Nineteen years old

I live with my father now.

He gives me privacy, and even though he is possibly stranger than my mother in personality, he takes the time to talk to me and ask me about my day. I never question that I love him, and I never question if he loves me.

I got my first boyfriend too!

It was very easy Pretending. No one ever thinks that someone would Pretend at church, or work, or at home. I Pretend all the time, I’m very good at it now. I got so good at Pretending, that I started to believe that my games of make believe were real, and got myself a boyfriend.

He is just like me, a Pretender too.

I like going to church just to see him.

I lean on his shoulder and his warm arm wraps around my waist as I listen to the sermon of the week. It’s about the ills of sexual deviants. I say nothing, knowing that I am Pretending, and I worry if the pastor knows.

The pastor knows that my family is Troubled, and that we sometimes cannot pay our bills, that we are loud, that everywhere we go, people know us as those people. I am paranoid now that everyone knows that I am Pretending.

The pastor, Pastor Good Christian Man, tells us all that he is truly worried about the state of the Earth. He claims that he doesn’t hate gay people, but worries that the Earth will be scorched in fire, if they continue.

I wish I was so strong to burn the Earth by my mere existence.

Opening my mouth, the flames of my hatred and anger curl around the globe. I listen to the sounds of death, the crackling of fire as I burn it all down to the ground. I am a Vengeful Old Testament God, and I don’t allow my creations to sin.

I am brought back to the present, when the sound of crackling fire is replaced by roaring applause. The wasps buzz and buzz around each other, making noise with their stingers, and I am the only ant there.

Next week, our pastor, Pastor Good Christian Man would give a speech on the brutality of violence against ants. The irony was so strong I could choke on it.

I go to work the next day, and I am asked many questions by wasps on what it's like to be an ant. They’ve never seen an ant before in this part of the forest. They talk about all their ant friends, and how I’m not like the others.

I nod and smile, my $2.13 an hour not enough, and I resist the urge to self immolate myself in the middle of the dining room. Again, fire calls to me, and I think about becoming a fire ant, not a regular one.

Fire ants are strong, independent, and they can do anything.

I am not a fire ant.

I go home at six AM, my shift is finished, and I return to my quiet house. I pray that my siblings aren’t awake to ask me if I can make them food after I had just gotten off of work. I walk down the old stairs, the steps too big for my feet, and they groan.

They groan, and I grimace, nervous about falling down. Someone falls down once a week down these stairs. We were all loud and fast ants, running with a purpose. Why stop when a cliff is approaching? We will survive the fall.

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I trip on the last step down.

After stripping down to my boxers and donning something resembling a tshirt, I crawl into bed. I cannot sleep. The sun has already risen, and my neighbor, Mr. Hello, How Are You Doing Today?, is playing the music of his people, the wasps.

It is hard to sleep, and I shift in bed. I hear a clatter, and I look down, chastising myself for not being more careful. My knife had fallen off the bed, and I tuck it back under the pillow for safe keeping.

One could never be too careful.

I finally fall asleep, listening to the music of the wasps, and I wonder if the Horror Of Daylight will stop the Many Horrible Things.

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I am in an empty room, surrounded by the color blue. I know its a nightmare, and I don’t care anymore. After nineteen years, I have accepted that they will always be there.

There is no use fighting it. This was just life.

It’s supposed to hurt anyway.

I survey the room, and am confused that this room has no windows, no doors, yet there is a light coming from somewhere. The wallpaper is blue as well, the Victorian era print faded in the room that is big and small at the same time.

I try to find a way out as I walk around, but I can’t find anything. I rub my hands against the frayed wallpaper and I look down. There’s a hole. A hole that appears where a missing door knob is broken.

I think it is an exit and I crouch down, peering into the hole.

An eye greets me back.

It’s iris is red, and it is strained, veins popping and bulging. I can see it, trying to force itself through the cramped hole. It mumbles something, and I put my ear up to it, wondering if he needs help.

Is he too trying to escape the Many Horrible Things?

The whispers are quite low, and he continues to repeat himself. I can’t hear a thing. The more he whispers, the louder he gets. Soon the walls are shaking, and fissures erupt from the floor.

The incoherent noises from the eye only get louder, and he talks faster and faster, and I don’t know what he is saying. I can’t. I don’t know what I’ve done, and I tell him, I’m so sorry.

He starts to talk slower and I can comprehend his words.

“There’s a hole in the wall, where the Devil can see all your sins.”

I stand there in the collapsing room, listening to his proclamation. The Lord of Lies knows that I have been Pretending. I cannot hide from his watchful gaze. I know God is not looking, but he is.

He knows.

I scream, and wake up, repeating the words he has said, and I sit in my bed. I breathe hard and fast, and I relax knowing that it was all just a dream. There is no way he could know.

Impossible.

Everything is blue, but not as much as it usually is, and I have become so normalized to the nightmares, that this quiet moment in my room doesn’t alarm me. It is never quiet in the ant hill, there is always running and rumbling, shouting unless everyone is asleep.

I calm myself, and tell myself, Everything Is Fine, Don’t Worry About It, Stop Thinking About It.

I glare at my broken door, the reason I sleep with a knife under the bed.

The door knows that I hate it, and it punishes me.

It slowly opens, and I’m not surprised, because no one knocks anyway. What I am surprised to see is me. I walk over to myself, and with a somber expression I have come to help.

“You need to wake up. This is all just a dream.”

I look up at me, and I don’t like what I see.

I woke up.

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It is lunch, and we are all sitting at the dinner table. I am Pretending again, because I don’t know what else to do anymore, but still, I want to not Pretend any longer.

It’s so tiring. I don’t like this game.

I tell my step mother and sister about my dream. I think it's a bunch of nonsense, and that I’m just under stress. They don’t.

My step mother asks me what I’ve done, and my sister is sure that I am possessed. I must go to church more often. It’s the only solution!

The Devil has marked me, and soon he will drag me down, along with all the others that were tricked by his lies! Everything will be fine as long as I don’t listen!

I nod and agree.

I go to church three days a week, but he is still watching, every night, from the hole in my room door.