Monologue

By Ryuu no Taiyo

I hold my head as I push back the tears of frustration. I bitterly hear her reprimanding me in the very back of my mind. I knew it. I did. I didn't study. I knew it.

I feel liked breaking something, but my self-control can be frightening at times. I'm going to deal with this in a mature situation.

I'll forget about it completely and hope it never comes back to mind me in the rear.

I know that that way never works, but I live for the moment, hiding from the shame that lurks around every corner, whispering in its dark slur terrible things that make me clench my hands and grind my teeth in anger.

I allow my mind to drift as I crumple up the sheet of paper bearing the dreaded failure and toss it absent-mindedly in the recycling basket across from me, in the corner, right besides a notice board. A friend of mine congratulates my good throw with a knowing smile and a shake of her head and I smile arrogantly, allowing myself that one moment of glory, before I turn back towards the talking teacher, my mind and my body going back to it's previous frustrated and saddened state. I love history, it's one of my favourite subjects, but I just hate studying. I'm a real lazy ass. At least I don't deny it.

I sigh, opening a package and jotting down notes, but my mind's not really there. How can it be? My mind, however, does not sit patiently (as she feels it should) on my previous dilemma, but rather on the stories and characters I make up in my head.

She is a winged cat. Or rather, that is the image my mind gave her. She is the very definition of my good conscience. Sometimes I wish I listened to her more often.

There are others, too. Like the spider girl, who represents an internal demon and appears often in my head when I feel like jumping out the window from the fourth floor. She tells me things, frightening things. She scares me; I wish she'd go away sometimes. Once she did, and I awkwardly found myself missing her snide, sarcastic, occasionally unnecessary and occasionally deep remarks. She came back soon later, since then I know she's a part of me, and that no matter what, she'll always be there, albeit hidden, in some part of my mind.

Then there's him…He's the only masculine impersonation in my head. I see him sometimes as a player, a drunken ass-hole who is obsessed with all things female…or their bodies. At other times, he represents what I will become if I let myself go completely, letting go of all my morals. The cat would never let that happen.

Then there's the little girl. She has large blue eyes and cannot speak. I suppose she represents loneliness…maybe innocence…She can't communicate with me. So how can I know for sure? She may be a part of me…But she's a mystery.

There is the midget too…She wears glasses and is incredibly annoying. She seems to know almost everything that goes on in me and craves attention. She's bossy and arrogant. She gets jealous supremely easily.

I'm insane. I talk to myself, to my personalities. I gave them ideas, I gave them faces…

I must be insane.

I clutch my head and blink back the tears that are threatening to fall.

I don't get it…One minute, it's amazingly clear. The next, it's the complete opposite, and I can't even see my hand extended before me.

I raise said hand and ask to be excused. I rush to the bathroom at the other side of the hall; I close the lids on one of the toilets, close the stall door and I sit dejectedly on the seat, resisting firmly my sadness.

That's enough.

It can't be like this. I can't go back.

I'm over that, remember?

Images flash in my mind, even I can't tell if they are real or not. Water, screams, more water, air…air! A splash…crying…

I groan.

That's enough. Stop it! Stop it! I scream to the darkness that's climbing up my ankles, trying to reach its way into my heart. I'm strong, I tell myself. I can't let go.

I take a shaky look out of my hands and around me.

How long have I been in here?

They won't notice me anyways.

It doesn't matter. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

There at it again. They fight all the time, claiming there space and their rights between each other, and no matter what I pull them apart and tell them to stop. I am in control. Nobody else.

It's so bloody confusing. I'm so alone right now. Nobody really knows, they think I'm joking…they think I'm smiling. Am I really?

I don't have a person representing happiness within me…

It just dawned on me that I don't have a persona of happiness!

Maybe because she is so insignificant sometimes…It's a mask, I hear my thoughts tell me, so who cares? I am angry. Why can't I be truly, eternally happy? Why am I so unhappy? So confused?

It's enough. I have to stop thinking like this.

I won't be able to. That's what I hear some say. All inside me.

The spider girl suddenly speaks out…And surprisingly the cat seems to agree.

What?

The little child…the little girl, was she the lost happiness? The lost innocence? I could feel the spider girl hugging the voiceless one.

It's too much. The thoughts came to me that maybe my imagination had thought up, and only knew this subconsciously, a little girl that could not speak.

I suddenly feel an emotion so strange…

I feel a tear fall down my cheek and I brush it away quickly.

I don't cry. I know that. It's one of those unspoken rules I'd lain on myself. I won't cry.

I don't know when I made that rule.

I clench my fingers tightly.

I have to go back to class soon. The teacher won't be happy with me.

The spider lady walked slowly towards the cat and the small woman, the little girl held tenderly in her arms.

"Do you think she represents happiness?"

The cat nodded slightly, its bright green eyes shining in the darkness. The spider lady shook her head, slightly disbelieving.

I'm sitting on this bench, looking at the kids playing tag in front of me.

Just they wait until they're my age. Life will have sucked out all of the light from them.

I'm feeling sorry for myself again. I really have to stop thinking about myself again.

I'm so tired…I place my heavy, book-filled backpack next to me and lie my shoulder on it, supporting my head.

I wish I could fall asleep. The wind is blowing slightly, and the light green leaves are blooming slowly in the top tree branches.

If you look close enough, you can see them grow.

Where did that come from? I blink and look up to the trees, but my glasses reflect the sun's rather power ray and I have to look away.

I'm young. Like those leaves. But I'm old enough to see more than just the world surrounding me.

The tree is tall and sturdy. It's surrounded by other plants and trees of different shapes and sizes.

I can hear the nearby traffic, but I try to block out the accursed urban racket and focus solely on the pitiful nature around my, protected faintly by the walls of the park.

Look! A flower!

Indeed, the first flower of the season, it seems. The winter had been rather harsh this year. Yet here was the first flower, and its name I forgot for the moment. It was bright yellow. My cousin was allergic to those flowers.

Why do you always think so darkly?

I almost snort out loud.

I'm a pessimist. Apart from the cat, I have no other positive emotion in my, apart from that justice and righteousness.

But to believe in justice…didn't you have to believe in something good?

My eyes, whose lids had been closing slightly, were now wide open.

You're seeing it my way!

She giggled.

Who are you? I asked myself, curious, apprehensive and maybe a little annoyed.

I know her somehow…

I smile a little. I look back up at the leaves. Now that I thought about it, they did look a bit greener. The spider lady said it was a trick of the light, but I outwardly smiled.

I saw it a different way.

Even in the space of seconds, someone could grow…

The children laughed happily not too far from me and my smile grew.

I had found it.

I had found my smile.

I had found my happiness.

See? I told you that if you watched carefully, you'd see things others can't.

I just needed to look a little closer. I'd just needed to realize something.

I wasn't insane.

I just had a very interesting mind. A very active imagination.

I could feel the cat tell me a few words of wisdom…I had to go home and finish that Science homework.

My thoughts went back to earlier that day when I almost broke down during history. And maybe…I would actually study for history…My history teacher liked giving pop quizzes… He liked torturing his students. I smiled ironically.

Getting up, I picked my heavy, clumpy back and walked at a content pace out of the park, for once, not letting any though occupy my tired mind. I was relieved that my inner personalities were not fighting anymore.

The spider lady was being taught by the little girl how to play pretend inside my mind, the midget was reading her books calmly, and the cat and the drunken man were simply conversing.

I could feel my sadness and my happiness merging into a nameless emotion, I would feel my righteous and my bad side merge together. I could feel the emotions slowly dissipating into one person, and I could feel the midget smile, appeased. Soon she too disappeared. It was a rather strange yet relieving feeling.

I knew they weren't gone, but at that moment I wasn't composed of many faces, I was only one face, one mind, one soul. I smiled brilliantly.

It was a temporary peace, I knew that. But it was peace all the same. I lived for the moment. And at that moment, I was going to enjoy my life. Because, I considered, for once, I was seeing more light and less shadow.