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Sweat- Short Venting Stories
Cancer.
Jayn curled her small hands into fists, pushing hard with her small legs; pumping back and forth. Wind caressed her face, gently sifting across her cheeks with each swift rock. The chains above screeched, the frame of the wooden swing set lurching. Fresh green grass was slowly beginning to creep between gaps in the snow, stretching stalks of emerald toward the sun-lit sky. A new beginning was crawling out across the soft melting snow of Buffalo. Something new. Something special.
Something felt strange about the car. It didn’t make much sense, why had everyone laughed, smiled, cared, playing and having fun. Why now did everything seem to shatter. The atmosphere was soul-crushing. No one looked, acted or spoke any different; it was a shared feeling of fear and confusion shown between silent glances to each other. It was real, but it felt like after it rained in the summertime, it was hot and humid, you could even venture to say hard to breathe. A sticky sensation covered your skin, almost dewy… goosebumps ran up arms and legs. The silence was one of the loudest silences there was. Strange to think of it as loud, pressing against the sides of your head, daring someone to try breaking it. No one did, or rather, no one could.
The one thing you could never imagine to tell an eight year old child, that their mother had been diagnosed with cancer. Where does one begin to even explain that. To a kid, who has never met anyone with cancer, who barely even knows what it means. What could you even say to try to explain such a harsh and complicated subject. The one thing I didn’t understand as a kid, how someone could go for a perfectly healthy adult, to a sad and crumpled up piece of paper in the corner of a mattress. How everyone around you can change from being normal to suddenly not knowing how to talk in a matter of seconds. How you yourself, can go from feeling normal to feeling confused and afraid; seeking out a hug for a reason you didn’t yet understand. Feeling as if frost covered your skin, draining your energy, each movement feeling like an empty bottle. Like one side of your mattress could somehow be more important than the other. The feeling of lying awake, wondering what meaning each thing has, how important it is to you, how you would feel without it. Questions became more and more answer less, that grey space stuck between the black and the white becoming harder and harder to navigate.
Only eight years old, spending a night at your grandmother’s house, lying awake and staring at the ceiling. The grey room seems much bigger, with the bed in the center, you in the center of the bed. The house feels more empty than ever. You feel more confused. More concerned. More angry. Unable to firmly grasp understanding of one thing before another struggle is whipped at you; underestimated, family trying to carry you through the storm, making choices for you, brushing you off because whats important is now a fine light line in that space, the space between black and white… the grey area. Being lured out of a bedroom with television, a hot meal, ice cream. Not the same as being welcomed into the arms of a loving mother. Curious on where she is, how she is doing. Wondering, questions, they pile up. An eight year old doesn’t understand. Doesn’t know how to cope. Can’t comprehend. It makes them angry. They lash out. Act up. Throw temper tantrums. Misbehave. Find any sort of waste of time, attention grabber, head turner. Hoping to get answers, because sitting in the grey area sucks. Sitting in that grey area is hard. Sitting in the grey area makes your life a mess.
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Yellow Sunflower
Jul 7, 2021I love the way you write!! Awesome!! Please write more!!
Love the second chapter! It speaks my head!