My only defense was to write down every word they said. It helped me keep note of what was going on at the time. 'm very bad at remembering, although I didn't use to be. But now, with everything that's happened...I suppose it's true what they say and life eventually takes its toll on you. I wrote every thing down, not just the words. I made scribbles of the actions of my captors, of their looks. I became very good at watching. I watched people and the little birds that came to my window.
It was a barred window and they couldn't get in, but still, I watched them through the spaces. Birds have ]very interesting eyes, very alive. Which was reassuring in a way, because my captors did not. When they looked at me, they were...I would say inhumane, but that would be in...What's the word? It would contrast with what I just said about birds. Their eyes were not inhumane, they were simply dead. At least, they died when they saw me. I suppose they came back to life when they went home and saw their wives, picked up their babies.
But I don't like to think about that.
I don't want to imagine the lives of my captors, not even horrible scenarios. Especially not those, come to think of it. They remind me too much.
Of the other.
The life I had before I was here, before I...how do I tell you what happened to me? How I came to be a prisoner?
Would you like to know?
It all began one spring day.
Eloise was my half-sister, but everyone thought she was my cousin. Maybe because we were nothing alike, not in looks at least. I'm dark. Or at least I was, although I suppose I've become much darker. Life in darkness and all that. She was light, my Eloise. She was my light. I didn't meet my little half-sister until I was thirteen. By then, it was far too late for any 'familial' bonds between us. Despite knowing that she was my sister, of sorts, from the first second I saw her, I couldn't care less.
The spring sun blew like a halo around her blonde, honey hair. She wasn't a saint. It wasn't that type of halo, but she was beautiful. More than beautiful, perhaps. She was the sweetest sight in the world.
My parents told me I was a most tormented young man. I suppose that it all made sense, later. Afterward.
He was always like that.
But he wasn't, you see. Eloise made him be like that. Made me what I am today. I fell in love with her in that split second and I could imagine thousands of futures, and they were all about holding her in my arms. I didn't want anything else. I didn't need anyone else.
I began writing to her. It's funny, she's the one who got me into writing. I always hated it before Eloise. But for her, I wrote letters, novels, poems. All for her.
Why didn't she care? Why did she think I was...I was...
The last time they saw a movie of Eloise, her parents cried. My father. I was in the room with them, because...well, I hadn't turned myself in, at that point. To be honest, I knew they'd do that. I knew they'd want to see their little girl alive, one more time.
I wanted to see her, too.
Alive. Breathing. Shining. Heart Beating.
Fighting.
Clawing.
Breathing.
Then not breathing.
Screaming, screaming, screaming in my mind. For days afterward.
I couldn't live without my little Eloise, I loved her too much. She was my angel, my everything. And how could you live without that? Because if you don't have everything, it stands to reason that you have nothing.
So rather than living and knowing that she didn't want me, I thought it best she didn't live at all. Because I was meant for her. For my Eloise. I was her everything, too, but she was in denial. She could be such a child sometimes.
One night – before – she took all my letters, all my precious notebooks, every word I had ever written for her, and she threw them all in her backyard. She knew I was watching. Then she came down and lit them all, on a huge pyre of my love. I could never love my little Eloise quite the same after that.
Or I did, but I was very mad at her.
It is almost sundown. My captors will be here with my food, soon.
I love you.
I am yours forever.
Weekend freewrite, part of @mariannewest's freewriting challenge. You can find more about it here.
Thank you for reading,
