| The Fear Cecelia McSweeney |
We like this story because:
like liquorice and marmalade in the same sandwich. |
And so I fell down the chimney. It hurt alright but not as much as if I hadn’t. I realise that now I sound crazy. I don’t mind at times sounding crazy but to make sense I feel it might be better if I started telling my story at the start rather than the middle. I guess you could say it all started many years ago with my birth but I wouldn’t. It would take far too long for me to tell you my whole story. I had always been kind of strange, but it made me different. My name is Pippa Stollen. About three years ago I started to go crazy. I didn’t think it much myself but that was what they thought. I developed what I called the fear though it was more like a knowing. One day I was sitting in my room on my bed when I saw the walls moving. I was alone in the house but still I screamed. Sweat trickled down my forehead; I held my body close to me as I trembled. That day I was taken over by the fear. It inhabited me. I could not avoid it. I was constantly terrified of things closing in on me. I tried to tell my parents but they didn’t understand. The next thing, I started to fear my clothes were trying to suffocate me so I threw them all out and wore as little clothing as possible. My parents were concerned at this of course but they thought I was just going through a phase. All the while I still hated being inside as every so often my eyes would twitch and the walls would move. A while later I developed terrible headaches, I feared my brain was being compressed smaller and smaller. I stopped wearing the hats, which defined my character. A week later I realised that wasn’t enough, my head still hurt. I took a pair of scissors and chopped all my long blonde hair off. I was close to bald but my head felt better. The headaches stopped for a while, I was comforted though when they started again as I believed the pain was my brain moving back to its original size. I stretched my arms out wide as the pain came and smiled. Not much later did the walls start moving again. I stuck it only two more times. I was confused and angry and I wanted it to stop. I screamed as my bedroom walls moved closer, I ran to the garage and found the largest hammer. Through tears I yielded it and thrust its head into the wall. The house was empty. With my sore head and the CD player blaring I could not hear the damage or realise the consequences. I kept on hitting and hitting the wall until the cracks got larger and suddenly light fell through and I could feel a breeze. I made the hole bigger then stopped. I put my hands on my hips and smiled as out was in. I felt like I had broken a curse. I wished to hear victory trumpets resound at my triumph over the fear but all I heard was a CD end and a door bang. My parents walked up the stairs calling my name. Dad grabbed me, shaking my tired thin body as he shouted. My Mum put her hand up to her mouth and shook her head; a tear trickled down her cheek. She wiped away the tear and smiled. Mum started clapping her hands, the CD player started playing again. Dad stopped shouting and smiled, he took my hand and we danced. The fear was gone. I thought I was free. We ate dinner that night in silence. The radio blared. I smiled- I knew Mum and Dad were smiling inside. I went to bed early and slept well, I had nothing on my mind to worry about. I was woken the next morning not by an alarm but by a voice. Terror ran through me. The fear had returned and taken human form. No, it was not the fear. A man smiled down at me. He was tall, he had dark hair, large glasses and he was old. I knew he was not my friend but I was in bed, I had nowhere to go. He turned and looked at the hole in the wall, a small bird had got in and was perched on a pillow. She knew it was safe now the fear had left. Then he looked at me, I knew he was looking at my head. He terrified me. “Pippa, how do you feel today?” “Fine, I feel good.” I looked around. I didn’t want to talk to him. My parents were standing in the doorway awkwardly. They stood staring down at me, Mum didn’t even flinch when two more birds flew in through the wall. “You’re going to come with me for a while Pippa.” “Where? For how long?” “Not for long, just until you get better. We all care about you very much Pippa.” I just nodded. He was not asking me or luring me in with a bar of chocolate. It was an order. I was allowed to stay at home for one day. Mum and Dad acted weird all day, I guess there is nothing in the parenting books about what to do when your dear daughter goes crazy. I would think it weird if they were prepared. I can’t say I ever wanted it to end up this way. Mum just cried while Dad smiled. He took me for a walk, said I needed some fresh air. We didn’t talk much. He held my hand when we crossed roads. I felt like I was his little girl again. I felt the breeze on my head. I never listened to music when I walked, I was scared of the earphones being sucked into my brain. In town my head hurt and I wandered home, feeling free in the openness of the outdoors. Mum cooked my favourite meal for dinner, like I was on death row. I had no idea what to pack. By then I didn’t have any nice clothes to bother bringing. Dad gave me ten new pairs of pyjamas. I thanked him and hoped I wouldn’t be in bed long enough to go through them all. They got me up really early the next morning and drove me down long roads and loopy lanes until we arrived at the hospital. I knew right away I didn’t want to stay there. There were horrible smiling people at the door. I wanted to be sick, I was. Mum hugged me at the door. Dad handed me my bag and gave me a kiss. I didn’t know what to say. They stood a bit back from me. Mum smiled at me and Dad shrugged then they got back in the car and drove away. I felt a hand on my shoulder, I wanted to break the arm it belonged to but I couldn’t. I’m not very strong. I know it was just the fear making me think those angry thoughts now. I smiled and turned to face the nurses. It turned out I did need ten pairs of pyjamas. The clothes I had taken with me were taken away. I was sure I saw a nurse wearing my jeans but it must have been the fear. Patients had to wear pyjamas all the time. I’m not sure how it helped my mental health but it was comfortable. I stayed there for a year and a half. I had a lot of counselling sessions. I was told that it was wrong to make a hole in my wall but it was not my fault. I was not feeling the best. Sometimes I think I am crazy. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I think the fear is real. Sometimes I’m scared to think it’s not real. I was told that my hair looked lovely but I was wrong to think I needed to cut it to stop my brain compressing. I moved my hand through it and thought she was probably right. But what if she wasn’t, my brain would have shrunk away. I made new friends. I made clay models. I took baths, I took pills, and I took lots of cups of tea. I spent Christmas there. Dad gave me two brand new pairs of pyjamas. Mum even arranged to get my hair cut, so I was able to keep it short. I was there in the spring when the daffodils came up. I ate one or two. Everyone seemed nice. I didn’t want to leave yet. I was afraid I hadn’t done anything crazy in a while. By the summer I was very comfortable, I thought the fear had gone. No walls had moved. I had no headaches. I did not feel suffocated. I was happy to be rid of it. I felt like I had a second family, the nurses were very kind and the other patients were a lot of fun. I was happy. Then one day something terrible happened. We were playing a game in the common room. My eyes twitched suddenly, and the wall started moving. I did not curl up in a ball, I did not scream but others did. I was terrified. I got up and ran. Everyone else ran too but they stopped running when they got to safety. I didn’t stop. I kept on running out of the hospital, down the loopy lane and up the long road. I ran into town, I ran up a hill and climbed a ladder. I jumped on a garage, then on a house, then on another house and another and another. And so I fell down the chimney. I was wearing emerald green pyjamas, which had big purple stars on them. Now they had a big black patch. I stood up and dusted my self off a bit and was startled to see a man staring at me. He stood up to face me. He was a bit taller than me, but not much older than me. He had a curious glint in his eyes as he smiled at me. I smiled and shrugged: “I’m Pippa Stollen.” “I’m Tony Kerr.” “Nice to meet you.” I blushed as I remembered what I was wearing. He brought me into his kitchen and fed me. Food like poison hurt my tongue outside the hospital. “You fell down my chimney.” He had such a beautiful smile. Somehow I trusted him. I felt unashamed around him, I told him everything. After we had eaten he took me in his car back to my parents. My dad frowned at my dirty pyjamas. Mum hugged me for an hour. They knew I was well, they knew the fear had gone long ago. So I settled back at home. I bought some clothes and let my hair grow. The hole in my wall had been fixed for a while so there were no more birds. I got a job and I saw Tony regularly. And so I fell down the chimney and I fell in love. © Cecelia McSweeney All Rights Reserved www.millionstories.net What we like about this story: We enjoyed the originality of the storytelling. It is personally challenging to believe the narrator of these peculiar events as she unfolds her story. |
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