the first and only short story ive ever written.

i wrote it in the morning. in march. in 2005. i wrote it for my creative writing class. it is first person fiction. (right?) i guess id use it if i ever got around to writing my memoir. (that no one would read.)

All The People You Knew Were The Actors.

What do you do when everything goes blank? Not clear, not black, just blank. Nothing. Everyday is a complete carbon copy of the previous. Carbon in that it is the same, just a little more faded and unreal each time it repeats. You known those carbon copy papers, where the top one is white, then the next one is yellow, and then it is pink or green? Or like restaurant receipts? You are supposed to press real hard when you fill in the blanks and sign your name on the bottom, that way it goes through all the way to the last page. This is how I have been living my life. One day, no not even, one moment of real good emotional stability and reality, followed by an endless amount of copies, each more faded and blank than the last. I am going blank, because it is getting harder and harder to make those moments copy all the way through all those pages.

People say mental illness is hereditary. I guess I should think it's weird that I am the only member of my family not taking anti-depressants.


When I was little I first discovered my oldest brother was crazy. But he is the good kind of crazy, like Einstein or Mozart or Nietzsche or someone spectacular like that. He used to not sleep for months at a time and instead would furiously work on drawings and paintings that no one was allowed to see. I have them up on my walls now. He’d put massive amounts of glue in his hair, I still don't know why. And he was only on the lithium for three years, so that's good.

I was thirteen when I began having panic attacks. They are related to the fact that I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. My family physician taught me breathing exercises and sent me on my way.

“What, no pills?” I asked my mom.
“Alison, not everyone needs to be medicated for their problems.”

Maybe I was just jealous that everyone got to take something but me. I felt like the social outcast in my family. I don't think that's too weird.



A few weeks ago I went completely numb. Really. In the last week or so my body has actually started tingling. If I stop and think too much I become aware of the fact that I cannot feel my hands, and that my thighs and shoulders feel like they have gone to sleep. But it is not like when your foot falls asleep and it gets all prickly and starts to hurt real bad, and then you know that feeling is going to return. It is like the very beginning, when you wake up in the middle of the night and you realize you’ve been sleeping on your arm. It is so numb that it’s a dead weight. Your brain panics. You're forced to lift it up and move it with your other arm. That’s the way my whole body feels. I wish there was someone who could lift me up.

Instead I walk around and smile and nod. I engage in full-fledged drunken political discussions about Terri Schiavo with my friends. Fifteen years as a vegetable. Is that a metaphor for where my life is headed? I tell funny stories and laugh real loud and for about a second I forget myself. But it’s like stretching a rubber band out, and it can’t go very far because it is too tight to begin with and it snaps back quickly and breaks. My eyes become sharp in the split second when I snap into my head again. I sometimes wonder if anyone notices.


Once, my mom told me that when my grandma was younger, about her early twenties, she had to be institutionalized. They did it again in her forties. Electro-shock therapy both times. I thought that was a bit barbaric. I never asked her about any of it and then she died. I was fifteen.


I was failing all my classes. I had been drinking, doing drugs, whatever. I had this weird sense that taking pills was a cure-all. I mean it sure worked for everyone else.

My mother kind of completely forgot about me and I became aware of this when she missed my birthday early that March. It was my Sweet Sixteen. People always told me I was a lot like my grandma and after she died, I think my mom couldn’t stand to be around me.


My dad thought I should go to Italy with him for the spring semester and entire summer. I had taken to only eating baby carrots and peanut butter. I did homework during lunch and right after school and then I would go driving on the freeways, speeding around to kill time because I could never look my friends in the eyes. On the surface I was calm and collected, refusing to acknowledge my own spiraling behavior. So I left.



“Do you think part of your going numb has to do with growing up and becoming an adult?” James asked me.
“Well yeah obviously,” the words escaped my lips before I knew what I was agreeing with.
“The thing is Alison, maybe you are just too self-aware for your own good.”
“That’s why I always say I am a masochist. Self-indulgence and being overtly aware can be very pain inflicting. Do you think they have a pill for that?”




I guess I just don’t want to be twenty years old. My other brother spent three years living in our basement after he graduated from college. He planned on dying. No one ever said that out loud though. I would come home from school or work senior year of high school and immediately make sure he hadn’t hung himself in the storage room where he kept all his old baseball cards. He couldn’t slit his wrists because he was only allowed an electric razor. The posters were peeling off the walls and it smelled like rolling tobacco. I would find him hiding on the side of the house smoking American Spirit menthols. I can't stand the smell, the taste of menthols.



I have been seeing my summer stretching out before me. Blank pages I cannot fill. And every night I have the same dream.







And then I wake up.
But it's not a dream.

this isnt a poem. and you shouldnt read it.

some pretty bright and bubbly terrible scene.

you walk out to the backyard. it’s a very warm, dry day. the dry heat is something you just haven’t quite gotten used to. your mother gave you a sipper of milk to take outside with you because your asthma acts up and the creaminess coats your throat and soothes better. you don’t know you have asthma, what you do know is that last year the smog sent you to the hospital many times. your baby lungs couldn’t handle the smog. so now as you go out to the backyard you carry your milk.
you walk over to the big tree in the left corner. to your right are the big rocks where you cracked your head open. you were only one and a half then, but now you’re big. you’re big like the rocks, but not big like the tree. not even your oldest brother is big like the tree. you remember falling off your brother’s shoulders because the other one was tickling you. you don’t remember hitting the rocks or all the blood. there are pictures of you in this pretty red dress with a big bandage around your head.
you get on the tire swing hanging from the tree. you kick your feet and get some momentum. it’s so hot and dry that the bit of shade the tree offers and the breeze you are creating by swinging both feel delicious. for a while you are merely five and swinging from the tire. the sun breaks over the innocence on your face.
then he walks up. you know you are supposed to like him, but you don’t. you hate him actually. you are told you love him, like you love the rest of your family, but you don’t. you don’t know why, but you know something is not right about him. your sister has tried to warn you, and told you to stay away from him. none of it makes sense to you though, all you know is the slow fear.
he comes over behind you and gives the tire a little push. it scares you and you almost drop your milk. a little splashes out of the no-spill sipper top onto your arm.
“where’s mommy?” you ask.
“her and grandma went to the store.” he replies.
thinking quickly you remember that your daddy is playing ball in the park with your brothers and your sister is at the neighbors. you tense up as you scan the yard. you look over to the fence dividing your yard from your neighbors. you wonder where everyone is and why it’s so quiet.
“oh.” is all you say. for the moment you try to just keep swinging.
“that’s a pretty red dress you’re wearing,” he says. he’s rubbing the sleeve between his fingers and you don’t like it, but you know better than to jerk away.
“thanks,” you murmur.
“it’s kind of hot. i think i’ll go inside,” you say.
you hop off the swing, but he’s right there, holding onto your wrist.
“let’s go into the garage,” he says. “it’s cooler in there.”
you follow him because you don’t know what else to do. you’re tired and it’s hot and there is no one else there. in the garage it’s musty and damp and the only light comes from a few high windows. the door is shut tightly. there is a sandy dust covering everything. little bits twirl and suspend in the few shafts of light breaking in. he leans back against your daddy’s tool shelf on the back wall. you navigate around the oil sheet laid down for mommy’s car. it is so quiet and still that you hope he doesn’t hear the way your heart pounds. the stuffiness makes you cough a little, so you take a sip of your milk. your eyes scan the room for some escape. this is when you first learn to retreat into yourself.
he unzips his pants and motions you forward. your little girl brain is scrambled and all you can do is cough again. you bring your sipper cup up to your mouth but in one quick motion he’s grabbed it from you and with his other hand he’s reached behind your head. his grip is soft, but firm.
you know struggle is worthless. he pulls you to him, and at six, your head is small and his hand is big; it fits around you. at six you are not tall, but you are tall enough. in fact, you are perfect height he’s said. you try to look down, away, at anything but that unzippered monster in front of you. there is lace on the front of your red dress and you focus on its intricacies.
he does not notice your avoiding eyes.
“can you do Grandpa this one little favor baby?” he speaks softly, and rubs your cheek.
you continue staring at the lace, each little flower your mother lovingly sewed on. Grandpa echoes in your head. you don’t want to get your dress dirty in the garage and that scares you most.
“come on baby,” he says as he tilts your head back.
you open your mouth because you know that is what he wants. it’s bigger than you remember and you think how he is as big as the tree. you are scared you will choke, especially because you have been coughing and the heat and the musty and the dry and the stuffy. but you do it anyway. because you are six and don’t know what else to do.
you’re about to close your eyes.
at the time you do not know the whirlwind that is about to begin. that this may be the one moment in your life that will change and affect everything after. you have no idea what your father will end up doing. you don’t know the christmases that will be spent away from the sunshine. you don’t know about therapy, addictions, panic and love. you never knew you would grow so good at keeping secrets.

it sits in your mouth hard, but soft. he tells you to be careful of your baby teeth. to wrap your lips over them and him. his directions are unnecessary, as you’ve been here before. it smells, but not bad. he smells too, a mix of cologne and sweat. that sweet smell will always spark your memory.
at one point, in a goodwill, as you walk by the racks of old man suits, the smell of what?, Grandpa’s cologne?, hits your senses so hard, you don’t know how you could have ever forgotten.
you have flashed back to that summer day. that day that was so hot. and you spilt your milk on your red dress. you still own the dress. for years you insisted to your mother that you keep it, though you soon forgot why, and she would never remind you. it hangs in the back of your closet with a few other baby clothes. it’s a silent reminder of something you still swear you’ve mostly forgotten. when it does come up you tell others you have a photographic memory. all you see is this one moment. when you flip back to this scene, this day, you see only a snapshot.
your sister illuminated by shafts of setting sunlight. you don’t remember if she yelled your name or his or what happened next.
your sister in the doorway illuminated by shafts of setting sunlight.

he jerks back and it falls out of your mouth. you realize you’ve been choking and crying and you begin dry heaving.