Falling

By Amethyst Turner

Fall to the ground

Ignore the sound

Of meeting the floor

And the pain all around

Falling in love

Ignore the buzz

Of happiness there

In the form of a dove

Fall out of touch

Ignore the crutch

Of leaving behind

Someone that you love

Falling away

Ignore the way

You tumble down

And can't be saved

Falling

Falling

Falling

Still

I can't be saved

And never will

XXX

Depression, Libby learned, was like tunneling underground with a shovel -- you dig yourself in so far that when you look up, you're stuck at the bottom, the world moving on without you.

Amethyst grew. Robert aged. Libby felt like she stayed exactly the same.

That wasn't to say she didn't notice wrinkles appearing on her face, that she didn't see the pounds gathering around her hips. No, it only meant that everything that made Libby Libby was solid and still. Stuck at the bottom of the trench she'd dug.

Her mother, slowly but surely, stopped calling. She accepted, Libby figured, that no one was going to answer. Their mail became bills and coupons and nothing more. Libby felt like an undiscovered island floating in the Atlantic ocean, unimportant and hardly missed by the rest of the world. They were better off without her.

Aimee called her "Mimi". Libby assumed this was her attempt at saying "Mommy".

To entertain herself, she toddled around, holding onto furniture. Then one day she let go of the furniture. Once she learned how to walk, Libby found her even more annoying. She left the girl downstairs alone for most of the day, sitting in the quiet of her upstairs bedroom alone, day in and day out. She read sometimes, but not as often as she used to.

Things with Richard grew easier for her. It barely hurt anymore when he hit her. His blows bounced off her empty shell, stinging only in a vague, far-away place in her mind. She stopped resisting and let him do what he wanted with her body. Libby relinquished all control over her life. She didn't care about anything.

She spent much of her time contemplating ways to die. What would be quickest, what would be easiest, what would keep her body intact, what wouldn't. Bleach was out. Too painful. Same went for asphyxiation. Pills were still in the game, as was slitting her wrists.

The hopeless part about it was that she knew that no matter how long she thought about it for, she would never actually do it.

XXX

Aimee tossed her teddy bear toward the couch, giggling as she scrambled to go get it. Scrubbles, Daddy had named him. She remembered him squatting down beside her with a big, brightly colored box, saying do you know what day it is? It's your birthday. Then he set the box down in front of her and showed her how to rip off the paper.

Scrubbles was mangy and brown with a limp, plaid bow around his neck and dirt spots across his oatmeal colored body. He was sort of stiff with limbs that moved up and down, but never side to side. Aimee thought he was absolutely the most adorable thing she'd ever seen. He was her playmate -- her best friend.

Mommy never played with her. Daddy didn't have the time. Scrubbles was always there.

She couldn't say "Scrubbles", so she called him "Buhbuh". Scrubbles didn't care.

Crawling across the carpet, Amethyst fixed her eyes on the teddy bear. Almost there, almost there...

Suddenly, she cried out in pain. Collapsing onto the ground, Amethyst felt something wet on her palm. It was red and thick, wafting a metallic scent up to her nose. Lodged in her hand was a translucent shard of glass.

"Mimi! Dada!" Again and again she repeated her call, but nobody came. Sobbing, she scooted toward Scrubbles, holding her left hand in her right. It stung like being pinched, very hard for a very long time. Amethyst couldn't stop crying.

Most of the time, she didn't mind being left alone. She missed Mommy, but she learned how to make her own fun. In moments like these, however, she wished she had a friend, a real friend to help her.

She showed the blood to Scrubbles, who was just as panicked as she was. He didn't know what to do. Amethyst looked at the staircase through her tears, trying to form a coherent thought. Mommy was up there, wasn't she?

Amethyst couldn't remembered the last time she'd been upstairs. She couldn't remember what was up there or why it existed -- all she knew was that she was bleeding, and Mommy was upstairs.

The first step wasn't so bad, she heaved herself over it, leaving a little spot of blood behind her. Determined now, Amethyst threw herself at the next step, then the next, then the next. She looked through the bars on the banister, a tangled feeling wrapping up in her stomach. This was pretty high off the ground, wasn't it?

She began to cry harder. What if Mommy sent her back downstairs again? Then this all would have been for nothing.

Scrubbles watched from the living room rug. His presence was reassuring. Amethyst turned away from the banister, heaving herself up the rest of the steps without pausing.

She could hear her mother breathing from the top of the staircase. Cautiously, Aimee scooted toward the bedroom door. Her bleeding hand smeared red on the carpet as she pushed open the door.

"Get out!"

Startled, she stumbled back. Mommy's voice was angry and loud, filling her head with the sound and her eyes with tears. A sob shook Amethyst's body.

Suddenly, her mother appeared in the doorway, towering over her with tears streaming down her face. She roared with anger, reaching out and --

Amethyst remembered falling. Tumbling, twisting, bumping down the stairs. And then nothing, for weeks.

XXX

I dreamed I was dying
As I so often do
And when I awoke
I was sure it was true
I ran to the window
Threw my head to the sky
And said whoever is up there
Please don't let me die

And I can't live forever
I can't always be
One day I'll be sand on the beach by the sea
The pages keep turning
I'll mark off each day with a cross
and I'll laugh about all that we've lost

-Calendar Girl, Stars