Work Text:
I can’t remember anymore, how did I die?
All I could remember was the red, crimson water around me when I died. It’s such a beautiful color, no? It’s my favorite color, at least. I can still see, when I was at my last minute, as I raise my hand in the air, and such an elegant jewelry bracelet from blood beads that flew out from the ugly cut I made with a simple sharp stone, they dropped down into the water, as the wave which it splashed bounced to the wall of the bath and back.
It was red throughout my life, I try to catch the first memory of my childhood. When I was a “boy”. When I was “the expected”. My friend leaned on the frame of my door in that village, and she asked me if I wanted to go out and play. My mom looked at me, I stared at her back as a plea of authorization, but she said no. She said:
“You know that you’re the son of this house, stop giggling all around with girls and instead help me out.”
But why should I, what if I don't like studying, what if I like sewing up clothes better? What if I like cooking dishes? Why should I be like me, why should I be the “expected boy of this house?”. There were numerous times that I fetched some of the newspaper that was delivered unto our doorstep, I saw the elegant ladies of London. Their beautiful yet fancy dresses that wave with the wind, I admired, I gasped, I wished, to just become like a pretty maiden like them. There was this one article that I liked very much, the lady had a shining earring on her ears. The newspaper was black and white, but with the text along the image, I could imagine the shining crimson jewelry. And I thought to myself, red is such a beautiful color.
“Such a weirdo!! Ahahha”
“Can you not be a normal boy?”
“He says he’s a girl!!! How funny is that?”
“YEA RIGHT! The “little girl” with his funny red hair?”
Those laughs and “jokes” still rang in my ears, as much as now, as much as when I ran away from those awful kids that threw stones at me. My step sounded in my “house”, but my mom only told me that I deserved it, that I should be more normal, that I should be the “expected”.
But even when I’m alone, the laughs and jokes rang in my ears, but I already ran, and I cried, my tears enough to bathe me. Where else can I run? I have nowhere to escape, those expectations, those accusations, those… knives.
The second day, I took the newspaper to read since my parents left the village that day, and I saw a crime about a person dying with the seemingly criminal cutting a wound and letting them sway in the water till the blood all ran out. I think I found my path, my only path…
I let water flow and bounce to the bathing basin wall as I run forward and back from my house and the sink near it. It was almost noon when I finished bringing water in and out. On my last lap of water, I tripped over a stone on the ground, it rolled with me as it cracked into two, with one of it having a sharp corner. I picked it up silently.
I stepped in the cool water, the freezing temperature made me suddenly wake up and stop doing all of this nonsense, and I cried again, why am I such a timid person, why can I not fight them back? Why am I so small and powerless? Why… Do I have to live?
Live? why live.
And I sat in the water, ignoring the coldness. I could feel emptiness filling my emotion’s altimeter, I let the sharp stone slip on my skin, it tore my skin apart, as the crimson beads started to get squished out by the muscle and flesh. I stared and stared, it looked like the perfect jewelry in mind, so I cut, more bloody lines, more drops… I can not tell, what is this enlightening feeling in me, but I know that it’s this action that caused it, so I cut, and cut, and cut, and cut, and cut…
In this village in the countryside, only flowers had such a beautiful and contrasting color compared to all the gray walls and people. But I think I found something else today, the indescribable clouds that spread into the water with the crimson drop from my hand. I slowly felt like strength escaping from me, so I laid onto the wall of the basin having no thoughts anymore, it was blurry, there were tears, there was blood, I let all the fluid flow out of me, dying the space I found myself into the color I like the most.
And I stared at the window of the bathing room, and my soul seemed to be pulled out. I remembered, when my eyelid became so heavy that I couldn't lift it up by myself anymore, it looked like flames outside, it was dawn.
I’m glad, the world became red, maybe, the world said yes the first time to my decision.
…
But I woke up again to find myself alive, but this was nowhere like that small village, it was instead, all white. I questioned myself, observing people around me, they seemed to have the same look on their face. And a person that seemed like a leader asked us to form into a line, reporting our own names.
I waited until I was first in line, and the guy who looked like a leader asked me,
“What's your name?"
I never liked that name.
Then he said, with no judgment, no pressure—
“You can give yourself a new one, if you’d prefer.”
I froze. And then… I took a breath.
I remembered the crimson earring of a beautiful maiden I once saw in that newspaper. And the name of the murderer that once inspired the blade I drew across my own skin.
And so, I spelled it out carefully:
“Grelle Sutcliffe”