Tag: trauma

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My Dad Died

This post is not entirely freeform, but it mostly is.. it follows real events nearly directly.. some parts are written immediately after they happened, some days later.

Either way.. it is incredibly personal and probably not worth much to anyone else.. but I have to express myself.

I just got a new phone, and my contacts didn’t sync, so I have to fix them manually. There’s one contact I don’t have to fix, a phone number that is meaningless, an address that doesn’t go anywhere for me, a birthday that’s .. well, I can’t give him presents anymore. There’s a hole in my heart where my dad used to be.

For me, death seems to come at me in waves. My first reaction is denial, mild shock and pain, or focused entirely on the practical: Where’s my dad’s dog, Wally? Then, the pain becomes severe. After some crying (sometimes mixed with more denial), I seem fine for a while, before a reminder sets the cycle off again.

I had a dream with my dad in it recently. As I write this, I don’t remember it at all, but I do remember feeling a mix of pain and comfort from it. Pain at the reality, comfort in.. well I’m not quite sure how to say it, but it offers some closure.

Standing in his house, it hits me again. I needed a rag to dust something off, and since I didn’t immediately know where one was, I decided to use one of his socks. He wasn’t around to be annoyed by it after all. I realized that there was probably the last pair of clothes he wore and took off when everything was fine just sitting in the laundry hamper. He was so preoccupied with making sure laundry was done that he almost never did a full load of laundry, so a hamper having more than a handful of clothes would be an oddity. There was exactly one set of clothes – except for jeans. The shirt was on top, and was one I’d given him a few years ago.

It was the last thing he wore when things were normal. Whatever he wore the next day was taken off in an ER. He had a stroke. It was small enough that he wasn’t even unaware of what was going on, he gathered a few things while waiting for the ambulance and called his best friend to come meet him to take the keys to his place and take care of Wally for him.

There was also his electric razor, plugged in to charge, because he’d need it in the next few days.. until he didn’t.

In the hospital, he was recovering well. He was set to go to his friend’s place for a week to get him back on his feet before returning home. Early in the morning on the day before this, he had another stroke, this one unrecoverable. Effectively, my dad died right then, but without immediate contact or direction about his wishes in this circumstance, a surgery was performed, and he was placed in ICU on life support.

When his friend found out, he arranged for them to cut life support during the next NASCAR race, as my dad was a big fan, and this seemed the most fitting way to say goodbye. They put it on the TV in his room, pulled the plug, and ten minutes later, his heart stopped.

I wasn’t anywhere near this, but it was the right decision. See, I’ve been having a long standing issue with T-Mobile. Because of their unreliability, I didn’t learn of any of this until it was all over, two weeks after it was over, through a partner being called by a sheriff who couldn’t call me directly despite having my number.

I’m sad I couldn’t have been there, or helped, but other than that, this was one of best ways I could imagine my dad’s death. While it certainly sucks to spend your last two weeks in a hospital room, he had his best friend visiting and was on the path to recovery. There was no indication of his demise, there was no suffering. It was a scary moment, and he getting back to normal life. The second stroke came with such veracity and suddenness that he did not suffer.

Most stories end with death. This one doesn’t, but what happened next is still too painful for me to express.

I don’t have a biological family anymore.

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The Death of Me (Fiction)

(This post has been imported from an old blog of mine. Warning: Contains graphic descriptions.)

Somewhere in the distance I see her eyes, glowing green in the darkness. “Tes!” I call out for her, but she is already gone. I stand in the swirling black, watching the pine trees around me sway in the winds.

The world slowly rips apart, brightening and darkening in an erratic fashion. I know what is going to happen next, it happens the same way every time. A glowing white doorway opens in front of me.

I reach out, silently asking for help. A shadow comes to the doorway from the other side. Their eyes briefly show in clarity, an extremely pale blue. Then everything starts to fade, and the shadow’s eyes turn red.

I fall to the floor, and feel the stab wounds on my back. I reach for the doorway, seeing light reflect off of my hand. My hand is wet. With my other hand, I feel for where my guts were a moment ago.

I try to ask for help, but my throat only lets out the sound of a weak gargle. I taste bitter salt, my own blood and bile rising up. I feel ice water dashed across the back of my head, my face slams into the ground. It is concrete.

The cinder-block slides off of the back of my head. I wonder how I can withstand this much pain, and die.

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Feathers (Fiction)

(This post has been imported from an old blog of mine.)

I opened the door to my room, entered, threw my backpack on the floor, kicked the door shut, and fell to my bed. I lay face-down for a minute, thinking about how my day went, wondering if the school had called my parents yet for ditching half my classes again.

They hadn’t said anything to me when I came in, but that really didn’t mean anything. They were probably too mad to say anything to me about it. I’d really hear it from them later though, I knew that for sure.

I got up again, feeling the slight rush of fresh air after being buried in a pillow. I looked down at my bed, at the small feather laying there. At first I wasn’t sure how to react. Some times were good, some bad.

I started looking around my room, to see if anything was missing or out of place. I had cleaned up pretty well, so this had to mean someone had been in here. I double-checked the window, there was no way some random bird had gotten in.

The last time had only been earlier today, what was this for? Did someone come in here while I was being distracted? Or were they coming after me again this evening? Was it from my friends, or from those who tried to kill my friends?

I thought they didn’t know me – or at least if they did, they had left me alone. I hadn’t done anything to them. I barely knew they existed. It was only when- I stopped myself, shuddering at the thought. No one should die that way.

I was knocked out of my thoughts by the window breaking and a large stone flying into the side of my head. Everything went blurry, and for a moment I didn’t know who I was or what I was. I felt dizzy.. Had ice water been thrown down the side of my face?

I managed to stand up after a minute, and backed into the door to my room. I stumbled to the side and pulled it open. I made it down the hallway and into the bathroom. The mirror showed blood streaming down my face, staining my shirt.

Then everything went black.

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Restless (Fiction)

(This post has been imported from an old blog of mine.)

A heavy cloud layer, lightning and thunder, the pitter-patter of rain. It was a dark and stormy night. A summer storm though, it wasn’t that cold, I lay down with nothing more than a sheet half on.

A small red pinprick of light comes from my left eye, or should I say, where my eye used to be. The other is closed, I am trying to go to sleep.

I used to be scared of the dark. Lightning flashes, showing off the jagged scar across my right cheek. It looks fresh, but is nearly a year old. Thunder booms. Not anymore.

More quick flashes, my back has claw marks raking down either side. These look fresh as well, but are just as old. Blood doesn’t seep from them anymore, but they look like they should. Thunder booms. I’ve learned there are things much worse to be afraid of.

I am always trying to sleep, but I never get there. It’s strange, if you’d asked me ten years ago if having part of your brain replaced with technology, if that part was still you, if you were still the same person, I would’ve said no. Stranger still is the feeling of having a part of you that is not you, but still is you.

It was five years ago when that happened, a bomb, gunfire, who knows what, something blew away a chunk of my head. I was lucky they’d said, they had been able to repair the damage, replace the section that wouldn’t grow back, including an eye.

I don’t remember much of what happened while I was in the hospital. When I finally remembered who I was before, I couldn’t recall what it had been like to not know. Going to bed that first night had been strange. I feel asleep, but a piece of me was still aware. I felt almost like I hadn’t fallen asleep until I woke up, I could remember staring off into space with one eye all night, but at the same time I felt well rested.

The next night I’d dreamed. I could remember the dreams with startling clarity, I still remember them. Half of me isn’t me but is me, and I’m always awake. That’s why I’m always trying to go to sleep, and never quite make it. Sometimes I want to bash out the electronic eye, sometimes I want to bash out the whole thing. Most of the time it was comforting to be able to wake myself up in an instant if there was danger.

Until a year ago, when I got those scars. Now it’s sleep I fear. Normally it can’t be seen, but tonight the flashes light it up for anyone watching. Blood begins to leak from my back, from my face, spiraling in crazy patterns and slowly crawling over my body until it is covered in black ichor.

The organic part of me is gone, replaced by something else, but I still see for a moment longer as I am lifted from the pillow by a body that is not mine. The blood flows over my eye, but I still hear. I don’t know why they included a microphone, my ear was still there, worked better than new after their surgery. I’m still not sure if I’m thankful for that or not.

Because I hear screams.

So if you’re wondering where that came from, the night before last when I was trying to go to sleep, I imagined myself with strange scars and a robotic left eye trying to sleep, thinking about how the technological part is always awake, imaging through flashes of lightning you see black blood running out of the wounds.

I saw this scene as an ad for a movie, and wrote it that way when I thought to write it down yesterday at lunch over the course of about half an hour. Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed, especially the last line, my favorite. Originally was gonna be titled “I Hear Screams” but that would’ve given away the whole point of the story.

I’m looking for feedback on this one, because I have no idea where to go with it from here, and I do want to go somewhere with it. So please, any and all comments, questions, suggestions, complaints, rambles, general nonsense welcome.

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Nathaniel’s Ground

I believe this may have been written shortly after I first played The Great Machine: A Fragment, based on how it is written. I would highly recommend playing that game before reading this. They are only loosely thematically related, but that game is.. to put it simply, one of the best games I’ve ever played.

An hour ago, the forest had been full of birds twittering and creatures rustling through the undergrowth. Now it was deathly silent, the only movement the wind and a small group of humans down a small path.

An hour later, they encounter a huge rusty wheel, the curved blades of it slowly moving the air. A giant fan. It slowly turns in front of them, dangerous to pass through, but moving slowly enough you could make it.

They want to go around it, as there is a weak sense of evil about it. Unfortunately, the fan is walled in, leaving them no choice than to pass through. At least the land beyond the fan was normal, a regular continuation of the forest.

As they pass through, pain greets the young adventurers, and the true nature of the land beyond is revealed. Twisted bodies of the humans that had come before line the path. Blood and gore make up the landscape. Carnage stretches to the horizon.

There is the sweet smell of cherries, disturbingly fresh, not the smell of decaying mass as it should be. Perhaps the scariest part, the half-destroyed and maimed bodies beneath, they are moving, not dead, not alive.

The adventurers now walk across the pool of bodies, but they slowly fall away from their duty, and ache to join the damned below. Their clothes are ripped off, their flesh is shredded, they join their new brothers.

This little story of doom was generated from a script I wrote that takes a list of ~240 words and randomly chooses ten, which I then turn into a coherent sentence with my twisted mind: Nathaniel’s dreaded ground filled with carnage and ether, past his fan.