Outsider by W. Freedreamer Tinkanesh

had
inspired her.
    It was some time in the middle of the night
and the moon was missing from the starless sky. Dreams and oblivion
were eluding Sid. She felt knots tightening in her throat, in her
heart, in her stomach. The music she had switched on, the first
Second Look album, was no balm to her bruised soul. Her hands were
opening and closing into fists spasmodically. She felt anger, hate,
frustration, defiance, shooting through her mind back and forth.
Paranoia hot on their trail. She got up brutally, kicking a pile of
music tapes forgotten by the side of her bed. They crashed onto the
black carpet and into oblivion. Tension was running along her
limbs, clawing at her abdominal muscles, tensing her nostrils. Used
to darkness, she walked to the kitchen, eyes close to tears she
refused to shed. She opened the small fridge fitted into the too
small kitchen, almost wrenching the door out of its hinges, and
grabbed fiercely the bottle of pure vodka she always tried to deny
herself. No fruit juice left. Who cared. She had just killed the
most sacred people.
    No, she reminded herself, I haven’t REALLY
killed them, I only killed the characters they inspired me . And
in actual facts, she had failed, because in order to kill Dawn, she
had to start the story with Dawn already dead. No , she
admonished herself. It was just one of the many characters she
inspired. And I couldn’t even kill a character of fiction……
    She drank a long sip of vodka, still
crouching in front of the open fridge, blind to the various items
of food necessary to her attempts at a balanced diet, albeit fresh
vegetables. She violently got up. The alcohol swirled in the
bottle. She slammed the fridge door and kept on drinking, long sip
after long sip, pure vodka burning her taste buds, slowly, but
surely, clouding her mind.
    She knew she wouldn’t escape, she couldn’t
escape, the tantalizing call of the razor blade calling her from
the cabinet in the bathroom, where she kept it, along with the
first aid kit. And the call felt louder by the minute, almost
screaming in the silence of her flat.
    She stood for a minute or two in the short
corridor, exactly positioned between the two painted doors, trying
to gain strength. Begging for the strength to leave unscathed this
strange plateau where she landed sometimes, this field of insanity,
this other realm where there was only one logical action. And
blooded consequences. But the Native American spirits were busy
elsewhere.
    She drank more forcefully out of the bottle.
Waiting for the madness to overcome her weakness. She knew she
couldn’t fight. Resistance was futile…….
     
    A digital clock swung to 3 am. Sid was now
sitting on her dark bed, in her darkened bedroom, her favorite CD
playing on a loop. She had no T-shirt on to hide the Navajo symbols
tattooed on her chest and abdomen. She had no T-shirt on to protect
her naked breasts from her deep hate. Was it self-hatred or was it
really what doctors denied her. She would have so gladly gotten rid
of her…….breasts. She hated the word as much as what they
designated. No, she wasn’t female, she wasn’t a woman, she couldn’t
identify, in a world where she was denied her real self, real life.
But she wasn’t a man. She couldn’t identify as such either. In a
world where choice wasn’t given, in a world where without money she
couldn’t obtain the full mastectomy she would have gladly done
with, in a world where you HAD to be male or female, one or the
other, but you were not allowed, never allowed, to stand in the
middle and be yourself, just you, yourself. Me, myself, I. NOT
ALLOWED TO HAVE YOUR LIFE!
    She was screaming in her head, shouting,
begging the Second Look keyboard player for a forgiveness that
wasn’t hers to give. With a swift hand, she slashed at the
tattoo-free breast, clean razor blade, as deep as she could, but it
was never deep enough. She slashed. Sharpness of metal burning
through skin……. Cold metal meeting warm blood.