Exceptional Enemy or friend? Age 12 Ghost : Time by Lea Tonin1 Nonfiction Writing Contest contest entry

Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of violence. Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of language. Someone brought a bottle of champagne. That same someone popped the cork on that bottle and the deluge of my life came bursting through.   Like a wheel that turns, with each revolution, the turns get faster. I know that pen to paper has caused the specters of the past to linger looking for a crack in my shield. But there is no help for it now, there is only my PC and it's calling...   ***************************** One thing about living in a small island community is that in early fall thick blankets of fog would roll in. So thick you couldn't see your hand in front of your face! I wanted a few things about living and isolated community that gave me peace. I loved it.  It was my place to disappear. In the fog, I always knew my way to the plum trees.  Sweet purple plums ripe on the branch. I could eat as many as I wanted in complete anonymity.  I would pretend I was the invisible woman who stealthed around looking for bad guys. Such was my imagination.  Of course, the fog would dissipate.  Much too soon for my liking, reality always came barreling back.  Despair and the beginnings of severe depression had encroached upon me took and over my emotions.  Feelings, when unexpressed, have to go somewhere and often times it's to the mood center which creates what is worse than sadness. Worse than the normal feeling you would have if a loved one had past away.  It has no rhyme or reason. It is a deep, dark hole that I couldn't climb out of.  I was hanging on by a fingernail for dear life.  What I faced was myself. I saw no happy ending, I saw no resolution. I saw no retribution or a way out. For a couple of years, I lived without caring what happened to me. I took reckless chances and in those chances, any one of them should have killed me. A man in a dirty car rolled up beside me and my friend. He asked us if we wanted some pop bottles. I had no thought at that time and walked right towards him when my friend yelled out, "Run!", just as he was attempting to grab me.  My friend was horrified.  Even more horrified by my lack of response, my lack of emotion and my lack of reaction. But I ran along beside her as if to say "What? What's going on?" The man squealed off very fast in his car. Finally, it clicked and dawned on me that this man could very well have done bad things and ended our lives. There was no need for me to puzzle out why I reacted this way. I knew the why of it. We went to my house and explained the incident to my parents. Unsurprisingly enough, they did nothing. My friend went home to her parents who made every move right to protect their child.   I remember I used to walk to this other man's place simply at an invitation.  Underneath the overpass of the bridge, there was was an old cement building which had dilapidated apartments and in there were piles and piles of trash. Hanging by a rope in the middle of the room was a pair of pink underwear. It didn't occur to me to think that it was weird or rung  any warning bells in my head.  Instead, I offered to help him clean up. I was aware of other children in the room.  2 or 3 of them if I remember correctly, poking through boxes just as I was. Eventually, I stopped going there. Not because of anything that made me feel weird. I stopped because I just didn't care. I have other memories...one in particular of a man who pulled me into a hedge and kept me there for I don't know how long. He kept kissing me and I was grossed out by the amount of saliva on my face.  I found a way to sneak away from this person. Again, I left because it was gross and not because of any fear I might have had or any instinct for self-preservation. Reckless...except for fear, anger and sadness and I was emotionally dead...as well as very reckless. I dragged myself through every day. Trudging along as if each step meant nothing as if each movement was only a tumbleweedin the wind. No one took notice of the girl with the lost look on her face. Causing premature wrinkles around her young haunted eyes. From the slowly moving pavement going past my shuffling feet I realized the sadness and desperation had abated and turned into something else. Something familiar. Something that made me stronger...anger. Once again my mind and heart filled with rage. The hurt, frustration and fury propped me up free of obstructruction.  That stubbornness. that certain something that kept saying, "Fuck you!!" made me care about myself once again.  Made me want to know who's in my life and who's leaving it! I push pulled and dragged myself back on my feet to fight once more.   Be damned the consequences! ***************************** I looked up from my PC and realized my face was wet.  Not sad tears really, but tears of relief. The cork screw loose so I might breath.....at last.     Author Notes The story is part of a book an auto bio called "Ghost" . It is a work in progress not yet complete. But can my portfolio feel free to read if you wish, thank you for stopping in! ***Picture by Instagram***

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