---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “Embracing Shadows” Down in the Dirt, v146 (the June 2017 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the issue book Random Thoughts the Down in the Dirt July-Dec. 2016 collection book		get the 418 page May-August 2017 Down in the Dirt issue anthology 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Chain

Scott “Allan” Terrier

    Not to play the victim, but I was an innocent sixteen-year-old trying to use the toilet, when my older sister attacked me with a knife. With my room in the middle of the hall, I always had to go past the guest, um, her restroom at the end of the house to get to the one in my brother’s room across the way. Then the day came when big bro locked his door. I had to go like no one’s business, so I used the loo closest to me.
    Then I heard her yell from the other side, “I’ll slice you up if you don’t get out now!”
    She hammered at the door. My sister stabbed at the opening near the floor with a blade. She kept shaking the knob—making everything rattle—especially the mirror. I was scared for my life. Trapped in a nightmare with a crazy person. The lock wouldn’t hold for long. When I did open the door, she lunged for me. I somehow caught her arm and twisted it down. She pricked herself in the leg with the knife. My sister curled onto the floor like an infant and cried. There wasn’t even blood. As she wailed like a baby with her reptilian tears, I left the house and took a drive to clear my mind.
    The nice sounding officer who phoned me asked politely if I’d come to the station and make a statement about what had happened. Instead, I was interrogated. “You viciously stabbed your own sister,” an officer yelled.
    I thought maybe his partner would be “good cop.” Rather he played the part of the hardboiled investigator. At the table, the cop shone a light into my face demanding I tell the truth. The officers must’ve thought we were in a TV show, so dramatic. “You went at your own flesh and blood with the knife,” one shouted. “Didn’t you?”
    “We should lock you up and throw away the key,” the other added. Due to the cheesiness of his choice words, I was forced to hide an anxious grin. Then I explained what had happened a dozen times, a number of different ways so they’d understand. My sister’s version was she had no weapon. Instead, Miss Sweet Innocent Angel had been calmly frolicking by—whistling to herself, and I, after lurking in the shadows, jumped out from the bowels of hell hidden within the lavatory’s dark, dank, decayed crevices to plunge my illegal-sized knife into her, scraping the double-edged steel against her fragile bones. Scarring her for life. Truth was she cut herself with a larger knife after I had left.
    “Arrest him,” she had exclaimed.
    Apparently, a malicious animal I was—when my harmless sister accidently miss-stepped into my path—and for no reason the monster that was I—yes, without cause—attacked.
    But I had facts on my side along with the real knife she had charged at me within a baggy. I mentioned, “She’d twirl the blade into her mattress for hours while reading Clive Barker books.” Explained her imagination.
    After giving details about how my grown up sister would harass me to no end and laying out what really happened a few more times, they believed me. Mr. Hardboiled Investigator with his light even asked if I ever got to finish my business in the restroom.
    Then my sister’s version of the truth went from she had no knife, but did instigate a fight, to it was a plastic knife—harmless—they showed her, her knife—she admitted the truth. The fuzz asked me if I wanted to press charges. “No,” I said. “She did a lot of cruel stuff. Still she was family.”
    Our mother had abandoned us in the house. She lived somewhere else with her second husband. Mom would come by once in a blue moon to make sure the pets hadn’t starved to death. We weren’t so lucky. I had to find a job at fifteen as a clerk to feed myself and help pay the utilities while our mom collected child support checks and spent them on random crap. When she’d moved out of the house a few years back, she stopped paying the homeowner. He was nice enough not to throw us out. The place was infested with gnats, however. Meanwhile, our father had his new family in the suburbs. My brother, sister, and I had each other.
    I wasn’t totally innocent either. I’d argue back with my sister often. Somehow I got the fighting to stop the day of the stabbing. We got along from there. Though years later, people believed she was the meanest to me, I’d disagree. My siblings and I had moved. Started our own lives. My sister had a roommate—a nice guy around her age, who had AIDS. She’d drink and harass him.
    No idea why her roommate put up with her. He’d call us to come get her when she was wasted so she could cool off. He would have us promise to bring her back safe and sober. I heard her tell him many times, “I hope the AIDS kills you slowly.”
    Her roommate would appear unaffected, wait for her to come home, and he’d help her. They attended AA meetings. She’d fume frustration, tell him off and repeat her vile line, and he’d understand her feelings somehow. The two remained dear friends.
    Then he died.
    Didn’t matter she was by his side—she got clean—or how they were chummy in the end, not to her. My sister never forgave herself for what she had said to him. She could never take back her words.
    We believed she went to AA and helped people from then on. We believed she started going to therapy. We believed she was sober.
    No. There were no meetings after her roommate died—no therapy. She’d hide vodka next to the overflow tube to her toilet along with cocaine. My sister would drink and snort away her sorrows. She was squatting next door to her drug dealer when we found her.
    As messed up as it may sound, I took her in. Let her live with me on the condition she got sober and went to meetings.
    My sister fooled me for two years.
    One day she drove into a parked car. She rammed what was left of her vehicle into the brick wall of the apartment below mine. The manager of the property had her arrested and evicted.
    Stupidly so, I bailed her out of jail. I wanted to believe my sister would get better.
    Instead, she decided to go partying “one last time” at a friend’s house, Fourth of July, 2008. She must’ve had a blast—the time of her life. They found her body on the kitchen floor—bottle of vodka in hand.
    “Alcohol poisoning,” the M.E. discovered.
    Sometimes, I remember her chanting at my bedroom door, “Nobody loves you. Everybody hates you,” until I shake the memory away. The words wound me deep, as I realized later who she was talking to. Her roommate had confided in me about a mental chain. He mentioned it would break if he let the bad conquered the good inside. So he always looked for the brightness in others. His words inspired a mantra out of me I call: Chain
    All I can do is live on. Rise above the pain. Not allow negativity to break: My chain.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...