Author's note: This was written in response to a challenge set on ElijahFanForums, being to complete a short story which begins with the text (italicised) by the challenge originator. Everything in normal text is my own.

Silently Screaming

I long for a day without pain.

The sun is shining warm and bright, blinding me when I enter the room, because I didn't take the time to pull down the curtains last night once again.

It's the same damn ritual, every day. Getting up. Getting dressed. Having breakfast. Going to work. Getting back home. Nothing ever happens. In a way, I'm afraid to let anything happen. I've grown so used to this rusty life, I'm afraid to let it go. Sometimes I feel like I've been living this life forever. Or rather not living a life. Just living.

But I haven't.

I have lived a life. Not too long ago. I went to school, had friends, got into fights with my parents about homework and chores. I can still hear my mom screaming sometimes. "Walk that damn dawg!" But then I wake up from the daydream and realize that time has gone.

Time.

Time should disappear. Time should be like light and darkness. A thing I can see and feel so I know it is real and not just my imagination. That way, all there'd be to forgetting is simply closing my eyes and switching off the lamp next to my bed.

“Do something wild,” my friends said. “Try something new.” My coffee table is stacked high with crumpled holiday brochures. Leaflets advertising salsa dance classes and French lessons are pinned to my fridge. My inbox has a couple of rejection mails floating near the top. Jobs I never really wanted, never tried for. Picked because I knew I’d never get them.

I’m sleepwalking through my life and I can’t wake up. A nightmare. Frustrated by my own useless ineptitude, by my reluctance to change, by fear.

Alcohol solves that, of course.

Do something wild, they said. Didn’t take me seriously, couldn’t understand my fear. Too busy in their own dreams to notice me screaming, silently.

Couldn’t understand.

Try something new, they said, then took me out to a bar. New, just opened, pavement still littered with advertising, words that cried out louder than I. Bouncers in smart suits, statues, their faces expressing all the emotion of my life. Barmen with fake smiles, pouring drinks with practised fingers. Glossy windows caught my eyes, stared back at me with their flawless surface, unmarred by keys and scratches and bricks thrown by bored hands. Sparkling metallic, chairs that throw back glimpses of skin and hair and leather, a polished finish.

New, they said. Different, they said.

Liars.

I watched them dance, shrugged off offers and pleas with indifference. Why bother, I wondered, downed my fourth gin and licked my tongue around parched lips. But hands clutched at me and dragged me down, and I moved, beats grabbing my hips and feet and pulling me in.

Do something wild, they said. His eyes explored my body, forged a path for his fingers, around my curves, my dimples, my flaws hidden by bright lights and noise. Skin on my skin, ticklish hair, I stifled drunken laughs and lolled, driven by his recklessness, pushed by the gin. I can smell his aftershave, he can smell my sweat, oblivious to the dance floor or the cold wind outside, or the scattered papers that litter my flat, attempts at a life. His weight presses my silhouette into the mattress and I sink, grasp handfuls of sheets, close my eyes and roll back.

You were wild, they said. You were different, they said.

The lack of change in me prompted a mumbled false promise of a phone call, and a taxi. I couldn’t see it. Turned on the light and stared at the ceiling, heard the clock mark the passing of my life.

Getting up. Getting dressed. Having breakfast. Going to work. Getting back home. Nothing ever happens.

The leaflets fall from my fridge and slip under the table. Their edges curl in the heat, wrinkle and brown. The brochures gather dust and then land in the dustbin, bundled up, hidden guilt with black plastic. Taken away on a Monday morning, back haunting me by Monday night. My inbox is cleaned, headed by Nigerian bankers and naked Swiss twins.

Time came, and went, and it was several weeks before I caught up with the lateness. Ignored it for as long as I could, until I ate breakfast in the kitchen at eight, and saw it again at eight thirty in the bathroom.

Pink strip sits there, on the side of the bath.

Time.

I can feel it, inside me, sleeping and waking. Place my hand on my abdomen and I can feel it, time, pressing back against me. Time kicks my kidneys and I laugh, glow. I lie on the bed and see it, white mark against black on the screen beside me, just light and darkness.

I’m living two lives, hers and mine. Time caresses me and I scream. No longer silent.