Something Inside
I decided to write something short for the Storyblogging Carnival. This is what I came up with. Sometimes I worry about myself.
I’ve told this story so many times, that you’d think I’d have it memorized. To the EMTs, to the police, to the lawyer, to the judge, to the shrinks. Over and over again, and each time it’s just as new and different as it was before. It never comes out the same way twice, never makes sense. The other lawyer said it was proof that I was lying, although the shrinks say it’s proof that I’m suffering from some sort of trauma. Well, maybe. It was traumatic, all right, but that doesn’t make it any less real. The reason my story doesn’t make sense is that the events didn’t make sense, and every time they ask me questions which are supposed to make it make sense, it comes out different. And the only thing that is the same each time is that Chuck is dead and the thing that killed him left something inside of me. Something. I don’t know what it is, just that the thing touched my chest and I could feel that something climbing into me. I still feel it. The doctors tell me that there’s nothing there, but they’re wrong. Not only is it there, but it’s moving. It’s alive. They won’t let me have anything sharp anymore, but I can’t get to it with my fingernails. I just have a raw and bloody patch in the middle of my chest. The shrinks have been trying to convince me that I killed Chuck, and that the thing I saw is just my imagination. Or a “manifestation of the violence inside me.” I’d much rather just be a murderer than have to live with this thing inside of me. Well, I won’t have to worry about that for much longer. The thing inside has started to migrate towards my head. I think that once it gets there, I won’t be worried about anything at all.
This has been a 318 word story.
I’ve told this story so many times, that you’d think I’d have it memorized. To the EMTs, to the police, to the lawyer, to the judge, to the shrinks. Over and over again, and each time it’s just as new and different as it was before. It never comes out the same way twice, never makes sense. The other lawyer said it was proof that I was lying, although the shrinks say it’s proof that I’m suffering from some sort of trauma. Well, maybe. It was traumatic, all right, but that doesn’t make it any less real. The reason my story doesn’t make sense is that the events didn’t make sense, and every time they ask me questions which are supposed to make it make sense, it comes out different. And the only thing that is the same each time is that Chuck is dead and the thing that killed him left something inside of me. Something. I don’t know what it is, just that the thing touched my chest and I could feel that something climbing into me. I still feel it. The doctors tell me that there’s nothing there, but they’re wrong. Not only is it there, but it’s moving. It’s alive. They won’t let me have anything sharp anymore, but I can’t get to it with my fingernails. I just have a raw and bloody patch in the middle of my chest. The shrinks have been trying to convince me that I killed Chuck, and that the thing I saw is just my imagination. Or a “manifestation of the violence inside me.” I’d much rather just be a murderer than have to live with this thing inside of me. Well, I won’t have to worry about that for much longer. The thing inside has started to migrate towards my head. I think that once it gets there, I won’t be worried about anything at all.
This has been a 318 word story.
A Fiction post at
9:49 PM on Sat, Mar 1, 2008
