lived in a special section of Airy Hall that was bounded by the forest (separated by the river) and the main road.

Tucked away from civilization… but not quite.

As I got dressed and made my way down to the river, I nodded automatically at those I passed on the way, not really seeing them, but lost in my escapist daydreams.

At the river, the weeping willow trees’ green reflected off the clear water, and I stared out to the endless body that winded along for miles before joining the sea.

And as I stared, I could not help but relate my problems to the sea, that endless body of water exactly like my endless ocean of grief.

“Hmm!” I sighed again.

After a few hours of losing myself to the nothingness, I turned to go back home.

It would be time now to start getting ready for my party.

“My party,” I snorted sarcastically.

Ahh…….
Turning too swiftly, I slipped and tumbled headfirst into the river.

I felt myself falling… and falling …and falling.

I stifled the scream, wanting to let out my frustration, but knowing that somehow I could not, the weight of who I am supposed to be weighing heavily on my shoulders; the weight of the knowledge that screaming did not fit exactly together with the persona I should, or rather, the persona I was supposed to project.

And then, it was too late. I was gone…….

“NO!” I screamed… finally.

Gasping, I was realised I was awake.

“It was a dream, only a dream,” I calmed myself.

And there in my room, a small sliver of a moon my only witness, I decided to be done with trying to look for something that was not there, or at least something I think is not there.

“The grass is always greener on the other pasture,” I mumbled to myself.

Giving up, I wondered many things.

“Is giving up too cowardly?”

And as the weeping walls closed in around me, I knew I didn’t care…

I shouldn’t care…

No! The fear of death was enough to make people do all sorts of things, right?

“Right,” I said aloud to myself, the words echoing in the silence of the night.

And in that moment, I joined the elite of society that perfected the art of pretending.
Do not fear death so much but rather the inadequate life – Bertolt Brecht