Tia Dalu Souhrada
Stories (8/0)
Suicide Reflection
There you were. Your beautiful face, the magnificent wonderful face, staring at me in the bathroom mirror. You couldn't see me but I was there and I could see you. I could see the pain in your eyes and the sorrow in your tears. I could feel every heartbeat that dared to beat. You fooled everybody. All the smiles and laughter. No one knew all that you held inside. No one ever seemed to understand or get the real you. You felt that it didn't matter. You knew no one would see past all your layers. You always looked for ways to numb all the feelings that consumed you but nothing was ever enough and then you just finally told yourself that you had enough. There was unbearable loneliness that I could feel that surrounded you. This underlined yearning for something that you knew would never be able to be obtained. I pounded on the mirror and screamed as loud as I could as I realized what you were doing. I pleaded and begged for you to stop. For you to look at me. For you to remember all those who loved you and were here and wouldn't understand. I screamed until my voice echoed into silence. We promised each other a long time ago we would never take our lives for granted. That we would live them to the fullest. But I could feel you and a pain that was crushing your soul. I could feel you. And it was killing me. There was nothing I could do because when you decided to take your life was the night the shadows that were in mine ceased to exist. And I was too late. I told those around me about the presence I was feeling of the fear of the unknown. How it was crushing me. But it was you. You were sending me these signs that just to me were so incomplete. Every time I have lost someone close to my heart the shadows come and I knew something wasn't right. I just couldn't see what was right there in the mirror of my nightmares. It was you this whole time. Crying out for help. You were one of the only ones who knew of the shadows and how they haunted me. How something had a hold of you. As far apart as we were I still felt you. I loved you. We were soulmates. This was one of the things that I learned is that soulmates don't have to be lovers. Soulmates can come from different walks of life or different lives altogether. They form a bond far beyond a deep connection that is tested but will never divide. You would always find me and I would always find you. And now you are gone. I am incomplete without you. There will be a part of me that will search the ends of the earth for you. Until I cross the veil to finally find you. And I hope that you knew that in those last moments that you were not alone. I was there, while you cried all those tears. I was there while you screamed at yourself that was there in the mirror. For I was in the bathroom mirror as you took your last breath. Standing next to the reflection of you. I believe that is when you finally saw me. Because that is when I woke up. And you were gone. Your beautiful soul disappeared and darkness fell over my heart. You were gone. The presence that loomed over me for days was gone. The shadows that I was seeing in the corners of the rooms during the day and the night, were gone. You no longer remained in the realm of the living. You left but I felt that you finally felt free.
By Tia Dalu Souhrada2 years ago in Humans
RePEARing The Past
There it was. The pear tree. The first gift that was given in the famous Christmas song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” But the last gift my father ever gave me was pears from the pear tree that grew in the backyard of the family home. I hadn’t been home in over twenty years. Hundreds of miles between us were not the only distance that was between us. It also was a very strained relationship. But they were still my family. I stood outside the beaten-down house and thought back to the very first days our family moved into this small town and stepped foot into this house. This place was no longer home. Just a haunted symbol of my past. After my parents died the house was taken by foreclosure. It took years to find the new owner and purchase back the property. I thought I could let it go. I thought that it was for the best. I hated that town. I hated the people in it that made my life hell. That made me feel ashamed of who I was and how I looked. They bullied me in so many ways. It is not even conceivable why. You would never once think that an entire town was capable of being a bully. It was what it was. Don’t get me wrong, there were some great people in that town. But most of them were treated the same way as I was. Just because we weren’t from there or looked different, didn’t have any relations with anyone there. Just a bunch of outsiders that moved in and were trying to make a life. I held on to this resentment that I had because my parents moved us there. It was a town that was my jail. No wonder the first chance I got, I escaped and never once came back. Over the years, I kept thinking of the house, more of the moments that were spent as a family. It wasn’t the house itself that kept me focused on the property. It was the pear tree that my dad had planted. The rose bushes. The apple trees. His passion was to grow things. He put a little bit of his life into planting and growing these. It was a part of him. It was a part of us as a family. It was a part of me. It had been seven years that had gone by. I had won the lottery and the first thing that came to mind was this place. Which for some reason still had a hold of me. It was then I decided that I was going to buy back the place and turn it into a memorial park. There in the center was the two pear trees that to me represented my parents. Because you can’t just have one to produce fruit. You have to have two. And that was what represented my mother and father. Because without them there wouldn’t have been us. I had a bench with their name engraved in it built to put in the front. My parents would not go unknown. I stood there and looked at the house and the property. There had been no upkeep done at all. Everything was overgrown and the years had not been kind. I jingled the keys in my hand and walked up the steps and unlocked the door. As the door opened, I was overtaken by nostalgia. I walked through the house to every room. As the remembrance of memories flooded my mind of what once was. Touching the little things that only I knew once were. The last thing I looked at was the wall in the dining room. There was an imprint of where the family portrait once was hung. I touched the wall and left my hand there for a brief moment. Wishing that things could have been different. Wishing that time could erase the hurt I was feeling and the regret that I wasn’t there in the end. Tears began to surface in my eyes. I removed my hand. This was my final chance for closure. I fought back the tears as I heard machinery outside. And with that. I said my final goodbye. The bulldozer was there and the rest of the construction crew. “Please wait for me to leave before you begin,” I said with a very shaky voice. I got in my car and looked back one last time. That is when I saw the sign. “PAIR TREE FAMILY PARK”. Below it stated, "a place where you will never be alone." I took in a deep breath and started the car. And with that, I finally put the past to rest.
By Tia Dalu Souhrada3 years ago in Fiction
The Frozen Frontier
Antarctica. The polar desert. The white desert. There is where I found myself covered from head to toe with every layer possible. I was trying to cover my face from the frigid wind as it whistled around and through me. We were there on another quest in search of the next “great discovery.” There are many great discoveries that were found in Antarctica. From the Blood Waterfall to ancient bacteria. We were there because of a frozen pond beneath the surface. When we arrived at the site that we had been taking samples of and monitoring the pond, we discovered that the frozen pond was gone. In its place was just a hole. But in that hole, there seemed to be some kind of glow. Not bright. It was just barely enough to notice through the snow that was accumulating on top of it. With the world’s climate rapidly changing, there had been a shift in the layers of ice. The three of us looked at each other and grabbed the climbing gear. Ian and I strapped ourselves to the climbing harnesses. I grabbed the backpack with medical and emergency supplies. I went down first. Ian came down shortly after me. We landed on what seemed to be a thick layer of ice. We unhooked ourselves from the climbing rope. We started to brush aside the newly fallen snow and once we uncovered it, we came to an amazing astonishment. It wasn’t ice. It was some type of glass. But not any type of glass that was known to us. We tried to pierce it with the ice pick or the ax but it seemed to be impenetrable. It was comparable to bulletproof glass. Nothing that we did even scratched it. We could see the glowing light was coming from inside but were unable to see in or determine how big the area was or if anything was even inside. Ian stated that he was going to go back up and get some more tools. I watched Ian as he made his way back to the climbing rope and started up the side of what once was the pond’s border. I began taking ground readings and taking samples of the snow that was harder to scrape off the glass-type material. There was a loud cracking sound and the snow around me seem to be vibrating. I heard Ian shouting in the distance and when I looked, I saw him throwing the rope at me. I got up and started to run towards the rope and as I reached out to grab it, I was too late. I felt myself sliding down further than the bottom portion of the hole. The snow and the ground falling in around and on top of me. I felt myself being pressed against the glass and the weight of the snow. I knew this was going to be my end. I was being buried alive. I laid there knowing that soon I would not be able to breathe. Then I heard something from the glass. It seemed as if it was moving. It opened up and once again I was falling. When I finally hit the ground, there was no snow except the snow that had come in with me. When I looked around I was in awe. It seemed as though I fell into a tropical paradise. I started to remove the layers of clothing I was in. It was so warm. It was beautiful. There were birds and flowers that I had never seen before. “Hello.” Someone said behind me. I jumped and turned around. There were 2 people staring at me. A man and a woman. “Am I dead?” is all that I could say. “No, you are not.” Said the woman. “My name is Elaina and this is Oden. Welcome.” Where was I? I looked around in amazement at everything I was witnessing. Oden was talking but I was in shock and did not hear half the things he said. Until he completed his next sentence. “Yes, welcome to the lost city of Atlantis.” I looked at him and Elaina. “What?!” I exclaimed. Oden looked at me, then at Elaina and they both busted out laughing. “No, this is not Atlantis. You are in Arctia. We built ourselves protection thousands of years ago from the ice ages. We have been under here ever since. Come.” I followed these new friends into a waterfall passage. And it opened up to what seemed to be a whole new world. There were animals that I had never seen before and people. Flying transportation and so many wonderful new things with technology unlike anything you could ever imagine. There were children running and laughing. Seeming to be so free. I started to walk further into this city with Elaina and Oden. I looked back to where we had come through noticing that the passage was now gone. I knew at that moment that there was no going back. This would be my new life. Somewhere underneath the Antarctica that I had once known.
By Tia Dalu Souhrada3 years ago in Fiction
The Wheel of Games
My head was pounding. I couldn’t remember what had happened. As I tried to open my eyes this realization ran through all my senses. Have you ever felt afraid? Not just any kind of afraid. But the type of afraid that has been buried deep down inside of you that only emerges with the most tragic incident or the most dreadful event. When fear takes over everything. The fear you felt when there was an unknown monster lurking under the bed or in the closet when you were a kid. It’s the type of fear that leaves you immobile and your mouth is clinched so tightly that you barely allow yourself to breathe. This is the fear that you wouldn’t even wish on your worst enemy. But at that moment you do begin to wish. You begin to wish, barter, beg, and plead. Because that is when you wish that what was happening to you would happen to anyone else but you. I felt my hands were bound together and my wrists felt like they were burning. My arms were stretched above me and I was strung up. I could feel that my feet were restricted and all I could do was squirm around trying to figure out what I was waking up to. There I stood with legs and arms bound and no recollection of events that put me in this position. Looking around I discovered that there were 5 of us. We were lined up in the same exact way. They seemed to be waking up to the same nightmare I had found myself in. I could hear screams in the distance. My heart dropped and that overwhelming rush of fear and flooded my entire being. As I looked around, I tried to gain a better focus of my surrounding. I was trying to see if there was a way out or an exit to escape. It appeared that we were in some kind of warehouse. There was a darkness that seemed to creep through the entire area and with shadows that were being cast, the darkness seemed as though it was alive and moving all around us. As the last person awoke, this spotlight came on with this brilliant light that felt like an explosion of dominance over the darkness. It poured most of the light onto a giant wheel. The wheel was one of those that you would see at a fair to decide your prize. On it. I could make out childhood games. Duck, duck, goose, Red Rover, Freeze Tag, Red Light Green Light, Twister. What was this? There was a loud bang and you could hear the inner workings of mechanics. I felt myself moving. We were all moving. We were being released. We stood there as someone in all black stepped out of the dark. The person was wearing a hood of black and looked like it was a shadow that came to life. This person had a knife. My thoughts began racing. But the masked individual started to remove the ropes that had bonded our hands and feet together. One of the five, took off running to the door at the end of the warehouse that a sign had just turned on stating EXIT. The next thing I saw was completely confusing. There was a whooshing sound and the runner was gone. Just disappeared. It was as though the darkness took him. Circus music began to play. I was waiting for clowns to come rushing out from every direction. The mere idea of that terrified me. I hate clowns. I hate clowns with a passion. Luckily, a tall and slender beautiful black haired lady stepped out from behind the wheel. She was dressed to kill. A long flowing red dress with shoulder-less straps and a choker made of rubies. She seemed to float as she walked forward. “Good evening. We have brought you here to play a game. The prize is simple. Win and you get to leave. Cheating or trying to leave will have severe consequences.” She took a breath and said one last thing. “Any questions? Didn’t think so.” I tried to say something but noticed that I couldn’t. They had done something where we were unable to speak. She walked over to the wheel and gave it a good spin. Around and around it went. The clicking seemed louder than the music playing. I watched as it slowed down and stopped. “Well look at this,” the lady said with a smirk, “Red Light, Green Light.” She started to clap her hands in excitement. “Does everyone know how to play?” The four of us looked at each other then back at her and nodded. “Now, there can only be one winner. And if I see you move during the red light. You will be eliminated. Let’s PLAY!” She pushed a button in the middle of the wheel and a stoplight appeared from the rafters. Only steps away from the exit. It was green. I took off running towards my freedom. I could hear loud stomping behind me. The light turned red. I froze as quickly as I could. “Aww too bad. Now there are only 3 of you.” She laughed. I wanted to turn and look but stood frozen. “Curiosity kills the cat.” The lady stated in a sing-song type voice. “Correction, make that only 2 are left.” I was glad I did not look. I believe that was what had happened to the 2nd player. They looked. The light turned green. I took off running again. I glanced back to see the other person on my heels. There was no sign of the other two. As I looked forward again the other person passed me and the light turned red. We both stopped in our tracks. All I could hear was the continued circus music and the sound of my wavered breathing. The light turned green and I was about to take off when it turned red almost immediately. The other person was running and just disappeared. Right in front of me. Just gone. “Looks like you are the last person. Now all you have to do is go through the exit and go home.” I waited for what seemed forever for that light to change to green. The circus music stopped. I felt like there were eyes staring at me in the darkness. I heard a click from the stoplight. The red turned green. I was so close to the door. I ran. It seemed that everything was in slow motion. I reached the door and began to open it. I heard that click and looked back. The light was red. I heard my inner voice screaming…. It’s RED! I heard a swooshing sound. The game had ended. Everything went dark.
By Tia Dalu Souhrada3 years ago in Fiction
The Animal Within
A fire was ignited within me. From the day I was born. It was the only thing that kept me warm, kept me whole, and kept me alone. There it stayed. Nestled behind everything that makes me, me. Protecting me time and time again . From the coldness of the world, the cruelty, and the injustice. As the years went by the fire grew. Feeding my soul with the strength to continue on. When you are a child there are certain things you should not have to worry about. Such as food, shelter, and even love. Because how can someone that is suppose to love you toss you away as though you didn't matter? Why wouldn’t you fight for someone or something that was once a part of you? Why would you not fight against wrong doings? That question seemed to run through me more than the blood in my veins. At a young age the thought of my existence just seemed irrelevant. Everyone always talks about having a purpose in life, but how could I, when the only thing I knew was a feeling of hope that I could survive. As I got older, I remembered things that should have stayed buried in the deepest depths of my mind. The disturbing stories you find in the news headlines. The type of memories that, even now, you can't seem to distinguish between being actual events or the torment of nightmares that still haunt you to this day. There was no one around that I could ever talk to about how I felt or even the things that I had been through. I was a caged animal in a world of savage humans. It will always remind me of watching a bullfighting program on TV. There he was: a beautiful, mighty, majestic bull. Standing proud as though he was making a grand display of his purpose. I always felt as though I was a misunderstood bull surrounded by a massive crowd of matadors waving muletas consisting of hateful words and phrases in front of me tempting me into releasing the rage built up inside. It’s kind of funny how the bull represents me. Everyone thinks that bulls are angry with the muletas being red. But, in actuality, bulls are color blind and it is the action or movement of the matador that causes the raging bull to attack. Just as the words and actions of others can affect an individual and even me. It has taken every fiber of my being to maintain the animal within, to remain in a peaceful state. I don’t think that many people care how they treat others. How their words and actions can affect someone else. How their words can either positively or negatively impact someone’s life. Reflecting back on the bullfighting program, I will never forget how I felt watching the bull go down. Seeing red. I cried. For the bull didn’t deserve his demise the way that he did. I didn’t understand why everyone was cheering. Why was this ok? That is the world we live in. We find power in the ability to manipulate a situation or others. That is why this fire burns within me. My soul is angry. It wants to fight against the wrong doings of this world. The worst part of it all being that humans are the main cause or root of all of this. We destroy what we don’t understand. We destroy the best parts of the world. We destroy each other. We destroy ourselves. We take what we can and keep what we shouldn’t. Many times throughout my life, I have heard that it only takes one person to make a difference. One person brave enough to buck the trends. I believe that one person can make a difference, with the support of others. Being a cohesive unit with a singular focus. That is when you can actually see change. This is how it works. This is how it has always worked. Good or bad. We study history to learn not to repeat certain events that have taken place over time. But it repeats. The world is washed over and over again following the directions as that of a shampoo bottle. Those of us that are angry and try hard to break free from a cloned society are put on display and brought down ending up with the same fate as that mighty bull. What do we need to do to be heard? Where do we go from here? Why don’t others listen? I may not know why I am here. I may not even know my purpose. I may never know. But I do know that I will continue to help others. I will continue to build others up instead of tearing them down. I will stand up and be heard when something is not right and will scream my words when I feel or see injustice. I only hope that, at the end of the day, this fiery bull within me will ignite the fire in many.
By Tia Dalu Souhrada3 years ago in Humans
Heat Stroke
Laura was finally home after a long day at the office and she was exhausted. She struggled with the bag of groceries in her hands while rummaging through her purse for the keys. It was just that type of day she was having: of course her car wouldn’t start. She looked at her car and she decided to walk home, regretting it now with the Texas summer heat beating down on her. Halfway home she was drenched with sweat. All she wanted to do was get home and get inside. She unlocked the door and kicked it closed behind her. She set the bag down on the kitchen table. Laura took a deep breath and fell out in the chair taking great pleasure in the cool breeze from the AC. The house was extremely quiet with the exception of the ceiling fan chords clanging together from the vibration of the blades spinning at the highest speed possible.
By Tia Dalu Souhrada3 years ago in Fiction