"Tomorrow" (1,507 words)
-LJ
8 November 2016 & 18 December 2016
(word count, counted using wordcounter.net)
[I wrote this during episodes of my own depression]
[not a poem, I know] [this is different than what I usually post here]
[short story] [first person point-of-view of another]
[
Trigger Warnings: suicidal thoughts, depression, self-loathing, anxiety]
~~~~~~~
Tomorrow, I said. Tomorrow, it would be better. Maybe. Tomorrow was only fragments of time away; hours ticking into minutes into seconds into drops of rain from the sky above me. Tomorrow was so close, but it was so far. Tomorrow, in my mind, the world would forgive and forget. Tomorrow, the world would come to its senses and begin anew. Tomorrow was full of promise, but full of tribulation.
Tomorrow was just a word. It was a word used to describe a day that was not today. But, if today is yesterday's tomorrow, then why was yesterday even a day that led to today? Why was yesterday's tomorrow such a shitty day? Would tomorrow be such a terrible day that it would be just like today? If tomorrow was only moments away, I was both ready and terrified for it.
Nighttime had crept slowly, but longer nights were around the corner. The moon shines into this room of glass walls and satin curtain. The bed was not my favorite place anymore; it only brought me flashbacks and a torture that no one understood traumatized me, and probably will for the rest of my life. The clothes I wore hugged me so tightly, but taking them off only brought the sensation of bugs crawling into my skin. The pain I was feeling was unbearable, but the thought of anymore medication coursing through my veins became the venomous snake bite I feel like I could go without for this one night.
What had I done? I had done nothing, and yet, I am at fault for everything. I am a warlock, sentenced to death by hanging. Today, the noose was an invisible necklace, as the muffled sound of people talking and trying desperately to grab my attention as I continued fading in and out of my head. Today, the noose hugged my neck as tightly as the cuffs that kept my hands to my back, causing bruises and scars so many yesterdays ago. Today, the noose was the closest I had to feeling anything.
I was alone. I had no one. I mean, of course I was surrounded by so many people, but I don't believe anyone understood this death sentence of mine. Sure, I still have some life left to live, but what life was there to live? I was hung, and the whole world watched as I silently accepted my fate and maintained my cry of innocence. And, sure, I had family and friends who support me through this trial, but do they really know-- do they really understand-- what this all has done to me?
Tomorrow was Judgement Day. Tomorrow, I am either imprisoned behind cold metal bars, or free to go about the rest of my life. Tomorrow, the world will watch as several heinous counts against me are given their verdict. I wanted it to all be over, but I knew tomorrow was inevitable, and so was Judgement Day. I promised them I would be sound; that I would be ready to keep living freely, or say goodbye to my family forever.
There was a knock on the door. My frail frame, still frozen in the darkness of this room, wondered whether or not to answer. Oh. The cook. Offering to cook me something. Again. I stayed quiet to give the impression that I was sleeping, since it was nighttime anyway. I feared being caught red-handed, but I did not want to eat. My appetite was completely gone, and the mere thought of eating only made me want to vomit. There goes the cook. Footsteps going away from my door. Alone, again, at last.
My child is crying. My poor baby is crying for me. God only knows that I was crying for my poor baby- my poor babies. This thought of them having to go on without me hurts so much. I wanted so much to leave my room, to hold each of them in my arms, wind up their music box and hum while it played a lullaby. I wondered if my babies knew I was hurting. I wonder if they noticed something different about me. Do they still love me? Oh, how I wanted to tell them, right now, how much they mean to me. But, I was still frozen here, in this darkness, in this room... until tomorrow.
What if tomorrow brought me to my knees, and I was faced with the rest of my life in stone? At their young ages, would they understand that I was innocent; that I never did what they accused me of? Would they be able to associate themselves with me, calling me their parent? What if they grew up and looked back, and then hated me? God, I'm so afraid of what tomorrow will bring.
I'm so afraid of what tomorrow will bring, that I find myself thinking, "what if tomorrow... didn't happen?" It was still today, after all.
I'm crying. I'm still standing, somehow, but my vision is clouded by tears that will not be broken down by the dam of my eyelids.
I wanted it to be over. I felt so out-of-control, but managed to keep my silence. I was dizzy. I was nauseated. I was alone. I was waging a full-scale war between body and mind. I was trembling. I was spinning. I was drowning. I was going down, down, down, into the whirlpool of faltered sensation. I was suffocating. The noose gets tighter and tighter. I remember. The pain medicine. I took a little more this morning than I should have. A little. A lot. I grimaced. I felt the dam finally break. Tear after tear. Salt water. Drowning. Drowning. Falling. False names. Medicine. Quietness. Sensory deprivation. Sleep deprivation. Sleep.
Tomorrow, I said. Tomorrow, at this point, would never come. I felt my heart beat intensely with each gasp of air I took. I couldn't breathe. I was hopeless. I was lost. I was sad. I was sedated. Before I knew it, the moon disappeared, and the world that surrounded me fell away.
Tomorrow, the world would know what they did to me. The names they called me, the stories they wrote, the words they yelled into my ears; they would see that it was the noose that tightened around my neck each day.
The warlock is dead, and it only took him twelve years to die. We did it, ya guys. We fucking goddamn did it.
Tomorrow, I would finally be at peace. Sure, I'd be gone, but they could live without me. They could live without the trail of broken glass and garnished life that follows me like a shadow tearing violently at the seams and about to be ripped apart once more. They could live without having to look me in the face and see how much I have changed over the years and, I know that they think to themselves, "what the fuck has he done to himself? He's not the same anymore. Why did he do that?". They could live without me, they could live no longer shunned by my life and lack thereof, and they could live without any future I thought was actually just a verdict away, whether or not it leads to an acquittal or a false conviction.
Tomorrow, I thought. Tomorrow. Tomorrow was a dream that I could not interpret, nor did I want to. It was a nightmare of torture in what could be one of Hell's most terrifying of dungeons, and it was the sweetest dream of peace in the waters of Heaven that, with the suffering I've endured, I could baptize myself in them and the pain would drain from my spirit.
Tomorrow was everywhere and anywhere. It was in my waking and my sleeping, my days and my nights, my good times and my bad, my sun and my moon, my stars and my clouds, my parents and my children, my loud and soft, my pain and my peace. Tomorrow was something I couldn't avoid, no matter what my fate is, and whether it is only twenty-four hours long or an infinity long is something I will not know until my sight is restored to me.
Tomorrow, I said. Tomorrow would never come. I was so convinced I rid the world of my presence for the greater good that
tomorrow actually came. Tomorrow greeted me with the sun through the glass and pushed away satin curtains. Today was tomorrow, and that meant today was yesterday. I was on the floor, still in yesterday's clothes, still in yesterday's grasp, wondering why I was still here. The clock read that it was very early into this... "tomorrow". A new dread filled me now; the dread of being late to what my "tomorrow" was destined to be. I took off yesterday's clothes and put on today's outfit, which, my sight was still groggy, and I didn't exactly see what I chose, although it was brightly colored.
Tomorrow, I whispered to myself. Tomorrow is here, and tomorrow is now.
Today.
