Fan Fiction ❯ Somewhere between the Lady and the Tiger ❯ Somewhere between the Lady and the Tiger ( Chapter 1 )

Somewhere Between the Lady and the Tiger

"Are you going to eat that?"

"Huh?" Helen looked up. "I'm sorry?"

"Are you going to eat that?" the girl asked pointing to the forgotten plate.

Helen looked down at the untouched apple pie; a white film of liquefied whipped cream ran from the edge of the crust. How long have I been sitting here? she wondered. She noticed the girl still looking at her waiting for an answer. "Ah, no" she said pushing the plate towards the girl.

"Are you sure?" She asked, taking the plate.

"Go ahead."

The girl smiled and began to scoop out the sweet filling. Helen took a moment to study her. Her brown hair was tightly bound in two long braids. Her dress was a bit old fashioned but cute all the same. Helens, body seized as a sneeze overcame her.

"Bless you."

"Thank you," Helen replied looking up, to the mystery girl. She had finished the filling and was working through the empty crust. Helen noticed she had somehow changed. Her hair seemed lighter in places, and now she wore multiple pericings in each ear. I must be tired, she thought. The girl looked up and smiled again. Her eyes suddenly looked older then her 12-year-old body, like they had seen too much, too many things she should have never witnessed. Helen thought she resembled her, when she was a child. Helen looked away she didn't like where her thoughts were going. She looked about the small sparsely populated diner. Time had stolen the once pristine walls, gleaming chrome, and unsoiled checkered floor and replaced it with varying shades of gray. The whole room looked saturated with age. For some reason Helen felt worn just sitting there among the decay.

Helen glanced at the counter. Three women sat with their backs to her. The waitress stood behind the counter, her light brown hair streaked with sliver piled high on her head. Must be a prerequisite for the job, she mused. The waitress gave her a well-worn grin. She could almost see the women in her youth, eager and happy with her new job, her first opportunity for independence. Then, one day she returns to taking an order, and realizes she is no longer young, and life is creeping away. She noticed how trapped she really is. All her years behind the counter serving others, pouring coffee, slicing pie. Helen shifted her gaze from the woman. She seemed too painful to look at.

She heard the familiar whispering. Helen often heard whispering, a conversation she could never make out, the words to low as to be vibrations. No matter how hard she concentrated they never let on what they were talking about. They were just voices without reason, it always unnerved her. But these whispers came from two women at the counter, leaving towards each other. I wonder if they are talking about me? It seemed silly and self important, but she often felt the subject of many secret conversations.

One of the women turned and looked at her. Helen quickly looked away. She swore she saw contempt and near rage in the women's expression. Her eyes burned. Again, she wondered how long she had been in this place and why hadn't she left. But the answer was simple: She felt no compulsion to leave, and she really had nowhere else to be. Here is just as good as anywhere. She needed something to do, any mundane activity to keep her hand and mind occupied. She looked down into her cold coffee, an oily film developing on the surface. The harsh fluorescent light reflected a slick rainbow against the black. Helen stared at her cup, finding the vortex fascinating. The beauty against the ominous, light against dark, the age-old struggle. "Don't be stupid, it's just coffee," she whispered.

"Yes it is."

Helen jerked her head up. Three women stood above her, studying her intently. She glanced at the counter and found it almost empty. Only a single figure sat completely inanimate. Even the atmosphere around her seemed frozen. She looked across the table to the girl; she now had black hair with indigo streaks. For some reason the changes seemed natural, like some sort of evolutionary process. Her age had become indefinable.

"Do you make a habit to talk to your coffee?" Asked the women with the angry eyes.

Helen felt herself blushing, like a child caught doing something silly. "I wouldn't exactly call it a habit. Just a way to pass the time," she replied with a nervous smile. " I'm sorry, did you want something?"

The women all looked at each other and engaged in an inaudible debate. Angry Eyes nodded her head in silent agreement. "You probably have no idea who we are."

"No should I? Have we met before? I have a terrible memory for names."

"We know."

Helen gave her a puzzled look. She looked into the face of every women and found they all shared a resemblance, as though they were all wicked half-sisters from some forgotten fairy tale. Something about the shape of their bodies, the curves of their necks, the slopes of their noses, all clicked with Helen in some indefinable way. "So we've met before?" she asked.

"Not exactly, but we know you better then you know yourself, Helen," said the girl across the table.

"How do you know my name? Who are you?"

"We are you."

Helen started growing a little more nervous. Great, they're crazy. "This must be some sort of joke."

"This is no joke, hon," the waitress said, still wearing her weary smile. "We are exhausted."

"We have been fighting with you for some time now," said the second woman from the counter.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know you; I've never had any arguments with any of you. You must be mistaking me for someone else. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I should just pay my bill and leave." Helen started to slide out of the booth when Angry Eyes slammed her fist on the table.

"You are not going anywhere! You're always doing that. Just deny whatever is troubling you and run away. Always pushing your emotions aside so that you don't have to deal with them. It's unfair and you are killing us!" she yelled, her face flushed with rage.

"When you were a child you use to hide in closets. You would crawl in pull the door shut, and curl up on a shelf. It was the only place you felt completely at peace. It was the darkness you loved, the feeling that there were no walls, just emptiness. That is how you spent your childhood, completely cloaked in shadow. We were there watching you fall further and further into yourself. Nobody else noticed, did they? They thought nothing of a girl wanting time to herself. But that's not what it was and you know it."

Helen shook her head in complete shock over the revelation. No.

"You were hiding from everyone. Every time someone sounded irritated, angry, yelled, screamed. You couldn't handle it. Even though it wasn't directed towards you, it was the whole concept of someone around you being unhappy, even if for just a moment. But soon you began to change that, didn't you?" Second Counter Woman spoke evenly; there was no anger in her voice but an underlying sadness. "You began to think there was something you could do about it so you assumed the roll of peacemaker, the voice of reason. But people don't always respond to reason, do they? You wanted it all to stop. You wanted everyone happy."

"Yes" Helen said just above a whisper. "But I had to! My parents worked so hard for us. My sisters and brother hardly saw that, and if they did they ignored it. But I couldn't, I watch my mother weep quietly when she thought no one was there. I remember the look on my father's face as he tried struggled to keep everything together. They didn't need to listen to our petty arguments, they needed some peace and if I could give it to them then I would. Someone had to be strong; someone had to give them a reason to believe in something. I worked so hard to make them proud. I don't think that was wrong. I wanted to do it for them." Helen felt the need to defend herself. It wasn't so bad.

"What happened when you disappointed them?"

"Nothing, I know I can't save the world. That's unrealistic."

"You're lying. True you are not superwoman, no one is, but that's not what you thought. You were so sure you could deal with it all, and when you couldn't, you broke down. Never where they could see you. It was your dirty secret. Worrying yourself sick, over things you could not have possibly controlled. God help you if your grades weren't high, because you imagined your parent's disappointed face."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"You still don't get it, do you?" said Rage Eyes. "We are you! We were there when the kids in school commented on you dirty skin, orange picking family members and swimming abilities. We were there when you were accused of stealing, humiliated in the worst way possible. Threatened, treated like the dirty Spic you are. Do you remember thinking that's how it was suppose to be! So impotent with anger and shame! You started to regress; you started to deal with things differently. You stopped letting anyone in, even your family."

"It was my problem, they didn't need to be burden with my problems. They were for me to deal with! No one else's. And I dealt with them just fine!"

"Oh, by shutting everything away and letting the overflow out by other means."

"I don't know what you're talking about" Helen said, turning away from their impregnable stare.

"We know more then anyone what is going on!" Rage growled.

Helen closed her eyes, willing them to go away. This is insane, she thought. Then it came crashing upon her from all sides: Images, voices, phrases emphasize on certain syllables. Every time she wanted to lash out, scream, cry, she reined it in because she thought it would make her weak, she hated weakness in herself. Everything she wanted to change about herself but didn't came at her. Arguments left unfinished, because she didn't want the person unhappy with her. All the times she gave in to her siblings or friends and completed what should have been their job. Crying in the solitude of her closets, because she couldn't change anything. It all came back at her; she felt the tears prick the corners of her eyes. She wanted to scream at the injustice of it all. This is all in the past, it's over with! Please let it go. But she couldn't, she never could. How many times had she argued with these voices? Pleading her case and yet they continued to haunt her. Her head ached with the effort of fighting them. Trying desperately to push them away to the recesses of her subconscious, they held strong and refused to release her from this tortured state.

Helen felt her control start to waiver. Quakes ran through her body. A simple squeak from a stool at the counter called her attention. Her eyes opened against her wishes. Why does my body always betray me? She watched as bare feet met with the floor. The woman's ankles bore deep angry cuts and burns. Easily hidden with a pair of socks. Helen felt a sickness not unknown to her creep into her extremities, followed by the urge to run. But her body wouldn't respond, making her a prisoner of the scene unfolding before her. Helen's eyes continued their assault on her sanity as they focused on the woman's arms. Deep X shaped wounds marred her wrist, multiple gouges on her forearms, from her fingernails. Her upper arms were swollen and discolored. Dark bruises and abrasions from some unforgotten abuse, firewood. The woman's downcast head slowly rose, exposing an abysmal rictus slashed across her throat.

A small cry escaped Helen before she could stifle it. The woman's face pale and haggard. Her eyes dull from pain, almost lifeless. She was the very embodiment of suffering, standing there in all her grotesque glory.

"I know you," Helen whispered. As if in response to her comment, each of the woman's wounds slowly began to fill with blood. Helen watched as the sheer white dress became soaked and stained by hidden outrage. The blood ran a path from her wrist to her fingertips, and then fell to the floor in a growing pool, snaked around her swollen feet. "This can't be? You're not real!" Helen cried.

Suddenly it hit her and she wished she could gouge out her mind's eye. She knew the woman's spoiled flesh intimately. The bruises on the woman's arm were from a self-inflicted beating with a piece of firewood. Helen remembered the pain and force in which she struck her own body. The smell of cut wood and blood had filled the room. Small splinters of wood embedded in her flesh to add to the torment. She'd loved it. It took everything away and left behind sweet euphoria. The cuts on her ankles from not one single cut but many meetings with a blade over the same area. Each one defined, perfectly set within the scar to disguise the abuse. Helen knew that if she removed the woman's dress she would find the symbols she carved with a razor blade. There was nothing special or spiritual about the symbols, just a twisted silent language with no meaning. It has been so long she can't remember why she did it, just the feeling of it all. The pain cleansed her like nothing else could. Soon she found that she craved it, her body screamed for the release and she gave in just about every time. Helen never thought there was anything wrong with it; I'm only hurting myself. And that was fine with her. Yet here before her was a very different picture: There was no bliss in the woman's eyes, no relief, just pain.

She had no idea when things started changing, when the X's and throat wounds were created in her mind. Whenever she lost control to the voices, the blood would run from her wrist, from the phantom wounds she conjured up from the depths. It seemed so real she could smell it. Countless times she watched a curved blade slit her own throat; no real reason why, it just happened. She had to admit: Although it scared her it also gave some semblance of comfort. Something inside her told her that this is how it's supposed to be: Mental suicide.

She was frozen as the scenes of her personal violence played out in her mind. Every time she witnessed her face it was of the woman before. It was insane; the pain in her head was making it hard to focus. Small shocks coursed through her body. Her heart started pounding as she lost control of her breathing. Not again please. Helen could feel her blood pumping through her system, causing her head and hands to pulsate. She felt terror take hold; this is it, I've finally lost it. She grasped her long black hair in attempt to tear the visions from her head. "Nooooo!" she screamed when she finally found her voice. It sounded harsh and helpless to her own ears, yet she could not stop till her lungs twisted painfully and she ran out of oxygen. She collapsed on the table, both physically and mentally exhausted. She lay there while the voices and images continued their bombardment. Whimpering like a child as she begs them to stop. She felt completely broken.

Why? she repeated like a mantra, as thought the very word would bring clarity. This isn't fair! I've never hurt anyone; I worked so hard to make sure everyone was happy. Is this some great sin that requires punishing? It's not fair! Bile started to rise in her stomach, from hot rage that began to build with each "why". I have worked so hard, since I was a child. I wanted and needed everyone to be proud of me. I earned that respect by hard work and dedication towards my dreams. But these sardonic bitches have stolen that from me! I always believed in the dream. Sure the plan changed and sometimes life and necessity shift the goal, but they changed all of that, creeping up on me and slowly taking control of my mind and body. She remembered what they were doing to her. First their attacks were just bothersome, but nothing to be concerned about. Then they grew as they fed off her anxieties, and soon she couldn't leave her apartment. If she did manage to somehow escape, she couldn't stand to be out very long. She'd find herself rushing to run errands just so she could return to the safety of her solitude. Everything she had been so sure of and clear about became uncertain in light of the attacks. Everyday she would wake with a sense of foreboding, and fall asleep after hours of just lying on her back, waiting for her thought processes to shut down. That was her life: Walking on eggshells to avoid losing control. Yet the women couldn't be happy with that and soon she found that no matter how cautious she was, they always trapped her. I need to know.

Helen rose from the table and turned towards the bleeding woman. Impotent anger raged through her system. "What do you want from me!" she screamed, as she grabbed the woman's shoulders. Hot blood ran onto her hands, but she hardly noticed. "Just tell me, quit playing these fucking games and tell me!" she yelled as she shook her. There was a spark in the woman's dead eyes. Helen noticed that her lips had parted slightly, and she suddenly felt afraid of what her answer would be.

"For you to live" she responded flatly. Her voice was low and breathy, almost seductive. Helen felt her hands fall from the woman's shoulders. "For you to fucking live, no more of this pathetic half life. You shut out the world and yet expect to thrive. You want us to go away, then start facing your past and quit this bullshit self-destruction." The finality of her tone made Helen weary of her.

"There is nothing to face."

"Obviously, you are mistaken. We would not be here otherwise."

"I don't know what you are talking about. My childhood may have had some low points, but nothing I couldn't handle. So this has been one big waste of time."

"Say what you want, but you're wrong. You are going to have to make a decision soon, Helen. If you are so set against having us in your head then I suggest you have patience and work with us to bring these issues you have to light. Or you can continue with the way you have been dealing with it so far, shoving all your emotions to the back of your subconscious. But I have to warn you, things are getting pretty tight back there already. We will continue to invade, we will continue to push, and we will do this till you either listen or…."

"Or what?"

"The decision is yours, you are dying inside and soon it will make it out." The woman reached up with bloody fingers and stroked Helen's cheek. "I'm sorry that it had to come to this." The finality gone, her voice was sad and painful.

"I'm scared," Helen whispered.

"I know. I wish I could tell you it was going to be easy, but it's not. It's time for you make your choice."

Helen looked around the diner. The other women were gone. Probably back in my head, she thought. She followed the woman to the door. She pushed the door open, and gasped at the sight.

Her own bathroom. Steam from the sink filled the small room. She saw herself standing in front of the vanity mirror, the lights casting their unflattering glow upon her. "What…" Helen uttered as she turned towards the woman holding the door, but found herself staring at her own reflection. She looked down at the sink where the familiar brown bottle baring her name and dosage sat untouched for weeks. On the other side of the sink was her utility knife. The light reflected off the blade, showing its cold beauty. Her eyes traveled back and forth between the two, till she caught her reflection in the mirror. Eyes seemed darker than usual, and her skin much paler. She knew what the women had been telling her. It was time to make a final decision: Treatment or self-destruction. She stared at her reflection. "The lady or the tiger," she whispered. Helen closed her eyes and made her choice.

AN: This is an original story of my own creation. Replication of this story or thief of my plot line would not be appreciated. Ok, sorry about that I just had to put that in (You know just in case) I also wish to not that the story referenced in this piece (The Lady or the Tiger) was originally written by Frank Stockton. I only mention this because when my friend who is well read and edits all my work read it he had no idea what I was talking about, I was really shocked, because I was sure I wasn't the only person awake in lit class. I hope you enjoy this story. I will refrain from telling you if this story has any truth to it, lets just keep the air of mystery shall we?

RavenShadow