Wings of Black and Blue
By Jordan Carr
Hollowed out eye sockets and dirtied finger nails separated the seams of reality and fiction as day turned into night, and night turned back into day. The constant pain from new wounds and old kept me awake for hours on end with longing thoughts of how the sun once shone brightly throughout the sky. With heavy eyes and cracked lips, I sat quietly, staring at the wall that never changed in front of me. Taken advantage of in my younger state, it was easy to lure me off my front yard. In my younger, less intelligent state, I was easy to manipulate and take as your own. I was only eight years old, a fanatic about butterflies and the color of their wings. You knew this, you knew this well. I remember it clearly now, it’s one of the only memories that I was allowed to keep of my past. You stood on the edge of my lawn, a clear jar in your hand, a film covering the opening tied with a rubber band.
Inside movement was about, the creature moving freely yet contained. It fought at the edges of the glass, trying its absolute hardest to break out. But of course, the glass was stronger, and the butterfly remained inside, its wings delicately patterned with splotches of blues and blacks, intertwining lines that crossed over each other and back again. Symmetrically beautiful, they held everything I wished to be as an immature child. It was something that caught my attention the moment I laid eyes on it. However, there was something darker there as well, it stood behind the butterfly, with dark eyes and a crooked smile that I couldn’t recognize. You, the dark and unknown figure stood tall over me but had the one thing that I so desperately thought I wanted.
I thought I was safe. The yard that I was standing on was only feet away from the door of my home with my mother and father inside finishing up the hard day’s work. You told me I could look at the creature you held so softly. You told me that I could hold the jar and even take it home with me. You said I could have as many butterflies as I wanted as you picked me up quickly without a second thought. You lifted me straight over your shoulder and placed a rag that was previously unseen to my eyes over my mouth so I couldn’t scream, and just like that, I was gone. Gone from my previous life, gone from my home, never to see it again.
And as I sit here now, I try to remember the better times, the bright and sunny times from when I could still walk in my home to see my mother standing over the counter, writing the last few comments on her work, my father making dinner in the kitchen and the warmth that escalated from a stable environment. I try to remember those times in a happy light, but all that comes back is a grey and lifeless motion of disappointment. My life is here now, and the sooner that I accepted that the better in turn, my life would be. You locked me in his cage of a room with no way of getting out. You left me in here alone with my thoughts and no purpose.
Now all I can do is listen to the sound of the creaking floorboards above my head, thinking about how once you picked me up, you let the jar fall, the glass shattering into pieces and let the blue and black butterfly gracefully fly away. As I think about it now, I can clearly see that we, in turn, traded spots. The butterfly got my freedom and I got locked in the glass cage that has walls all too thick for me to break out of. Now the door stays locked and I stay inside, filled with resentment for my past choices and how much I wish I could change them. However, I quickly learned that even all of that wasn’t enough satisfaction for you; you needed more.
So you brought them here, the replacements. The other girls that sat helplessly in the separate corners of the room, tied with rope and stuck in one place. They were here only for a short time, a few days at most before you got bored with them. You would sigh while looking at them, then leave. I knew what that meant and envied that they were getting released when I had been here the longest. You said I was special, that I should be happy that you loved me the most, but I knew that all you spat were lies. The horrors you made me witness were stained into my brain, never to be forgotten as a sign of an appreciation that I was still alive. You would come in, the new girl in the corner softly crying, inching away from you, trying to get away from you; but it was no use.
You would take her by the hair, slam her face down onto the cement and watch as the blood started to flow from her now broken nose. She would scream out in complete agony but you wouldn’t stop, you would only push further. Taking the knife you concealed in the waist band of your pants, you would bring it down hard into her shoulder, tearing through the skin, ripping into the muscles until you couldn’t push the knife down any further. The crimson liquid that escaped the newly broken skin would run over her rags that were her clothes and onto the dirtied floor. Her screams would echo through the darkened room, the pain clearly emulating from the fresh wounds that you inflicted. You would stab her over and over again until you couldn’t find another space on her torso to stab yet somehow she was still breathing. This kept you interested, you liked when they fought for their lives. You would run your hand down her face, wiping the blood she spat up from her mouth that ran down onto her chin, smearing it into a bigger mess than what it had been before.
Her eyes would be glossed over with all the things she couldn’t say but wanted to, as she stared up at the ceiling that never changed as the pain over took her body. Unclear tears would silently stream down her face as her eyes began to pop out of her head, her face turning a slight shade of blue from the constricting force you started to put on her neck. Blood vessels breaking, a large bruise began to form.
As you wrap your hands around her neck tighter, she grew weaker and weaker. She struggled to get a breath out, her body twisting this way and that to try to break free, fighting to stay alive. It’s then that something happens I felt like only I notice after watching this happen to many girls before her. Her body shook, before going completely still and you released your hands from her bruised neck. Her head fell to the side and her eyes remain open as her dead gaze fell onto me. The eyes are said to be the windows to the soul, but all I saw was a blank wall cascaded in the last look she would ever make overshadowed by a look of hysteria.
Her soul was released; it was able to escape, but mine, it still remains here. I think she was about ten maybe, a little smaller than your usual, but still effective in your eyes. I was about thirteen now and I had learned that crying wouldn’t save me so it’s useless to do. As her body remained still, you walked over to me and you asked,
“Did you enjoy the show?” A crooked smile plastered on your face, you take my hand. I stand as you take me to the body. You stood in front of me and asked me to pick up the knife that remained lodged in her stomach. I didn’t question you. I knew you wanted me to feel a part of your fantasy, I knew you thought you had broken me down enough where I would remain loyal to you. But the thing is, we all go a little mad sometimes, and in this moment, I wanted to show you what I had learned from the days of watching you torture innocent girls.
With the knife now in hand, you asked me to give it to you. I took a step, and then another. Your eyes lit up watching the way that I moved; your face being something I’ll never forget. In one quick move, the blade moved across your neck and through the skin. The slit was wide and deep as your tensions clearly showed through the wound. Your hands reached up to the slit, your eyes wide with something you’ve never experienced before, but it’s too late. The blood pooled at the bottom of your feet as you fell to the floor. Your eyes, plastered with fear, stared motionless at me. Now two dead bodies lay in front of me. My vision suddenly grew hazy. The door to the room is still sealed, the lock a letter code that could be anything in the world, and the only way of opening it, now laid dead on the floor. My chance of escaping now completely gone. However, for some reason, I felt the freest I have ever felt. I sat in the corner of my cell, and shut my eyes, wings of blue and black filling my head.
I turn the blade in my hands over and over again. I think of my parents, my home and the yard that I once felt so safe in. You took my feeling of security away so in return I took the only thing you seemed to value, your life. Now, with the little control that I had left, I was going to decide my own fate. I could wait here for someone that was never coming, or take the initiative. In two slight movements and a small sting, blood pools out around my wrists. I sit there, my back against the wall as I shift from reality to another world with cloudy vision. I am suddenly surrounded by warmth as I see the one thing I aspired to be coming true. I feel myself leave my body and the world smudges into a scene of black and blue.