Note: I have final exams next week and a few projects I have to finish up, so my time writing will be cut down quite a bit for the next two weeks, enough to still work on the story, just not as much as I would like to
Chapter 8: Hippo campus
It is common belief that when you feint or pass out that you don't dream, you basically go catatonic, and usually that is correct, but not always. What is happening to me right now is a good example, when I my head first hit floor, and creating a small splash in the puddle of my blood, there was just darkness, but then my memories come to forefront, to occupy my mind while the rest of my body recuperates from the pain and damage and pain I wrought on myself. But unfortunately my hippocampus chooses some unpleasent ones, the ones responsible for one of my two known trigger words, the original one.
It was cold that late, winter afternoon, it was cold and raining, just the way I like it. Cold is good for the brain and rain is relaxing. So relaxing that on occasions it can even overcome insomnia if they visit on the same night. The thing I didn't enjoy was the cold, bitter, dagger-sharp wind that accompanied the sacred rain.
The city is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a town I hate, there is nothing here but industry, while I love my technology and fast internet, I would be more than willing to take a hit in those departments in order to move somewhere in the country side, it is very nice out there, especially when it rains.
I am walking down one of the paths on the private school campus, one of the ones I was at when I had full use of my motor functions, just as I was turning 13. I am heading home after a long day of school, a day consisting of sitting alone at lunch, of sitting in the back of the class room, as far away as possible from others, and a day of presenting a project awkwardly, hoping to finish the presentation as soon as possible. And I can't wait until I can finally leave that hell hole for good.
I don't bother to get out an umbrella or a raincoat, that would get rid of the pleasant feeling of rain on my skin, I enjoy it enough to take off my almost-always present sweat shirt. The cold doesn't bother me much, I just hate the wind, but I can take that in order to get the full effects of the massage-worthy properties of the rain on my skin.
Despite the fact I would love to continue to enjoy the great weather, I know if I do I will catch a cold, so I quicken my pace to get home quickly.
There are a good amount of people wondering through the streets of Pittsburgh, though not nearly as many as there normally would be if it weren't raining, just another perk of the precipitation. There are neon lights adorning the sides of some of the tall buildings, their many shades of grey light reflecting off of puddles scattered around the pavement as I make my way into the more tightly packed parts of the city. As I get closer to my dwelling, the crowds eventually get denser, and the cars begin to get tightly packed on the road as stoplights refuse to give them passage through their intersections, and allowing others to continue on their journey towards their destination.
I finally reach the front door, the wind not as bad as it was previously due to other people and buildings blocking much of the wind, reducing its momentum and thus cutting down the effects of the wind-chill factor. I spend a few brief moments fishing my keys from my pocket and swiftly enter them into the locking mechanism, ready to turn them sideways and allow the door to swing open at my touch, only to realize that it is already unlocked.
I frown at this, neither of my parents' cars are in the driveway, and if they weren't home they never would've left the door unlocked.
I open the door and enter the building to see it looks the same as always. From the point when I enter the door, there is a main lobby, leading to the computer room about seven feet to the right and the living room to the left, the computer room has a dull-grey carpet, a black rolling chair, a basic wooden desk, and then finally a quad-core computer, with a headset charging beside the computer. The living room has two couches and then a TV on the opposite side, with a coffee tabling splitting the room into a 1/4-3/4 land division ratio, with the TV ruling over the majority of the room. Once I take the path through the living room, there is the kitchen and dinning room, back-to-back. The dining room has the basic kitchen table with four seats and the kitchen is standard as well, a microwave oven, a toaster, an oven, a sink, a dishwasher, cabinets, fridge/freezer, and pantry. And beyond the kitchen is a hallway leading to the hallway with three bedrooms down it, two being currently occupied, and the third awaiting for the arrival of its new resident.
It would look exactly like it normally does, except that there is a note on the kitchen table.
I approach the table and retrieve the note.
It reads : "Kate is going into labor, get a taxi and be at Allegheny as soon as possible, money for the fare is on the counter."
Kate Polk is my mo-...mother. She has light grey eyes and near-pitch-black hair. She stand at about 5'10, and is probably one of the best people I know. She is kind, considerate, and pretty smart. She can be a bit absent minded, but then again so can I. But as we are all humans, we still have our downsides. Despite her normal cheerful personality, she can get into ruts of depression that has lasted as long as half-a-year, that I know of. Mother is also a little thick-headed, dad says that I get that from her.
And she has been pregnant for about nine months now, right on schedule.
I admit, I'm not sure I want a younger sibling, brother if the ultrasound is right. It is a lot of responsibility taking care of a child, and some of that responsibility will be dumped on me as I am the only one home a lot of the time. And I am not really highly anticipating the splitting headaches that will undoubtedly come from the tantrums that are certain to come.
Following the note's instructions, I head back into the small storm, and into the ferocious wind, to flag down a taxi and head to Allegheny General Hospital to meet my parents there, and potentially my new brother within the next 24 hours.
**************************************************************************************************************************************What happened there at that dammed hospital was anything but a touching, happy moment that is so often portrayed in movies and other forms of media when it comes to child birth. There was no doctor telling mother to "push", there was no shining, golden baby that came out of my mother's womb, already clean. What happened there is something my mind refuses to allow my hippo campus drag to the surface, but not everything can be held back, and one memory manages to weed its way through my mind's defenses, and to the forefront of my sleeping mind.
"If everything that happens is just part of some god's divine, cosmic plan," I think to myself in my room, "than this god isn't some being to be worshiped, it is something to be hated in the highest possible regards, but for some reason I can't bring myself to do that despite what has happened. I just watched my brother fucking die before he even had a chance to open his eyes, to meet his parents, just die, that's all he did in his short life. Die before having a chance to even formulate one single goddamn thought. Yet I'm not angry at this so-called savior. Why? Do I feel grief for the death my brother that lived for about three minutes? Yes, I do. But no anger at what has happened, or hate. No, the anger is there, just suppressed, but the hate isn't suppressed, because it isn't there, what he hell is wrong with me?" I got no sleep that night, and the cause wasn't insomnia.
***************************************************************************************************************************************At this point, my mind won't allow a single detail about what I found when I came back from school to find at home two weeks after my brothers death, but it can't keep one image from entering my mind.
The image of my mother's bloody form, the head having two sizable holes in each side, one larger than the other. Her grey matter splattered against the walls and floor, pieces of her skull scattered around randomly, there because of the sheer power a point-blank .44 revolver hallow point round contains. Her once bright and lively eyes, eyes that have recently been filled with nothing but despair and grief, now empty, lifeless. And her hand still clinging the weapon that took her life.
The shock and pain from the event nearly drove dad and I over the edge too, almost, but we stayed strong we aren't about to make the same mistake as mother did, we aren't about to end our lives over one of the world's trials and tribulations, we are stronger then that.
But a few years later, when I turned 15, I felt something other than happy memories and grief when I thought about mother, I felt anger, anger that she would abandon me and dad and take the easy way out of life, all over some bump in the road. Yes, it was a rather large bump, but a bump none-the-less, it would end eventually. But she couldn't take it, so she left us. I suppressed the anger and that's when I figured it out, the term "mom" was a trigger word, it was the first, but not the last.
