Destroyer of Worlds (Part 1) (436 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 2 on 3 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by DamianD<damiand.at.fsmail.net> (View user info) at 2005-10-22 06:59:37 EDT
I write upon these pages in an effort to understand the curse that has fallen upon me. No fond childhood memories like most have, and a subconscious urge to destroy anything that could make me happy. Although I try to grasp happiness and keep it eternally in my mind and heart these rare moments are always destroyed or befouled.
There is an old saying that man is his own worst enemy and in my case this is completely true. 'I am my own worse enemy. I have destroyed worlds where I could have had a joyful future; of love and happiness, of life and friendships.'
The only remains that are left of these worlds are in the memories and dreams of the people who would have been part of them; memories of the good times we had and dreams of a future that will now, never be. But also, memories of the pain both inflicted and received by others and myself. Nightmares that awake us screaming in a cold sweat as our minds try and recall world's that have been destroyed in moment's of blind fury and insanity.
Amongst these pages I shall tell you of these worlds, of their births and deaths, of events that led up to their creation and of the downward spiral that sends them to their destruction in the empty hall's and corridors that once housed my mind.
Will these pages save me or will they lead to me downfall? Will I finish these words and have my mind return to me and become whole once more or will I embrace the noose that awaits me if I crumple and fall? Only the end shall tell, but with these pages I hope to answer these questions although either way it shall be the end of me.
Saved, I will be released from my past to be re-born as a new person. A person no longer held by shackles of guilt or tortured by the hot Iron's that were created from the pain I have caused.
Parents
My father was a working class man. Always wanting the best for his family, which eventually led to the destruction of it. He worked at the local steel works all the hours he could to support us, to keep the house, to pay the bills and to get some of the little luxuries in life that most people couldn't afford.
My father also had a darker side. When he wasn't working he was usually drinking. He was a violent drunk and many a time I came down stairs on a morning top find new holes in the wall's or doors, different item's smashed and the hardest of all different pet's missing.
My brother and I never always escaped his behaviour. We would be beaten for the slightest thing that one of us did and several times for no reason at all.
My mother took us away from him several times but always she would return. Until one day.
1989
The day of my sixth birthday, I awoke that morning and was as excited as any other child would be at the prospect of cake, present's and the inevitable family tea on the evening.
It was summer so there was no school to attend and I had the freedom of the world (the street) to do whatever my imagination would allow. Father was working the early shift so I knew he would not be home although I can rarely recall times when he was home.
I was awake before my mother and brother as I was too excited to stay in bed but I knew that I could not go down stairs until mother was awake so I sat in my bedroom playing with toys until the rest of the household awoke. Eventually mother awoke and called me from hers and father's room.
'Damian' she called. 'Can you come in here please?'
I went willingly knowing that presents awaited me beyond that door, but would I have still gone if I knew then what I do now; that the memory of that fateful day would come back to haunt me in later life during my teenage years?
I struggle with myself trying to decide if I should continue writing, knowing that to do so is sealing my fate with only two possible outcomes. Death and re-birth or should I set down my pen and continue my melancholy existence knowing that my life will be meaningless and the only outcome that I die alone without ever knowing if I could of saved myself?
I walk into my parent's room, exchange pleasantries with my mother and receive my gifts. Although I no longer remember the gifts I received or the vast part of the conversation that was had, I still, to this day remember a single question that was asked of me.
'Damian, if I leave your dad will you come with me?' I cannot recall the response I gave to this if any, but I do remember the single tear rolling down my mother's cheek as she wished me happy birthday and gave me a hug and a kiss on the forehead. This was the last time my mother told me that she loved me, although I would see her several times after that.
Not once did I tell my father of what my mother had said to me that morning and looking back (my feelings towards her are very different now) I am glad that I didn't as I saved her from the pain my father decided to inflict upon myself, my brother and anyone else who tried to love us.
A few months later I was back at school and mother had not said anything more about leaving. I was walking home from school, trailing along behind my brother as I was too small to walk on my own and my little legs could not keep up with those of my brother. It must have been winter as I recall that it was snowing. We got home to find that nobody was there. Al the doors and windows were locked, nobody was in the house and my brother and I where stuck outside alone in the cold weather as it got colder and night drew in. Four hours we waited in that cold winter evening before father came home from work on his motorbike.
'Where's mam?' he asked as he pulled onto the driveway and dismounted from his bike.
'We don't know' I cried as he unlocked the door to the house. 'She wasn't here when we came back from school.'
He helped us out of our coats and told us both to sit down in front of the fire so that we would warm up as he walked upstairs looking for any sign of mother. He came back down the stairs and went into the kitchen. Once my brother and I had warmed up we followed him in there. We watched from the doorway as a single sheet of paper fell from his hand to the linoleum floor although my father fell to his knees before the paper touched down.
Looking back now that scene plays again and again in slow motion across the screen of my mind. That single white sheet of paper floating towards the floor as my father crumples to his knees, great sobs wracking his body as he realises what has happened. He looks up to see my brother and I standing in the doorway watching him. With tears streaming down his face he holds his arms out to us and we ran. We ran straight into his arms to embrace him and try to offer what little comfort we could. I never did look upon the note that she had left him.
'Your mother has left us' my father says, still embracing us 'but it will be ok. Everything is going to be all right.
How wrong he was.
User Reviews
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-10-24 17:17:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by DamianD (user info) at 2005-10-22 08:08:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yes he was riding a motorbike in the snow. The roads had been gritted though.
Submitted by Ducky (user info) at 2005-10-22 07:53:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
He was riding a motorbike in the snow?