Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Light and Dark (05/21/09)
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TITLE: Little Dark Corner | Previous Challenge Entry
By Rachel Barclay
05/26/09 -
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I wake to my sister's building scream.
Night after night.
'The straw man's coming to get me,' her terrorised voice explains to Mum.
'Go back to sleep. It's over now.'
A small cuddle and the house is dark and quiet again.
The darkness crept into my soul, mingling with the fear reflected in Carinne's disturbed sleep.
My eyes are heavy from the deep sleep I had been jolted out of. It's not long till I'm back in a barely conscious world, a world beyond my control that has too much resemblance of reality.
The dark fear has spiralled from within my sould to my heart, my mind, my sweat drenched body.
It's punishment time. Mum lines us up at the sink. Carinne has to go first. She's always first. I want to go in her place. I'm too scared to, and too scared not to. I'm too slow to make the choice. I can't bear her wrenching screams, which lead in to my turn.
Fear mounts as a tidal wave ready to swallow me from the inside. Mum forces my hands over the sink and lights a match.
She begins to burn off my fingernails, one by one.
I'm not even sure if I wake before or after the burning begins.
I lay in that darkness, no inkling of light, resisting my heavy breaths. Silent tears dampen my hair. An aching lump silences my strained breaths. I don't dare move.
There is no fear releasing screams from my lungs. I must hold it in. No one can know this evil I have created about my Mum. Guilt now permeates its way through the fear in my body.
Jesus, please help me. Please forgive me. I'm so sorry. Please stop me being scared. Please take my dreams away. I pray relentlessly.
Sleep in this darkness is only to be avoided. My young body has never understood rest, only submission to exhaustion.
In morning light, I'm busy readying for school. Night time fears are paled with some sense of reality. Mum doesn't understand my silent barrier. Guilt forces the dream memory further into a little dark corner in my soul.
It waits there. Waiting to be revealed,understood. Jesus knows the right time to reveal the truth to me. Some time, in the dawning of adulthood.
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