Just to Breathe
~Fujin's Story~

Chapter One
The Colors of My Life

"All the colors mix together to grey, and it breaks her heart."  --"Grey Street" by DMB

When I was three years old I lived with Mommy and Daddy. During that period of my life, I can remember a lot of color. The warm lemony glow of the sun hitting the rosy tiled floor; the blues and greens of tall glasses Mommy and Daddy cluttered the chocolate-brown table after a tasteful dinner; the deep reds of the liquid they poured into them... The cheery pinks of their laughter as they spun around in dances of their merriment, clutched in one another's arms, the whole world a haze.

I stayed upstairs after six, as a little girl's rule. Little girls were to go to bed and sleep to dream, and were not to listen smilingly in the night to their parent's laughter ... but I stayed up anyway. I loved to hear their voices.

Never did I guess that in the next two years all of the bright colors I'd grown to love would fade into blackness. It would be during this time that I would be stripped of my identity ... and it would be during this time that Mommy and Daddy would become Mother and Father.

I loved my Mommy ... but I hated my Mother.


~*~

The sun beats down on the black pavement, scorching hot. Now six years old, I watch the neighborhood kids engaging in a water battle on the front lawn across the street through the kitchen window above the sink. It's been almost two years since I'd been forbidden to ever leave the house. At first I'd cried when I watched the other kids, my old friends, playing without me...but I soon learned that crying was a sin.

"You're a baby!" Mother had bellowed. "When are you going to grow up like everyone else!  I can't believe you! You're such a bad
girl! Do you hear me? Are you listening?"

I'm always listening, but I don't say so.  She hates smart comments.  Instead I hang my head and try to hold the tears. I've learned to keep my cheeks dry around Mother ... or else. I continue with my chores. Wash the dishes until they gleam whiter than white. If they aren't perfect, Mother will be mad, and then Mother will beat me...again. As she stands behind me, I can feel her brandy-saturated breath swimming over my neck like a thick mist of chemicals. I shiver before I can catch myself.
Please don't let her have noticed! I tell myself, Please don't let her have seen! But my hopes are in vain. She seizes my wrist, pulling me away from the sink. The dish I'd been scrubbing clatters to the bottom beneath the suds.

"The water's too cold, baby?" she snaps in fury. I can smell the cheap whiskey tainting her breath as it curls under my nostrils. "Let me heat it up for you!" She doesn't let go of my wrist, but with her free hand reaches to the sink and turns on the heated water as high as it will go. I cringe back against her chest, trying to stay as far away from the sink as possible. She is stronger. With simplicity she thrusts my hands under the scalding stream coming from the faucet. I close my eyes tightly as she holds them there, biting my tongue so I won't cry out. Crying out would mean more criticism, and most definitely more punishment.

An hour later, with stinging fingers and painfully tender skin around my wrist, my chore is done. I turn away from the sink to see my cowardly Father sitting at the gray kitchen table, his eyes skimming the evening newspaper. Mother has left the room. He chances me a glance over the top of the colorless paper, and smiles weakly. "Go to bed now, honey."

Mother had left the room, but had left her sound radar on. "Yes, go down to the basement
, girl! Go down in the darkness where you belong!" She screeches from the living room. All ready I can hear the clinking of the glasses her and father drink from after six in the evening. Mother often drinks with her meals and throughout the day. I can't hear them so much downstairs as I used to when I was in my bedroom upstairs, but I can still hear them. Their laughter no longer pleases me as it had back so far I can hardly remember.  Now the sound is scratchy and drunken.  I hate the noise; I hate their voices!

Mother doesn't like for me to be in the light. Once, when I was four years old, only a few days after I'd been deemed ineligible to go outside for the rest of my life, I'd questioned why she'd taken away such a privilege.

"Do you want to get cancer,
girl? That's what being out in the sun does to weak little girls like you! You'll get cancer and it will eat away at you and you will die! DIE! Do you hear me? Are you listening?!" But by then I'd broken down in tears, which only made her angrier. I soon learned what mistakes not to make.

In the depths of our dark basement, I await further orders from Mother. I am allowed to sit on the stairs. Once I made the mistake of jumping on the couch that serves as my bed. By the next morning I had a broken arm, though not from the couch. I never jumped on the couch again. On occasion I work on the books I was given at kindergarten. If I did badly in school, I'd be a disgrace to the family. Mother would not like that at all, and I knew all to well what that meant. I did enjoy school. School was my haven. There were no Mothers or Fathers in school.

Hours pass, but I get no more orders. If I fall asleep to early, I will be punished. My eyelids are growing heavy. I can no longer hear Mother or Father laughing upstairs. I chance tiptoeing up to the basement door to peek out. The hallways are dark. Country music and laughter drifts down from upstairs. I sigh in relief, but not until I've quietly closed the door behind me.

As I creep over to my couch I notice how the blackness of night closes in around me like a cloak. It used to frighten me, but now it's the only place I feel safe. I love the blackness. I close my eyes and let myself drift ever so slowly into an unconscious void. Here is where my imagination often fills my heart with color and happy memories.

Not tonight.

Tonight my dreams are endless chases. Mother is angry. I'm not sure why. She is waving a picture I drew for her earlier in the day. It is a picture of a little girl playing in the sun. Her skin is cherry red, but the sun has a big, happy face printed on it. Tears are streaming down Mother's face, but I know that she is more angry than sad. She crumbles up the picture and throws it at my feet.

"You are not my daughter! You're nothing more to me than a girl! A useless, ugly girl! I hate you! I never loved you, and I never will! You're a bastard child! You're not special! You're nothing but a girl!"

Blue tears are on the pink carpet.