Kreative Korner…
SHE STARED at the sight in front of her, eyes fixated, seeing what was there and yet not quite focusing anymore. She had drifted, and a million thoughts whirled around in her head as she sat there, stunned into silence. The image in front of her was a mere computer screen that gave her a view of a few lines in an email. To the average passerby, it was a simple email, but the meaning of those words resounded like bells at a Church wedding.

Stupid really, since all that was there was a message from a longtime friend who had gone to school with her but had left after to study in another country; a message that told her that this friend, Amelia Marc, wanted to see her, wanted to catch up, wanted to laugh about the past and talk about the future.

“Hmm,” she sighed.

As she had done with everyone else in her past, Sarah James had not kept in touch  with Amelia because she was trying desperately to craft a new life for herself, and that new life did not include her past.

Unfortunately though, the past she wanted to distance from her future had ghosted its way to the centre of things… her present. And that meant meeting with a friend from a life that seemed eons away from the reality of her today.

For Sarah, just 27, it meant facing her demons.

It is said that the cruelest lies are often those told in silence, and for Sarah, that was as true as the fact that the earth was round.

Her past had been riddled with lies; lies told by none other than she herself; lies that she told because she kept quiet, but her day of reckoning had come, as she knew it would, and this time she knew that she would not be able to remain quiet.

Sarah knew that she would have to confess, because it had been for too long a burden on her conscience. She had ignored her past, but a reminder of those lost forgotten years had brought to light all she desperately hoped to rid her memory of.

Another email popped up just then, and it made Sarah’s heart sink.

Hey girl,
I hope you got my message. Anyways, is Saturday good for you, because that is looking like a good day for us to get together. Okay, drop me a line to confirm.

Yours,
Amelia.

Dread filled her as her eyes scanned the words again.

With the sudden decision to avoid the issue, she shut off the computer and made her way to her bedroom.

Sarah, in her years of work, had done well for herself: She was a successful financier, owned her own home, and accepted the solitude that defined her life.

She was happy the way things were, and her plans for the future cast a glimmer of hope across her horizons.

That glimmer was the hope she’d held on to.

“Damn it!” Sarah threw herself onto her bed and vented her frustration on her pillow.

Finally worn out, she laid back on the bed and pulled her knees up close to her chest, a gesture that made her feel secure, somehow. She lay in bed for a long time before her eyes found the unconscious haven they desperately ached for.

….Silence, a deafening silence that was painful to no end. Yet she masochistically endures.  Why? You hear nothing, save Sarah’s silence.

Noise, sound, words.

Sarah hears something, or is she imagining things?

No, she’s not, because she feels his breath on her skin…

Just then Sarah awoke to an empty dark room.

“Damn the freaking subconscious,” she muttered as she sat up in bed.

“Hmm,” she sighed.

Sarah became restless. She sat, stood, paced, afflicted by the memory of HIM and of her past.

She finally faded back into sleep, but to no avail, as now both her conscious and unaware self had become the haunt of a lilt that bore a striking affinity to the wraiths of her past.

It was three whole days before she replied to Amelia to tell her that she would be arriving on Saturday to see her.  Sarah knew that she would not be able to delay the inevitable reunion.

So, mind made up, she decided to face her demons. She might as well face them in reality, as her dreams, of late, were plagued with reminders of that terrible night, her unjust silence, and the lives that were ruined because of her one wrong decision.

It had been an average day. School was out and everyone had decided to go to the small creek to swim, and since the old house was right next to the creek, it was the perfect place for adventure and fun.

He, 17-year-old Clay Johnson, had taken his seat on a mound of grass across from her, and she could not help but stare.

“He’s so strange,” Sarah thought to herself.

As if staring would help her figure him out, Sarah followed his every move. He was talking to some people, and the gravity of each word was mimicked by the gestures his hand made. Shifting her gaze, Sarah contemplated his outfit: He was dressed in blue jeans and a t-shirt and slippers. He was unshaven, and exuded a confidence unlike any other person she knew.

Maybe it was her years or maybe it was something else. At that moment, she looked up at him and went pink with embarrassment as she realised he was watching her watch him.

By the end of the afternoon, he had had reason enough to talk to her and it was from there that their friendship blossomed… or what she thought was a friendship.

For three long, blissful weeks, they craved each other’s company and immersed themselves in each other at every opportunity.

Three weeks together until that fateful night.

“No, no get off, let me go, no…”

The stifled screams drew her to the old house that night. It was just past the twilight hour, and she was looking for Clay when she heard the desperate plea for help. Her feet moved of their own accord and took her straight to the back door that was slightly ajar.

“Let me go, you bastard!”

She recognised the voice then; it was Amelia.

Peering in, she saw a sight that she knew would torment her for years to come.

Holding Amelia’s arms in his powerful grasp was Clay Johnson; her Clay, the one who only an hour ago told her he loved her.

She stood frozen to the spot as Amelia screamed, and Clay forced himself on her, maintaining a stoic silence all the while.

“I can’t believe I said nothing,” Sarah muttered, as her shudders shook her back to the present.

Clay was charged, and was still doing time, but Sarah had just removed herself from reality during all that time.

Her failure as a human being was too great for her mind to handle.

“This will be your home for now, Sarah,” her mother had said.

Her new home had been Phillips Memorial, a mental institution in the city.

Sarah was committed there after she suffered a nervous breakdown soon after the incident.

Everyone had though it was the trauma of her boyfriend turning out to be a rapist, but it was the reality that her feelings for a man, the only man who loved her, were too strong. So strong that it rendered her unable to perpetrate any bad thing in his direction, even when he was a monster of the worst kind.

“Love, like, infatuation; they’re all pretty freaking messed up,” Sarah exclaimed.

Her feelings for someone who showed her something she never knew and never wanted to lose were much too strong; that caused her breakdown.

And now that friend wanted to see her, wanted to see if she was doing okay.

“Hmm,” Sarah sighed.

Saturday came, and the alarm went off, but she ignored it. A
few hours later, the shrilling of her cell-phone came, again and again.

Sarah never turned up to see Amelia; couldn’t and wouldn’t…

Conscience whispers, but self interest screams aloud.  ~ J. Petit-Senn