There’s Been a Crash Down Memory Lane

I am not a fool, nor am I one for melodramatic story-telling.

Though, I recall hearing once, in a dream perhaps, that writing down thoughts at a time of despair or rage can work wonders for the soul. So, without further ado, please settle into your seats and grab a drink, or twelve, for my crash down Memory Lane.

To say I am a ‘people-person’, would be extremely off the mark; far enough that Mr Columbus himself, would not have dared to sail that particular sea. It’s not that I think myself superior, as in all honesty all my thoughts are self-deprecating. To be quite honest, I just do not have the tolerance or desire to deal with anyone. In simplistic terms, they annoy me.

I suppose this could be a result of early childhood trauma.

As we backtrack to my early life, where I played with squirrels and puppies under the clear-blue skies, blinded by sunshine and giggling as I rolled down hills in the prettiest fields of overgrown grass and daisies. Where, as my pink frock got smudged with grass stains, my mother would laugh and usher me home to feed me finger sandwiches and hug me, telling me how much she loves her little doll, Velvet.

***

My goodness, I can get wrapped up.

For a moment there, it would seem the fiction escaped me, please accept my apologies.

In reality, as for the fields and sun, I have hay fever and burn to a crisp outside, and as for the pink frock, I do not recall ever wearing a colour brighter than light black. Finally, as for my mother, the woman was an absolute brute.

***

By way of formal introduction, my name is Velvet. A ridiculous name. I’m 25, single and permanently bitter. I would like to think I look around 20, it’s difficult to age when you have a lack of motivation to express emotion.

I am approximately 5ft 5inches, with my weight around… well, that is none of your business really, this is not a picture book. I wear far too much eyeliner, even in summer, as it aids with my whole vibe of being entirely unapproachable. Heed my advice, when you pair dramatic black eyes, with a black cape and a slap of blood red lipstick, you would be surprised just how unapproachable you become.

I drink to excess occasion, Cabernet being my poison or a nice Whiskey, neat. At this juncture, please note that when I say ‘on occasion’, I essentially mean any day which ends with the letter ‘Y’. This must be one of those days, for I can no longer remember how many of the seven days that particular phrase applies to.

I do not tend to abide by society’s rules, though I have my own personal set:

Rule #1 – Trust no one (cliché, but nevertheless essential) ;

Rule #2 – Trust your gut ;

Rule #3 – Avoid helping people, unless their wellbeing has an impact on your own ;

Rule #4 – When life gives you lemons, just don’t take them ; and

Rule #5 – Never buy your makeup off-brand.

***

In accordance with my life’s mantra, my reason for writing this all down, is that it would help me to consider Rule #2.

Recently, I have found myself in quite the predicament and I tend to think best once I have corresponded with myself. Usually, in some form of writing where I narrate like Lemony Snicket (if you don’t understand the reference, please Google now).

Essentially, to cut a long and tedious story short, my dear mother has recently departed. According to our solicitor, she had hung herself on the old pear tree just outside the doors of my childhood home, a woman who exits just as dramatically as she enters.

I have since heard that the aforementioned brute, left all personal belongings, including the ghastly dress she wore during the time of this… blunder, to me. An only child, no father or distant relatives, it should make good sense for me to receive everything and to be frank, I deserve it.

Yet, Readers, I cannot help but hear this voice in my head… for the purpose of my overall apprehension is due to the fact that I am, and have always been, completely and unconditionally certain that my mother is unable to die. I say this because I know it to be true that the brute is a Witch.

***

This is not a case of childhood hallucination or some symptom of attention deficit, I know it to be irrevocably true, and I know she was being punished by something somewhere. The punishment being everlasting life.

Truthfully, I wish whoever or whatever had placed that hex had taken some consideration as to my feelings, for there was no need for me to be punished also… but there we are.

***

A decade ago, 15 year-old me had been playing under the now tainted pear tree. It had been my favourite place to sit and write or daydream. It had been my own sanctuary.

My mother had taken to chanting her usual rubbish in the attic, at the time I had attributed her mannerisms to some sort of mental illness… which I had originally read about in Jacqueline Wilson’s book, The Illustrated Mum. Every single day, I could hear her clearly and watch the fluorescent flames of all colours flash behind the netted curtains. This practice had gone on for as long as I could remember, with it slowly burning its way into an obsession. Thus, I cooked for myself, and left food on the table for her. I clothed and washed myself and based on the state of the bathroom in the morning, I trust my mother did the same. She was definitely in a world of her own, unfit to be a mother whilst also unfit to be a functioning adult.

Anyway, teenage me had worked up the courage one afternoon to go into the attic and see for myself just what had kept my mother so absent. After sacrificing my childhood, I had spent what seemed like an eternity wondering exactly what all the chanting and screaming had been for. It had been going on for my entire existence and as there was no one else in the neighbouring vicinity to lodge a noise complaint with my creator, I took it upon myself.

I recall storming upstairs, partly due to anger but admittedly because I wanted her to know I was coming. For an adolescent so spunky, I was downright terrified of what had been happening in my attic. Creaking my way along the stairs to the attic door, I noticed each step I took caused for the noise to become a smidge quieter and by the time I reached the handle it had become deafeningly silent. No other exit, nowhere else for her to have gone, just the one door with myself stood on the other side of it. As my ear pressed up against the wooden frame and my breath staggered… I heard a sudden smash of glass and a sharp scream.

I burst in and saw that the window which I’d spent a decade and a half treating like a forcefield had been shattered, blood smeared on the shards of glass that remained. I recall the smell of some incense had caused for me to feel immediately nauseous and there’d been a chalice in the corner of the room with a great purple flame floating out the top. I lost my balance stumbling to the bloody window, which though I’d cursed at first, I then held on to for dear life as the pain distracted me whilst I looked with one eye outside.

Blood… the pavement was absolutely full of it… seeping and oozing and puddled on the pavestones outside. Yet… no body. Seriously, no word of a lie, no body. No crying, or smudges, there had been no blood trail as if she’d dragged herself away and hailed a taxi, my mother just wasn’t there.

Considering I had spent my entire life practically alone, the sudden absence of this woman made me frantic, the type of fear which is largely why I am the sceptic I am today.

Going back to Rule #1, the explanation for why I trust no one, is that as I ran downstairs with the intention of aiding my wounded parent, yet looking up, the rhymed-with Witch, was sat in my spot underneath the pear tree. She was completely unscathed, not a drop of blood in sight and giggling like an absolute child at my terror.

***

If it’d been a practical joke, it wasn’t funny.

I vividly remember the anger, the burning sensation running through me… the snarl I gave as I watched this heinous woman sat beneath my sanctuary. I approached her, screaming as she listened to and watched a decade and a half of hurt, betrayal and complete rage get unloaded on to her. A lot of emotional baggage that clearly had not been unpacked.

After my complete American Psycho breakdown, she then spoke to me, sobbing as though we’d been forcefully ripped apart, as opposed to the truth that she had been willingly upstairs and deliberately shunned away from me.

She then had her turn to vent. Explaining her powers and the predicament she faced. Bawling as she recanted the curse she was dealt whilst trying to save the life of another whose time it had been to end. I still do not know who. She said in no uncertain terms she had been trying to break the curse and would rather die than have her daughter grow older than her, have a life, get married and have children before slowly fading away. How as a mother, she was never going to watch me die.

Now with the sob-story over, I can tie it up by saying I had eventually left. My mother’s constant suicide attempts had become a bit of a downer and had caused some unearthly arguments.

***

Now, I write my story as she apparently has done it… yet, my head reverts to my non-breakable Rule #1. Needless to say, I will be ultimately furious if the toaster in the bathtub, burning herself alive and the several beheading attempts could have been ultimately avoided had she just tried the old-fashioned noose on the neck approach.

My solicitor tells me my mother put a condition in her will… that I could only receive everything if I returned home and collected it all in person.

Therefore, I write this in the back of a taxi, after having been on a train for six hours. How did she do it?

The Prius ascends the driveway and I am having déjà vu, it’s the same feeling I had that day on the stairs to the attic, terror.

I see the pear tree, my pear tree, sitting elegantly, like a royal, looking as though it waited for me. I retire out of the taxi and stride nervously towards my sanctuary. The cab has gone and I am back to being alone sitting beneath my friend. I look up at the branch and notice nothing is out of place. No broken branches, or disturbed dirt below which one would expect to find after a body has laid there for hours.

I then notice that my heart hastens as I look up towards the window and see the back of a woman’s head. My mother should not have aged, so why is her hair grey? Who is in my attic?

I rise to my feet and walk through the already open door, creeping up the stairs once more. Though not scared stiff this time, for I’ve learnt one thing in my last 10 years with no friends and nothing keeping me occupied in my personal life.

It turns out the Power is genetic and I am ready.