Life is good, I haven’t felt so alive in over 9 years. It feels like yesterday when I was celebrating my 13th birthday, I had very few friends, 0 to be precise, it was lonely sure but I’ve always enjoyed my time isolated from society. I used to play 20 questions all day with my imaginary friend Exy, she was so funny, sometimes she said weird things though, like one time I asked her if she had any other friends and all she replied back was.
“18 carrots planted in a field, 1 by one the farmer takes them to be peeled. He takes away their skin, till it’s ever so paper thin, then he takes the useless carrot and throws them in the bin”.
I never really understood her rhymes but they were always soothing. Her voice was like a chill breeze in my ear, nobody could see her aside from me but I knew she was real. When I turned 16 Exy started getting weirder, she asked stranger questions like if I was ready, if she could take me on a walk and if she could take my hand. Me being the awkward teenager that I was refused, I knew by now she was just a figment of my imagination but it still made me uncomfortable thinking about getting too close with another girl. One day she started singing new poems, she sung one specific poem for almost a full year without rest, I think it went like:
“16 leaves clinging to the tree, watching as one by one they all float free. Soon there was twelve and then there was 5 and then only one rested next to a beehive. The bees were not happy and began to sting the leaf, it cried out for mercy as it began to bleed, it’s cries only halting, when at last it had been freed.”
4 years went by without a word after that. When I turned twenty-one she made a re-appearance, only this time her once tanned complexion was ghastly white. There was 0 emotion in her eyes as she stared at me with sorrow. “9 more crickets, chirping in the night, they are always there, lurking out of sight”, those words were whispered to me before she walked away, no more noises, nothing. When I went out to investigate she wasn’t there. It felt like whatever connection we had, had been long broken.
14 weeks later my mother was called in for an emergency operation. She was having a baby and it was coming out faster than anticipated. We waited in anticipation for our new sibling for hours. When the doctor finally walked out, we stood all giddy, waiting to be let in to see our new baby brother or sister. I was the first to notice the doctors unusually solemn expression. Then my dad noticed. The doctor beckoned him over and they started whispering. My dad broke down into tears, screaming about how “it wasn’t fair”. I later found out my mom had died giving birth to our new baby sister, there was 0 signs of life in my mother, she was gone. I cried for weeks. Anytime I stared at my now 20 weeks old sister, all I could see was my mother, all I could see was a monster.
8 hours of crying, for 5 months on end, 0 end in sight for the pain and grievances I was dealing with. I don’t even know why I was hurting so much, it felt like it shouldn’ve have happened, as if my sister should never have been born. What if I got rid of this monster before she could hurt anyone else? Before she could get anymore blood on her hands?
3 days later I set my plan in motion, I would take her and leave her in a river to drown, hopefully a peaceful but painful death for her.
9 minutes it took, till I was finally able to bring myself together and actually take my sister.
18 seconds is all it took for her to stop writhing
3 weeks went by till news of a dead baby broke through my local radio station
12 more babies drowned within a week
5 lines of bodies, lined up along the street. To show of to the world a sight just so pretty, no more crying, or pain, no tiresome nights. No more dastardly babies left in sight. Necks twisted around or eyes gouged out instead, sometimes I’d keep a trophy of their head.
Numbers mean more than you think. They make for good tallies. They make for good time. They make for a peaceful night sleep…