6.19.18 edit
Chapter 7
Over a month passed and I was not sent to the asylum.
My parents' house was abnormally quiet the majority of the day and often at night, and for the first three days following my latest escape, I wondered if they had abandoned their home and the devil who lived beneath their floors. The evening I had returned from the graveyard, I was grabbed first by my throat, then dragged back into the house by my hair and pulled down the wooden steps. My ankle twisted in the process, rendering my right leg useless as my father threw me down.
Most of what happened that night was little more than a blur, for which I was grateful. My lip was busted open, my left hand swollen most likely from my father stomping his boot on my hand. My shins were black with bruises and deep breaths hurt. There was blood on the stairs and splattered on my bare arms, though I could not find a fresh wound on my body and assumed my father had busted his knuckles.
It was an odd sensation to wake in pain and have no recollection of what had happened. Days passed and I did not utter a word. My ankle swelled, the pain intense when I put weight on my right foot. I sat trembling, my stomach growling and mouth so dry it was uncomfortable to swallow.
After three days of being left alone, I came to realize that my father was absent. I spent countless hours sitting atop a discarded dresser and listening to my mother muttering to herself. The rocking chair in which she sat creaked with each movement, and I attempted to breathe in time with the swaying of her body. It comforted me, the sound of her voice, even though I couldn't make out her words. With no one in the house for her to speak with, I imagined she spoke for me.
During the weeks of my father's unexpected absence, when I was fairly immobilized by my injured ankle, I reached a different type of maturity, one which I did not understand. Until then I had only known fear or indifference, but with sexual maturity came frustration I had never known before, a heaviness like a coil in my belly wound tight that could be released when I desired.
No one had told me how fascinating a tool every man possessed. What I discovered one night was the greatest pleasure I'd ever felt along with shame I did not understand. In the back of my mind, perhaps, I understood it wasn't acceptable to do what I had just done, but I didn't care. With the threat of an asylum looming in the distance, I cared for nothing. I cared for no one. I longed to feel something other than pain, and knowing my actions were forbidden made me want to experience the sensation again.
In secret, in the quiet darkness, I allowed myself a moment of buildup and a brief time in which the physical discomfort and emotional anguish subsided. The walls drifted away, the world around me disappearing. Suspended temporarily, I relished my escape, felt the rush of blood in my veins. It was the only calm I would experience, I told myself, the only elation I would ever know. Forbidden, intense pleasure lasted only a moment before my heart rate slowed and I found myself in a familiar hell once more.
The more I thought about the asylum, the more I realized I wasn't prepared to face what fate lay ahead of me. My new, combative nature fueled by a surge of testosterone sent rage into my heart, and the urgency for freedom overwhelmed my sense of fear. No longer did I want to leave merely because I despised the cellar but because I knew it would anger my father. Now I wanted to anger him when he returned home. It gratified me to think I could push back.
Young men are foolish. In the most basic sense I was no different.
The years considered my childhood were behind me. I limped into the night, my back as straight as I could muster, my head held high despite the grimace on my visage with each step taken. No longer would I slink and cower. A proud and ignorant ghost, I walked down to the sea, which I had never done before, and washed myself in the water with soap I had stolen from the water closet. It was the furthest from home I had ever traveled, and that alone excited me.
It felt as though I had cleansed myself beneath the moonlight, an unconventional baptism. Water splashed up to my chest and back, frigid, salty droplets cascading down my chin to my neck. With my back to the shore I lifted my mask and felt my hot tears mingle with the cool sea water. I both loved and hated my freedom. It was good to escape confinement, but it was torture to remain in solitude.
Weeks passed and I had not seen The Shadow as I could not venture far with my injury. I wondered if he thought of me, and if he did truly know my father why he did not approach the house to look for me. In one breath I hated him for abandoning me, in the next I prayed he would not look for me as I imagined my father would have unleashed his fury upon me for escaping in the first place.
The waves pelted me harder, pushed me toward dry land. I respected and feared the water's strength, the endlessness of the ocean roaring to the shore only to retract again. I wanted to be a vast sea—dark, powerful, mysterious…revered, loved…useful. Tempting my fate I lay in the shallow water and inhaled before I plunged into the dark, cool water. Bubbles escaped my mouth and nose, and with the last of my breath I screamed beneath the surface.
When I emerged I was trembling, the outlet for my rage providing only the slightest relief. Naked and alone, I studied my transforming body beneath the moonlight, watched how sheets of water blanketed me and then drifted away. Vulnerable to the monolith I felt surround me, I gave in to my desires, to my need to drown out the agony always lodged within my heart.
My actions toward myself were violent, gratification bordering on pain. I gritted my teeth and grunted like an animal, my voice drowned out by the waves. Several times my head went under the water, but I resurfaced and fought against the ocean and my own body. When release came I slipped into a lethargic state and allowed my arms to float at my side, my legs relaxed and bobbing. My heart rate steadied, my muscles loose, my breaths even. Unashamed, unafraid, I lay in the water and watched the stars. It was a beautiful, serene night, one I wanted to remember forever. A smile pulled at my lips. If my eyes closed forever, at least I had seen the most beautiful, clear night sky. That could not be taken from me, at least.
My eyes grew heavy, and I floated in the sea, naked and shivering but unwilling to return to the shore. I wondered what the inside of an asylum looked like, if it was horrendous and lightless as The Shadow had told me, if people were really chained to their beds in their own filth. The screams echoed down the halls, he told me, and sickness was rampant. Both criminals and the forgotten were housed together, and those who could not defend themselves were like lambs to a slaughter.
Terror replaced the languid sensation of satisfying my most primal urges. My legs tensed, my stomach tightening as I considered The Shadow's words. A building with no light and no escape. A place where people were sent to die because no one wanted to care for them. I had lived there for years, but it had not been called an asylum; it was called home.
I closed my eyes and felt a splatter of water on my face, followed by an odd thumping and what sounded like muffled voices. I dropped my legs down to stand in the shallow water, and my eyes popped open but not nearly soon enough. My eyes filled with saltwater and forced me to blink rapidly, impairing my vision so that I did not immediately see the three men bearing down on me. I could smell that all of them were drunk, and they came upon me like hounds on a fox and dragged me, naked, from the sea.
My voice abandoned me. The moment they grabbed hold of my arms, I lowered into the water in an attempt to pull my center of gravity down. With my face beneath the water, I gasped for a breath and sucked in salt water. The taste alone made me gag, and the amount of water I swallowed prevented me from breathing. My eyes stung, the sand and rocks scraped my bare knees as I struggled, having no idea who had found me or what they would do. I kicked, screamed for my life, for my dignity. I thought for certain I would be taken to the asylum right that moment, chained naked to a bed for all of my terrible sins.
My night of stolen freedom swiftly turned to humiliation, and for the remainder of my life I carried with me the doubts and hatred, the echoes of taunts and cruelty I had never known existed. On the shoreline, I lost part of myself forever, the last of the innocence I held in my youth.