Heaven Can Wait

Brace yourself.

I wrap my arms around my head, doing just that. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in this position. It feels so natural now, so familiar to be under the protection of only my own two limbs. But despite the current situation, what can I do but be grateful that I still have limbs at all.

It honestly doesn’t seem far-fetched, though; the fact that I may soon continue on in life armless. The possibility enlightens me. And as quickly the weak grin had grown onto my face, it disappears. The demon before me tears my arm away from my head and slaps me with the other, knocking the last of my energy out of me. My face now lies against the cold kitchen floor, stained red and curtained with my oily hair.

It is then that I remember; I haven’t showered in almost three days. I cringe, feeling the old, dried-up sweat that had accumulated on my scalp over the past two nights, coated with fresh new sweat from the stuffy room temperature. It doesn’t help that my hair is thick and black. Strands of my hair are plastered all over my forehead and cheeks. It’s disgusting. A spot at the very top of my head starts to itch but I don’t scratch it. My nails have enough dirt beneath them already.

My skin at least, is in a much better condition. Although my continuous sweating is stinging my reopened cuts and it feels as if a couple of acnes might break out soon, it’s not uncomfortable. Maybe I can go through today without a bath as well. A warm lavender-scented bath would’ve done just nicely tonight. Maybe even a long hot shower and a whole lot of singing with the music blasted up all the way, just to forget this all. But I’m tired. The floor isn’t that cold. It isn’t that hard, either. Right now, anywhere is fine as long as I can rest. My eyelids get heavy with sleep.

Yes, just a nap. It’ll all be alright in a couple of hours. He’ll leave. He’ll come back, but he’ll be gone for a while. That’s all I need. That’s all I want.

And that’s all I’ll never get.

“YOU RUIN MY LIFE.” He’s in the living room now. I hear something like thick glass crash onto the floor. Then I hear him kick a few pieces, and my assumptions are confirmed when a piece of ceramic from Mom’s favourite antique vase comes flying into the kitchen.

“You rob me of my peace!” he screams.

He storms in from the next room, empty-handed but still as dangerous. His palm rams my head harder against the tiles before wrenching it away by the ends of my thick locks. Pain immediately shoots through my entire head, rushing towards my temples and down past my already sore neck. As my head is forcefully tilted backwards even more, he lifts me higher from the ground, not a care in the world that I am way over my limit.

Before I can comprehend his intentions, he throws me hard against the back door. A bang loud enough to wake the neighbours echo throughout the kitchen. It continues ringing in my ears and hurts my head on the inside. The corner of the two locks on the metal door dig into my backbone. My back instinctively arches away from it, cringing. My breath holds with my eyes squeezed shut, and I mentally pray the pressure on my eyelids is enough to keep my mind off the burning pain on my back.

Without a chance of even catching my breath, let alone steadying myself through all of this, I feel something warm wrap itself around my ankle. It sends a chill up my entire left leg, numbing it a little. I shudder and inhale sharply before he pulls at it and drags me, limp body and all, out into the living room.

The kitchen and the dining room have a little difference in their floor levels. So as my body is hauled over it, it does only little in hurting me. The edge of the flooring runs up my back, tickling me from the back of my knees up to my shoulder blades, until it’s lightly scratching up the nape of my neck. Then the sharpness of the tile hits my head, and I swear it hurts my occipital bone. At once, with as much energy as I can summon, I lift my head off the surface.

Only to lose every ounce of physical power I had left and let my skull hit solid ground.

Thankfully, as I am trailed past the dining area into the main air-conditioned room, the cool air surrounds my body with a rush and reduces the stinging in- if not most- all of my wounds. The sweaty strands of hair stuck to my forehead and neck seem tolerable now. My throat is dry. And it hurts when I try to speak. I can’t speak. I’ve been screaming too much. The gashes along my arm hurt. I think a part of my scalp is torn. I swear I feel a layer of skin folding outwards.

But as soon as the floor stops moving beneath me, I knew I had no time in the world to be mentally hosting myself a pity-party for these minor problems because there, by the curtains, curled up in the corner and fearfully whining, is the one person I was in charge of protecting; the one person who needed me the most. My only responsibility and the reason I was in this torturous state in the first place.

“Nay….” I groan. My vision blurries.

 

 

I always wonder where my mother went.

I don’t remember what she looked like. I don’t remember her touch. I can barely remember her presence altogether. But a part of me knows she was here, in my life before. Because I remember her voice.

When I was younger, I was never really social, in the sense that I stayed as far away from the other kids as the teacher allowed, and the other kids treated me like I had cooties. I wasn’t Hyper Hannah back then. I was more specifically a lonely midget who couldn’t pronounce ‘curtain’ and thought ‘island’ was a land of ice. I was the girl in fourth grade who ‘smiled too hard’ in our class photo; the girl in art class who tore up her best piece of artwork when she was made fun off for taking homework too seriously. I, Hannah Lin, was the official tomboy mascot during my first year of middle school.

Yet I’ve managed through them all. And it’s all thanks to Mom.

When I was four, Mom disappeared. Dad has always refused to admit where she went, and call me naïve, but I immediately accepted that without question and believed for a couple of years that he just was as clueless of her whereabouts as I was. Countless times I’ve asked him something regarding what I thought could lead us closer to tracking her down, but  he would merely shake his head and divert my attention to something less significant.

It saddened me how he would never answer my questions and feed my interest. But as I grew older, all these puzzle pieces became more of an irritation than a mystery itself.

Until one day, as I was going through our storage room, I pulled out a heavy cardboard box from deep inside a wooden shelf. It was pale and dusty, evident that it had been there for quite some time. A spider had even spun its web from the edge of the shelf to the box’s lid. I slid my hand over the top, clearing the thick layers of dust to find anything that would indicate the contents of it, but found nothing. Out of curiosity, I pried open the box.

Inside, to my surprise, were a stack of green photo albums, and another one of light blue. I wondered why Dad hadn’t placed them with the other albums on his own shelf in his bedroom. What were so different about those? I gently ran my fingers over each one of their spines, eyes following each flower design as it curled and twisted into each other, the last flower stopping at object placed above them all. Rested on these albums was a cassette recorder, one I thought only existed in cartoons because they were so old and behind the times.

A part of me knew Dad wouldn’t want me anywhere near his things, let alone taking it without his permission. But as I slid the box back into its place on the lowest shelf, I knew I wouldn’t be able to forget this. I stared at the box for almost a full minute, debating if it would be okay if I ‘borrowed’ it. I felt my breathing get heavier, my heart beating undeniably quicker, and I knew I had to take this box. My gut’s never wrong.

“I’m home.” Dad called.

I cursed the universe stupid, snatched to cassette, threw the lid back on and ran into my room, making sure to double lock the doors. Not that I thought of my own father as a serial killer. It just grew as a habit to lock my bedroom door when I was inside. It made me feel safe.

I dropped myself onto my bed, staring at the ceiling. Then I lifted the cassette. Play it, play it, my mind chanted.

Along the edge of the top piece were three round buttons and a row of thin rectangle ones. I held the tape firmly in my palm, thumb hovering over the button I knew played the recording.

I pressed it cautiously, and yelped when a high screech pierced the silence of the afternoon.

I heard footsteps. “Hannah, what was that?” Dad banged on the door.

“I-”

“Hi Hannah!” A woman’s voice echoed through my bedroom. My eyes widened.

“Hannah?”

“My lovely little baby-”

“Who is that? Open the door, where is that voice coming from?” Dad was trying the doorknob now.

“Your father and I are going to raise you so well! We’re gonna love you with all our hearts, scold you, teach you. You’ll be so beautiful.” The woman breathed. Her voice… it wasn’t something I had expected from my mother "if she really was who she claimed to be. It was high-pitched and a little too enthusiastic.

“I’m just so happy.” She sighs again. “And when you meet your little baby sister, you’ll be happier, too! Oh my, I’m not getting younger. So maybe I’d forget to tell you this often but…”

“… I want you to remember that now that you’re a big sister, you have to protect your sibling. Or siblings. Who knows, I’ll think about it. And no matter what you face in life, always be kind. Forgive without awaiting an apology. Protect the undefended. Help those who need it. Love…” She paused. For the longest five seconds of my life, all I could hear was her breathing, steady and deep. Then she hums, as if deciding what to say next.

“…everyone.” she settled, “Love everyone. Fairly. Unconditionally. Love with all your heart. Love everyone, and everything. Love yourself! Because we love you. I’ll keep telling you this forever.” I hear the smile in her voice.

“And I’ll tell you this now, even though you’ll probably only understand it when you’re older. Life is going to be like a crazy roller coaster. Yeah, you’re going to go up and down and spin like crazy. And you’re going to vomit. A lot. On yourself and other people. But everything will be alright. It may not seem like it will, but it will. Live life to the fullest. I love you so much, Hannah.”

The recording stopped abruptly.

My mouth gaped slightly open, staring at the cassette recorder in utter disbelief. I lifted my head and stared out the window. The blazing sun rays shining through my windows blinded me briefly. Then tears pooled at my eyes, and they swirled together with the tears. With no effort in wiping them away, they overflowed and ran down my cheeks, leaving a trail of wet warmth to stain it.

Eyes blurry, a pale shade of brown flashed before me, and I wish I had held the recorder tighter because Dad held it now, glaring down at me. “You know I hate it when you touch my stuff.” He gritted.

Looking past him, I’m shocked to see the hinges of my bedroom door about to come apart, hanging loosely and inevitably going to fall soon, the door had been busted open.

“-ah. Hannah! Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

My eyes connected sharply with his. “Where’s Mom?” Screw him being mad. I didn’t care that I had disobeyed him, and I didn’t give a damn that this was not the reaction he was expecting. Where is my mother?

“What!?”

“Where is she?!”

He tensed. “I told you, I don’t-”

“Liar! You’re lying! Don’t lie to me!” I screamed. What was I doing? He didn’t know. Stop being irrational and just shut up. “How could you not know? How could you not care?” I pressed my palms to my temples and squeezed my eyes shut, attempting to prevent to headache I could feel getting stronger. “Why? Why do you do this? She said she loved me. She’s Mom, your wife! You have to love her. Why don’t you love her? WHY?!!” I saw the same shade of brown again, and this time I was slapped.

“She’s gone.” He said firmly. He paused. His frown deepened, but I swear I saw the corners lift and his eyebrows relax. “And she’s never coming back”

 

 

“I wasn’t lying, you know.”

I disregard him and lock eyes with Naomi, now a third grader, beautiful, intelligent and kind. Mom would’ve been ultimately proud of Naomi (and herself, for that matter). She has her knees to her chin, arms wrapped around the front holding something black that I can’t make out. I force myself to smile, but it only makes her cry harder. She knows I’m not okay. She knows I’m in pain. I’m hurting. I’m dying.

“That time, when I told you she was never coming back; I wasn’t lying. I made sure of it.” I can picture the cocky grin plastered onto his ugly wrinkled face. I can hear the smirk in his voice.

I keep my back to him, but I can’t bear watching Naomi anymore. Sweet, innocent Naomi. Cheerful Naomi; scared and unsafe in this place supposedly called ‘home’.

Suddenly, the pain in my back doubles. I wince.

“Oh, you’re not dead yet.” Dad sits himself down on the couch. And then there’s just silence.

I look back at Naomi. She has her face buried between her knees, mumbling to the object in her hands and quietly sobbing. I can’t move. I doubt I can even speak anymore. I wouldn’t know of course; I don’t have the strength to try and see.

The light tapping of a screen keyboard echoes throughout the room. Immediately I know Dad’s on Facebook. He doesn’t go a day without being online. In fact, sometimes I find it weird to see him without his phone. Then again, he never is. I’ve seen his timeline, constantly updating about his life. Sharing images of when he would help the poor natives out, sending food, loading trucks, playing with kids.

I hate going through them. I hate seeing him having fun and smiling with children he didn’t even know. I hate how he has all the time in the world to hang out with his friends, has so much money, does anything he wants and yet boasts to the world about his ‘good deeds’. And while he’s jobless, getting drunk and beating me up day after day, I have to play the role of the real father and work multiple part-time jobs to feed Naomi and myself. Screw him.

“I’m glad Mom isn’t here.”

He doesn’t pay attention. “Hmm?”

“She would hate you.” The tapping stops. “I can’t believe she loved you. She could’ve gotten a real husband; gotten us a real dad.”

“Keep quiet.”

“And yet.... you killed her…” I muster a few curse words.

He rises and walks towards me “I’m warning you not to push your luck, girl. I can kill you right here, right now.”

Naomi wails. “You too, SHUT UP.” He steps over me. Naomi pushes herself further into the corner of the wall, screaming louder with each step he took closer to her. I lose sight of my sister as he crouches in front of her and tries to grab hold of her. Naomi continues shrieking and tries to escape him, but he holds her wrist and grabs her neck with the other. The cordless phone falls from her lap.

“Stop…” I plead softly. He can’t hear me. “Please… Nay… Don’t hurt her…..”

The edges of my vision start to go black. My whole body is aching. My head feels like it’s been pierced with earrings all over. My breathing is suddenly irregular and rapid. The lights are dimming, the shouts are getting softer. And then there’s a loud bang, and more shouting. My eyelids suddenly weigh a ton, and as they slowly lower into their places, the last thing I see is a face "I can’t make out whose - staring into mine.

Before my hearing completely dies out, I hear a man’s voice. I don’t recall ever hearing his deep, rusty voice until then. It’s calm, assuring. And a part of me knows someone is here to save us. They're here to give us new hope for a better life.

“Hey, hang in there, kid. We’re gonna get you help.”

Help. It’s too late for help.

If I had any voice left, I’d be comforting Naomi. What will happen to her? I don't know. Take care of her for me. For Mom.

And we’ll meet again in heaven; it’s been waiting far too long.

Author's Note

My English teacher made it compulsory for our entire class to submit a short story for our annual national short-story competition. this is my entry. good and bad feedbacks are exactly what I need and are super duper appreciated :P

Reviews

[Shivalik Kalsotra]

a wonderful piece of work full of style,emotions and mind blowing, your writing style is amazing...tile is very interesting...I enjoyed it...keep on writing

[Hych]

That means a lot, thank you so much :D

[Riley Justine]

That was amazing. Your writing is superb. Really well done job. I can't wait to read more of your writing.

[Hych]

Thank you so much omg hahahaha that really made my day :D I will write as often as I can thank you!!