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Elixane Rey // d6 // [fin]
Nov 13, 2015 2:44:55 GMT -5
Post by brad bradford ★ d5b [arx] on Nov 13, 2015 2:44:55 GMT -5
Naveen 3.0 bc third time's the charm - Elixane Rey - District 6 - Seventeen - Female - FC: Sam Laskey
elixane rey
district six | seventeen
"Miss Rey."
It should be a question rolling off her tongue. People sit with faces to their laps, downtrodden souls looking for answers that will never come. I am just one part of the whole. But the receptionist is looking at me—"Miss Rey."—a statement.
I quickly stand. She doesn't need to tell me where to go, doesn't need to do anything more than click her pen and pop her bubblegum. I know my way around these clean, white corridors. The map may as well be tattooed on my palm; this is home.
Dodge a gurney, dance across wet floors, two more right turns, left of the out-of-order vending machine. They always put him in this room. He refused to stay still otherwise. It was just easier to leave the room open and wait for him to need it.
Room 217. I don't bother knocking. A gentle twist of the knob, a silent cry of relief as I hear him curse from behind the door. "Dad?" I step inside. The door swings shut behind me. My brother sits slouched in a chair, the same old air of annoyance surrounding him.
"Ah, not this dumb bitch again," Dad grumbles at the sight of me, throwing his hands in the air. The needles sticking in his arm yank free. The nurse working on him curses under her breath. Kasen chuckles from where he sits with his arms folded over his chest. He doesn't even bother turning to me. "Welcome home, El."
I ignore him.
"Hey, Dad," I say, pulling a chair closer to his bed. The nurse looks at me with disgust, clearly upset that I had undone all her good work. "How've you been? Haven't seen you home in a few days."
He doesn't respond, not that I really expected him to. This was how it always went. The entire Rey family would gather every time Dad's dementia ridden mind called. And then we would sit with him, listen to him cuss at us and threaten to kill a nurse if he didn't get some whiskey. Then the sedative would kick in and the room would fall silent.
There are 62 ceiling tiles. Two of them are missing. At exactly 4:48PM everyday a boy walks by whistling. The radiator kicks in at 8:00PM, sometimes later depending on if the handy man fiddles with the vending machine outside our room or not. The lights in the hallway flicker out at 10:09PM every day and the receptionist that lets me in is greeted with a kiss outside our window by her fiancee a short time after.
Routine. Over and over again. Steady as a pendulum, as predictable as day and night. New patients come and go in the middle of the night, the only thing rousing me from the daze I fall in and out of being the people that come in screeching. ("My baby! Where is my baby girl?!") Their muffled sobs ease me back into sleep, dreams of barbed wire fences and bright stage lights meshing into an in-cohesive dream.
I wake first as a nurse brings breakfast. Dad wakes next, his voice groggy from the drugs but his hatred toward me and Kasen still very evident. My sister finally shows up as the clock dings for 10:30AM. She shoves Kasen as she walks in the door, her heels click, click, clicking as she moves across the room and kisses Dad on the forehead. "Hey, Pops," she says brightly, despite his obvious disgust with her.
"Morning to you, too, Cat," Kasen grumbles, trying to work a kink out of his neck. I can't see her roll her eyes at him, but I have no doubt that she does. Dad curses at her—"How many more dirty whores am I going to have in my room?"—and she scoffs.
"Don't be such an asshat, Dad, it's unbecoming, even with your dementia ridden brain."
She turns away from him, digging in her shirt as she stands in front of Kasen and I. She pulls out two wads of cash and tosses one to each of us. Kasen smirks. "Asshat?" I frown to keep the smile off my face. She shakes her head, smirking as she adjusts her bra. "I'm hungover. Cut me some slack."
But we both already knew that. That's how it always is with her. Ever since Mom died and Dad's condition took a turn for the worse she hasn't been anything but drunk. We don't blame her. We simply wish it could be different.
I remember listening to her voice through the thin wood walls of our house in the middle of the night. She would scream. I would hear Mom shush her and say, "Tell me a story." And I would listen intently as her voice drifted through the cracks in the wall. Pirates sailed across the sea, princesses got into sword fights, bakers turned into great beasts, and stars fell from the sky to grant one girl's every wish.
I miss my sister's stories. I miss the way Mom tucked me into bed. I miss my brother playing piano in the morning. And I miss Dad bouncing me on his knee and singing—("Hush, little baby, don't say a word...")—me to sleep. I shove the roll of money down my shirt; I should make sure I get milk on the way home.
"Do you guys need more?" Cat looks down on us, her face suddenly serious. I try to refrain from rolling my eyes. Of course we need more. But Kasen answers for me: "No." Dad mutters something about money, something about where we got it, something about Mom. We ignore.
My eyes catch on a bruise on her thigh. "El," she starts. I avert my eyes and stare blankly past Dad and out the window where the trees sway in the wind and the birds flit across the bright blue canvas of the sky. I try to listen for the birds, their twittering and tweeting. But the window is closed, the glass traps me with my prostitute sister and my drug addicted brother.
"El," she tries again, her voice stern this time. But I didn't care to hear her story. Not this time, not this one. I stand and push past her. Dad's voice follows me out the door—"Ah, good riddance, you swine!"—rattling around in my brain and twisting my heart into a painful knot.
I sprint until I've burst free of the prison. The air is cold in my lungs, but the sun is warm against my pale skin. "Hello, Miss Catalin," says a deep voice from behind me. I whirl around and he blinks a few times as I take deep breaths, trying to hide the tears in my eyes. "No, sorry," I mutter, folding my arms across my chest to stop my hands from shaking.
"Oh, my apologies," he says, raising a dirty palm in defense. "You're the younger, Miss Rey." I wasn't sure how he knew that, but I nod, dragging my foot through the dirt and gnawing at my lip to force the tears away. "You look just like her." I nod again because I know it's true. The only thing that seemed to give us away was---"Except the eyes." ... yes, our eyes.
Mine filled with tears when I thought about the future. Her's swam only when she looked to the past. That was the difference between the two of us. She sees a bright future where I see only darkness and uncertainty. I mourn the security steadiness of the past where anger flares in her eyes when I bring up old memories. You could see the difference in our eyes.
"Yes, I got the emeralds, she got the sapphires," I reply, remembering Mom's words. He nods, his face falling from cheeky to serious much too fast for my liking.
"I've gotta go," I mutter, turning on my heels and ignoring every other word to fall from his lips.
I run until I can't hear anything but the wind in my ears, until my thighs ache from the exertion and my lungs screech for mercy. I find a comfort in it, the tiny pinpricks of pain. It's why I let Dad call me what he likes. It's why I'm staring at Mom's headstone. Olivia Rey. Beloved wife and mother. It was cancer. Nothing as quick and painless as she deserved.
I sit myself down, pressing my back against the cold stone. The tears are coming faster and faster now as I scan the cemetery, looking out over the field of death and knowing that the pain of my loss isn't nearly great enough to match the whole of District 6. But I want it to be. Mom deserves that. She deserves that and more. "I love you, Mom."
Ghosts whisper sweet nothings in my ears as I begin to sing a lullaby as sweet as the kind Dad used to lull me to sleep with. Apparently I was blessed with Mom's good looks and Dad's beautiful voice—or at least this is what the older generation tells me. I can never hear my own voice when I sing. It comes from so deep within that all I can hear is the beat of my heart in my ears, feel the vibration of my vocal chords in my throat.
There was a time when I believed I could sing because I loved it. Now I sing because everything hurts. Somehow it's the only way I can get it out, the only thing keeping me sane in a world that wants me to lose all sanity.
The sun sinks in the sky and my voice keeps pouring off my lips. I don't stop until my throat aches and cracks; the words stop coming so freely. The moon is beginning to glow against a darkening backdrop. Crickets begin to chirp, frogs begin to croak. Night begins to play an oh so familiar tune and I half expect to hear Mom's footsteps crossing the house as she comes to tuck me in.
The graveyard is silent. I am silent. I stand and plant a kiss on the top of the headstone before turning away. The chill of the air reminds me that I still have a long walk home. I shouldn't have come here. I had things to do, people to meet, money to make. But no matter how much I reminded myself of the life I still needed to go on living, I couldn't help yearn for the one I had lost.
I'd be back tomorrow. Unlike my brother and sister I always found my way home. Back to Mom.
It should be a question rolling off her tongue. People sit with faces to their laps, downtrodden souls looking for answers that will never come. I am just one part of the whole. But the receptionist is looking at me—"Miss Rey."—a statement.
I quickly stand. She doesn't need to tell me where to go, doesn't need to do anything more than click her pen and pop her bubblegum. I know my way around these clean, white corridors. The map may as well be tattooed on my palm; this is home.
Dodge a gurney, dance across wet floors, two more right turns, left of the out-of-order vending machine. They always put him in this room. He refused to stay still otherwise. It was just easier to leave the room open and wait for him to need it.
Room 217. I don't bother knocking. A gentle twist of the knob, a silent cry of relief as I hear him curse from behind the door. "Dad?" I step inside. The door swings shut behind me. My brother sits slouched in a chair, the same old air of annoyance surrounding him.
"Ah, not this dumb bitch again," Dad grumbles at the sight of me, throwing his hands in the air. The needles sticking in his arm yank free. The nurse working on him curses under her breath. Kasen chuckles from where he sits with his arms folded over his chest. He doesn't even bother turning to me. "Welcome home, El."
I ignore him.
"Hey, Dad," I say, pulling a chair closer to his bed. The nurse looks at me with disgust, clearly upset that I had undone all her good work. "How've you been? Haven't seen you home in a few days."
He doesn't respond, not that I really expected him to. This was how it always went. The entire Rey family would gather every time Dad's dementia ridden mind called. And then we would sit with him, listen to him cuss at us and threaten to kill a nurse if he didn't get some whiskey. Then the sedative would kick in and the room would fall silent.
There are 62 ceiling tiles. Two of them are missing. At exactly 4:48PM everyday a boy walks by whistling. The radiator kicks in at 8:00PM, sometimes later depending on if the handy man fiddles with the vending machine outside our room or not. The lights in the hallway flicker out at 10:09PM every day and the receptionist that lets me in is greeted with a kiss outside our window by her fiancee a short time after.
Routine. Over and over again. Steady as a pendulum, as predictable as day and night. New patients come and go in the middle of the night, the only thing rousing me from the daze I fall in and out of being the people that come in screeching. ("My baby! Where is my baby girl?!") Their muffled sobs ease me back into sleep, dreams of barbed wire fences and bright stage lights meshing into an in-cohesive dream.
I wake first as a nurse brings breakfast. Dad wakes next, his voice groggy from the drugs but his hatred toward me and Kasen still very evident. My sister finally shows up as the clock dings for 10:30AM. She shoves Kasen as she walks in the door, her heels click, click, clicking as she moves across the room and kisses Dad on the forehead. "Hey, Pops," she says brightly, despite his obvious disgust with her.
"Morning to you, too, Cat," Kasen grumbles, trying to work a kink out of his neck. I can't see her roll her eyes at him, but I have no doubt that she does. Dad curses at her—"How many more dirty whores am I going to have in my room?"—and she scoffs.
"Don't be such an asshat, Dad, it's unbecoming, even with your dementia ridden brain."
She turns away from him, digging in her shirt as she stands in front of Kasen and I. She pulls out two wads of cash and tosses one to each of us. Kasen smirks. "Asshat?" I frown to keep the smile off my face. She shakes her head, smirking as she adjusts her bra. "I'm hungover. Cut me some slack."
But we both already knew that. That's how it always is with her. Ever since Mom died and Dad's condition took a turn for the worse she hasn't been anything but drunk. We don't blame her. We simply wish it could be different.
I remember listening to her voice through the thin wood walls of our house in the middle of the night. She would scream. I would hear Mom shush her and say, "Tell me a story." And I would listen intently as her voice drifted through the cracks in the wall. Pirates sailed across the sea, princesses got into sword fights, bakers turned into great beasts, and stars fell from the sky to grant one girl's every wish.
I miss my sister's stories. I miss the way Mom tucked me into bed. I miss my brother playing piano in the morning. And I miss Dad bouncing me on his knee and singing—("Hush, little baby, don't say a word...")—me to sleep. I shove the roll of money down my shirt; I should make sure I get milk on the way home.
"Do you guys need more?" Cat looks down on us, her face suddenly serious. I try to refrain from rolling my eyes. Of course we need more. But Kasen answers for me: "No." Dad mutters something about money, something about where we got it, something about Mom. We ignore.
My eyes catch on a bruise on her thigh. "El," she starts. I avert my eyes and stare blankly past Dad and out the window where the trees sway in the wind and the birds flit across the bright blue canvas of the sky. I try to listen for the birds, their twittering and tweeting. But the window is closed, the glass traps me with my prostitute sister and my drug addicted brother.
"El," she tries again, her voice stern this time. But I didn't care to hear her story. Not this time, not this one. I stand and push past her. Dad's voice follows me out the door—"Ah, good riddance, you swine!"—rattling around in my brain and twisting my heart into a painful knot.
I sprint until I've burst free of the prison. The air is cold in my lungs, but the sun is warm against my pale skin. "Hello, Miss Catalin," says a deep voice from behind me. I whirl around and he blinks a few times as I take deep breaths, trying to hide the tears in my eyes. "No, sorry," I mutter, folding my arms across my chest to stop my hands from shaking.
"Oh, my apologies," he says, raising a dirty palm in defense. "You're the younger, Miss Rey." I wasn't sure how he knew that, but I nod, dragging my foot through the dirt and gnawing at my lip to force the tears away. "You look just like her." I nod again because I know it's true. The only thing that seemed to give us away was---"Except the eyes." ... yes, our eyes.
Mine filled with tears when I thought about the future. Her's swam only when she looked to the past. That was the difference between the two of us. She sees a bright future where I see only darkness and uncertainty. I mourn the security steadiness of the past where anger flares in her eyes when I bring up old memories. You could see the difference in our eyes.
"Yes, I got the emeralds, she got the sapphires," I reply, remembering Mom's words. He nods, his face falling from cheeky to serious much too fast for my liking.
"I've gotta go," I mutter, turning on my heels and ignoring every other word to fall from his lips.
I run until I can't hear anything but the wind in my ears, until my thighs ache from the exertion and my lungs screech for mercy. I find a comfort in it, the tiny pinpricks of pain. It's why I let Dad call me what he likes. It's why I'm staring at Mom's headstone. Olivia Rey. Beloved wife and mother. It was cancer. Nothing as quick and painless as she deserved.
I sit myself down, pressing my back against the cold stone. The tears are coming faster and faster now as I scan the cemetery, looking out over the field of death and knowing that the pain of my loss isn't nearly great enough to match the whole of District 6. But I want it to be. Mom deserves that. She deserves that and more. "I love you, Mom."
Ghosts whisper sweet nothings in my ears as I begin to sing a lullaby as sweet as the kind Dad used to lull me to sleep with. Apparently I was blessed with Mom's good looks and Dad's beautiful voice—or at least this is what the older generation tells me. I can never hear my own voice when I sing. It comes from so deep within that all I can hear is the beat of my heart in my ears, feel the vibration of my vocal chords in my throat.
There was a time when I believed I could sing because I loved it. Now I sing because everything hurts. Somehow it's the only way I can get it out, the only thing keeping me sane in a world that wants me to lose all sanity.
The sun sinks in the sky and my voice keeps pouring off my lips. I don't stop until my throat aches and cracks; the words stop coming so freely. The moon is beginning to glow against a darkening backdrop. Crickets begin to chirp, frogs begin to croak. Night begins to play an oh so familiar tune and I half expect to hear Mom's footsteps crossing the house as she comes to tuck me in.
The graveyard is silent. I am silent. I stand and plant a kiss on the top of the headstone before turning away. The chill of the air reminds me that I still have a long walk home. I shouldn't have come here. I had things to do, people to meet, money to make. But no matter how much I reminded myself of the life I still needed to go on living, I couldn't help yearn for the one I had lost.
I'd be back tomorrow. Unlike my brother and sister I always found my way home. Back to Mom.
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