Trigger warning: Mentions of bullying, subtle mentions
of suicide.
Water
Standing under the high pressure of
warm water pelting against him, a quiet sigh leaves his lips as he blindly runs
his fingers across the ridges on the inner of his left arm.
As if turning on the knob to the
shower head turned on the switch to his past memories that began to play in his
head like a broken recorder. The way the water splashed down over his head and
flattened his hair where the strands stuck to his forehead and kept his eyes closed
shut… The strong stench of urine that clung to the hairs of his nose where the smell
had lingered for an unnecessarily long period of time… How he flung his lanky
arms around in hopes to find purchase and a grip of life when his face was
forced down the toilet bowl as his peers jammed down on the flush.
Drowning, he was suffocating under
the judging stares that were thrown his way as he crossed the school’s
hallways. The students pinching their nose and stepping back whenever he took a
step closer. Not even teachers bothered to throw him a concerned glance, but
instead had given him repeated warnings on his appearance during lectures.
Hidden behind uncaring cold glances
were knowing ones. The adults knew what was happening behind closed bathroom
stalls—where a student, silenced by his peers, was being wrongly harassed. But they
did nothing, they never extended their hand to the one who never tried reaching
out for help. “Why would I?” He would ask himself, but the reasons that came by
were unlimited, endless… and he would again be left alone with his inner demons
as he kept himself huddled up in the cold and molding bathroom corner.
Shirt drenched, skin glowing
unpleasantly with a sheen of dirty water which its smell he had accustomed
himself to; water was never his friend. An enemy, he would say, where even
stepping in the shower or going under the rain, he feared and refused.
Drinking, even. Where his heartbroken mother was forced to bind him to the bedpost
as to reduce his struggles when she had to make him drink even just a glass of
water. It was no wonder his lips bled whenever he opened his mouth to speak, or
even just to muster a smile that had always been waning.
Until the day he had eventually got
tired of failed suicide attempts, had he tried falling off the bridge and
diving into the deep sea with the thoughts of “Hey, it is water, my sworn
enemy. What chances would it take to not just take my life this time around?”
So he dove, expression serene as he let himself free fall before splashing into
the waters. He didn’t struggle then, eyes shut along with holding his breath
for as long as he could.
The surprise was that even water didn’t
want to take him away. Floating, he had appeared at the surface of the sea that
day as his eyes fluttered open to meet the blazing gaze of the afternoon sun.
Suspended in the depths of the ocean, he had felt serenity, calmness,
invincibility and he thought he was indestructible. Then on he had begun
finding solace in water, taking any chance he had for just a dip in water or a
cold splash to the face.
Oh the irony of it all when he
initially thought water would eventually be the end of him. Turning off the
tap, refreshed and re-energized thanks to his enemy-turned-best-friend, no
longer was he afraid of those who resorted to tainting his mind by tainting him
with murky and yellowish water. For at the end of the day, water was all he
needed to wash away the dirt along with the day’s bad memories.
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