If I walked this way I would reach the beach. But if I walked that way I would reach nowhere. Which path did I choose you ask? The answer is simple. I chose nowhere. And that's where I still am, nowhere. My body is, but my mind isn't. I like to pretend that it is and people always believe me but they never really know. I wonder what it would be like if they really knew what was going on. If they really knew what I saw was not them and what they saw was not really I. That when I looked at them, instead of seeing eyes and a nose I saw small squares of colour that make up the picture. Much like what a computer does to show us pictures. The squares on there own mean a lot more than what other people realise.
A lot of the time I feel like a capsule of sorts. Like a little mechanical
body that has to carry around a brain that lets me communicate and dance and
speak. My nerves are not really nerves at all but a series of electrical wires
and cables that let me function in a human world. My blood is not really blood
but only a red sort of dye that makes me appear more human. I can cut myself and
not feel it. I can hurt myself and not care but when I do this I also hurt
others. And the others always care and try to help me. The only to do that
though is to feed me a small white pill everyday.
It used to have writing on it, but now that writing has gone. I wonder where it
has gone. I think it probably realised that it could do a lot more with its life
and decided to make a go at things. I hope it's well. I liked that writing and I
would hate for it to get hurt out there. The box that the pills come in has also
changed. It used to be purple and blue, two of my favourite colours but now it's
yellow and green. The green and yellow don't get along very well. Sometimes when
I go into the kitchen late at night I hear them bickering in the basket on the
fridge. I hear the other colours all complaining, and telling them to be quiet.
The green and yellow on that pillbox never listen to any of the other colours.
They will only listen to the pills themselves. The large red ones told them that
if they didn't be quiet soon they would throw them out of the basket and on to
the floor when nobody would ever find them again. And soon all was quiet. They
all fell asleep almost instantly. Except one little pillbox that was crying.
When I peeked up at the basket on the fridge the crying stopped and I thought
nothing of it. But then as I stepped away I heard it crying again. I pulled the
basket down and placed it carefully on the bench and one by one I pulled the
little boxes out and placed them on the floor. "Ow!" they cried when I
squeezed them too hard and one little English box had the courtesy to say
"Thankyou good madam. I was getting awfully squished down there". When
I came to one very small pillbox at the bottom of the basket I knew that it was
the one that had been crying. "What's wrong little pillbox?" I asked
as I picked it up. Silence. "Little pillbox?" Silence. I put my ear to
the pillbox and listened for a heartbeat. I heard nothing and panicked. I
clutched the little pillbox to my chest and ran crying to my Mum's room.
"Mum!? Mum!? The pillbox died!" I screamed as I ran over to her. She
suddenly sat straight up in bed and looked at me with a bewildered look.
"Well don't just sit there do something!" I cried and carefully placed
the pillbox on her lap. Mum looked at me longer then picked up the pillbox and
carefully placed it in the top drawer of her bedside table. I looked at
her with a shocked look on my face "What are you doing!?" I screamed
once again. But all she did was watch me like I had just asked her to fly me
into outer space. I looked down at the floor slowly, avoiding her eyes.
"I've done it again, haven't I?" I raised my eyes slowly to meet hers
then all she did was nod slowly. Once again my mind had taken off without me.
And there was nothing I could do about it so I slowly waddled back to my room.
That was just one episode in my life. I have had many more like that one but thankfully no one has found it necessary to lock me away. In fact there are only a few people who know I act like this. My Mum knows, of course, because she usually gets faced with the brunt of my craziness, and my Dad knows because, well, I don't really know why he knows but I guess it's because I'm his daughter. He doesn't know that I talk to pillboxes though. I don't want him to think I'm totally crazy after all.
I feel trapped, trapped in my little mechanical body like my rat in it's tank. And I'd like to sleep, like my lizard in its tank. So many tanks, so many small animals that I keep. Perhaps I too am a small animal in a tank but I fail to realise it. I often find myself glaring up at the stars wondering if I too could one day be one of those beautiful twinkling lights caught in a dark blue mesh. But then he tells me that I can't be and I stop wondering, until the next time that I am outside at night. One night I saw a bright orange faery fly through the mesh, parting it with her huge wings. Then I tried to fly. I stood at the edge and stared down for a few moments before I did anything though. I had to be sure that my tattered faery wings would not fail me this time. Again I looked at the water below me and knew that they would work. My faery wings would not fail me this time. Again I looked at the water below me and then stepped over the white edge and eased myself in. It was warm and smelt like lavender. The mirrors all around me reflected my pale face and my tattered wings and I thought for a moment that if I really tried I could catch myself in one of those mirrors. Forever repeating myself, like when there are two mirrors opposite one another. Then I realised that I had been distracted and I slowly laid back into the water. When I put my faery wings under the water I felt a slight tingling and immediately knew something was wrong. I looked into the mirror and saw that my faery wings were gone. They had failed me. I had no wings to fly with now, destined to walk the Earth forever instead of flying to meet the stars in a blissful embrace. I am insignificant without my wings and my story ends now. Maybe one day I could meet you in the stars. I leave you to make of me what you will.