A Fraction of Fiction

Homesick for a place I've never been.

She almost hit me. Just two hours ago... I nearly died. 

I wish it was an exaggeration, but it isn't. I desperately need to type. 

I can hear her outside the room going on and on and on and on and on.....

I couldn't breathe over the phone with Dad.

I was half-screaming about her, half-trying to catch my breath. 

Dad got worried. Today wasn't one of our usual quarrels. 

Over the phone, he gently tried to calm my frantic crying and anger - which wasn't easy.

I stopped screaming once I realized I was hyperventilating.

Only then did his voice finally sink into me. 

He told me not to be silly, that he cried a couple of times in L.A. before deciding she wasn't worth the tears.
He told me it doesn't matter what I did or did not do. It wasn't my problem.
He said I must accept by now that she is very different from others.

Of course. 

Still, living with her is a different thing altogether.

Being at the brunt of her displeasure and nitpicking every single damn day - is extremely exhausting. 

It thoroughly tires me out emotionally mentally physically.

I know Dad and Sis cannot save me. They shouldn't.
They deserve every bit of happiness now because they have suffered badly, over long, long periods in the past. 

But it kills me knowing I am left behind in all of her madness. Alone.

I can never see myself in another relationship till I'm officially free of this place. 

I cannot recognize myself at such moments. I cannot love myself on such days. 

How then will anyone else? 

I am sucked into her madness. It absorbs me like the Devil manipulates all goodness out of people. 

If I were to say she is crazy, I may as well be pointing the gun at myself.

Last month she attempted to slap Sis when she came back to visit.

Sis got pissed off when she blamed the divorce on us again.

How could she - who single-handedly caused the family to fall apart - put the blame on any other?

It was routine to come home from school to hear her yelling and screaming, unprovoked. 

At things so bloody ridiculous people might laugh if I told them. Obsessive compulsive demands.

Even when Dad was willing to accompany her, she rejected the idea of visiting a doctor. 

"There is nothing wrong with me." And so it escalated over the years. 

Policemen rang the doorbell at midnight, chairs were thrown around,

it was common for the mother to open a kitchen window and threaten to jump from twelve floors.

I remember her using the weighing machine to hit her own head.

It was business-as-usual to hear the mother curse at the father.

She would warn him explicitly to 'be careful on the roads because some lorry will bang you'. 

I don't even want to remember how horrible it translates to in dialect.

The car swerved dangerously because she kept pushing my dad while he drove.
She would open her door, in our moving car, and threaten Dad on the fucking highway.

I watched Sis shed angry tears when her birthday cake was dumped into the basin
because she accidentally dropped a small piece of crumb onto the tabletop.

These didn't happen once yearly... these were sick events we witnessed every other day.

Dad hardly lost his cool. But whenever he joined in the madness, yes we saw a raging man.

What we saw over the years was our cheery, funny papa turn into a quiet broody one.

He didn't want to pawn either of us away at a young age. 

And when he finally made the decision, none of us outwardly blamed her. 

I was awfully sad at first. I mean who wants a broken home? 

I clearly remember that defining moment. In our room side by side, Sis hugged me, 

telling me firmly that 'anyway' whatever we had was long - definitely already - broken. 

Things were getting from bad to worse. 

If I didn't want tragedy to happen in the near future, I should feel relieved. 

She has caused the most misery to the people once closest to her. 

I really don't want to fall into hate but I am now at hate's borderline entry. 

Sometimes I find me considering staying with her in the long run, not out of love, 

out of responsibility that she is my mother and one day she'd be incapable of living alone. 

Yet at times like these all remnants are washed away (maybe that bit of love too). Completely. 

It is okay that no one in the world would understand the circumstances. 

Dad and Sis understand, and for now that is all that matters. 

All that matters is their constant assurance that I will be able to break away from this.

One day sooner than later I'll find my happiness out of this home. Because they have, I would, too. 

I need to believe in the two persons I love most.

But first, I think I need to get out of the house tonight.