The Martyrdom | Teen Ink

The Martyrdom

May 9, 2010
By Kat2011 BRONZE, East Falmouth, Massachusetts
Kat2011 BRONZE, East Falmouth, Massachusetts
4 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
A question that sometimes drives me hazy; am i or are the others crazy?


I was finally breathing. A weight lifted off my chest, i was finally leaving my house, if omly for a few hours. There were no fights (yet) but the ostentatious hostility of provoked silence was more than i could bear. Family, societys' death trap, suffocating me without even slightly intoxicating me in any sense of the word.
Where was i walking? Away. I didn't know where because i had no specific place in my mind and i wasn't running away, just leaving for a few hours. I could feel the second half of my emotional state showing itself externally. I was simply walking, yet the mask i showed to the cars speeding past me a look of provocation and questionable afternoons. Never once did i look behind me, a mental voice telling me to not look so wishful; to keep walking forward and be the wish. So i kept my chin a little jauntily lifted with the slightest smirk; one so discreet only a second glance could prove it was ever existing. 
    As i got closer to the urban marketplace that was east falmouth, i saw three cop cars parked obviously a little askew to the liquor store with their lights on but no sirens; a burglary. Nothing shocking there, so i walked to a drugstore and bought a cola, crossing the street and continuing forward. I decided five minutes down the road that i would go see the house of my late great aunt, so long as it was still on the market and no family was living there that i would intrude on. A woman walked by with two adorable dauschunds, so for once in my whole walk, i bent my head down to the ground avoiding eye contact and continued listening to music. As i raised my head she mouthed the question 'arent you cold?' to which i answered 'no'; all without taking out my earbuds. 
      As i finally reached the house, planning to discreetly look at it by walking around the circle as it was at the end of a road, i looked and noticed the door was blatantly open. No one else lives there and suddenly i became alarmed at the thought of someone stealing from her house. Even though neither she nor her husband once cared about me, i still strived for acceptance in their last parting years. Did i recieve it? Only they could have told me, but dead men tell no tales. I put my hands near my eyes to cover the glare of the sun and peered past the glass door; no movement. I heard someone yell my name a couple yards behind me, so i looked to find KK, my late great aunts daughter. A fat 53 year old religious fanatic who was slightly dilusional, was the one to call my name. She was so happy to see me and invited me in, inquiring the number of my shoe size. I told her and she brought me the my great aunts closet, making me try on her shoes. She made me fetch useless items from the garage to keep; they were 'all mine' since i showed pitied faux curiosity in the objects to satisfy her; which she mistook as genuine want of. 
       The house was completly cluttered, a plethora of the late womans personal items and the daughters own collection of trivial objects, pushed against the wall and stacked to the ceiling. You could see from the pure look of her that her life was caving in around her, suffocating her in all her physical objects that replaced the lonely empty space of the house. She then inquired about the size of my body, wanting to have me try on some of the dead womans' clothes. To which i was able to verbally dismiss and bid adieu in the nick of time. The house was cluttered with doubt and refusal to accept the inconvient truth of death; a disease that no one is immune to. 
      I walked back to the house, deciding that i was already pushing my luck with the three hours of my depature and no one had attempted to comtact me through my phone; an unusual move on my familys part. I continued to think over the tireless conversation held so many times before with KK of my life and family, not that she was interested in my voice so much as she was interested in the wishful life she wanted so bad of the religious family with the two smart children and the caring husband. While her life was clearly lonely and lacked dead passion, there was a masking emotional scent of resentment for my mother and the life she had made for herself while KK watched and could only ever gaze in. 
 I had arrived home in one piece and gave mother the card i had bought for her, then in turn she read dads' card all the while my brother john was quickly signing his last-minute bought card in his bedroom; the tired trick he made every year for every occassion that pressed for a conversation not completly devoid of love. Don't worry though because he still gets just as much amount of praise as mother looks the other way of her clearly immature teenage son still acting like the spoiled inner child of nine he will always be. 
As we are leaning against the walls of the church (late again) i notice how very many old people (the majority of mass anyway are the generation of last minute repenters ready to drop like the sound of a nickel) glare at me, attempting to scold me with their eyes of judgement over my less-than-formal outfit for church of shorts and a tank. I smiled. Here was Jesus right on a table two yards away preaching about loving your meighbor without judgement and here these people were turning their heads away to look at me behind them; doing just that. The emotional mask i wore told me to not shy away from the attention, so i met each of their eyes one at a time and smirked; even to the women. I was not about to let others pass claim on my own soul without looking inwards themselves. 
Once we were back home, i went out for a couple hours with two friends from school; illegally driving around and eventually returning home. Mother asked me if i would make a card on this day for my aunt who has no children of her own. Since it would require minimal work, as opposed to none as John was accustomed; my brother huffed at the mere thought. As i attempted to covince John that it wasnt very hard, he contiuned to complain about how much he disfavors my aunt, (MA not KK), for yelling at him one time six years ago when John was nine years old fussing in walmart. He still uses the same tired excuse to avoid any family greetings, making me work five times harder to warm my relatives while he immaturely exits all conversation. Mother sympathized with John, borderline congratulated him for his martyrdom, yet still pleaded him to make a simple card for his aunt. I refuted him saying how hard i must work to make my family happy, while John ignores them all with the excuse of disgust and indignation for my aunt. Mother still shielded him from my realistic points by continuing to repeat his walmart martrydom. I eventually gave up and left the room quietly as mother attempted to explain to John how growing up and being mature sometimes means dealing with things or people you would rather not; solely for the purpose of politeness. He grimanced and continued back to his work. 
      I went up to my room and turned on the light, glancing out the window to see a big mulch pile dad had yet to finished despite promising mom to work on it in the next few weeks. It was the same promise parents make to their kids about clubhouses. They will 'build it tomarrow' until you accept the truth and stop asking about it one day. I found my pair of tweezers, a harmless object in a teenage girls room, and ran it sharply down the side of my thigh. Sharp enough to draw blood; and i stung severly. So i did it three more times until i smiled from the endorphins released from my glands to ease the pain. I could feel a pulsing blood rush in my thigh and it made me feel great. I had managed to escape my head, my thoughts for a few precious minutes and made every thought primal; simply concentrating on the pain dripping red on the side of me. I layed my hand over the injury and swiped it across, making a beautiful red wing shape on my thigh.
Happy mothers day.


The author's comments:
It is set in the present, yet the narrator speaks in an early 20th century/ Late 19th century voice.

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