14F – Dear Diary

It’s not like I had a lot of time to think. Not like those exercises you do, when you get to choose your best album. Or something you couldn’t live without. There wasn’t time to debate about whether anything was useful or important.

And had I had the time, there is no way I ever would have grabbed this. What, for paper? Paper we’ve got. There’s reams of documents in here, bank statements, tax forms, proof of this or that. It’s just dawned on them that it’s all useless. And they’re not taking it well.

When they find us, they’re going to think that this was my prize possession. The one thing I couldn’t live without. They’ll imagine me running back into the house, desperate, looking about, someone yelling after me. They’ll see me skid past the entrance to my room, taking vital seconds, and gasp as I grab a small, pink-shelled plastic book. The one thing I managed to save, held close to my heart. Then they’ll hear someone bellowing after me, and like a frightened, obedient little girl I’ll scamper after them.

Well, if that’s what you’re thinking, I’m sorry to disappoint you. But that’s not me. I outgrew this thing years ago. I have no particular need for writing paper with lovehearts on the corners, or a combination lock that a four year old could break. And, for the record, the sparkly purple ink isn’t an aesthetic choice, it just the pen that comes with the diary, just so we’re clear. And I’m hoping – just hoping – that you compare this to previous entries and see that the writing here is just a touch more mature. I’m not in love with anyone, or crying over anything, or any other nonsense. It’d be fair to say that we have bigger problems.

So now that’s out of the way, lets deal with your next obvious conclusion, shall we? This is not me getting back in touch with my childhood. My chest and my heart never welled up with childhood yearnings. There was no cry for lost innocence. And the little girl inside of me didn’t reach for the treasured possession with trembling fingers, cradle it close and ferry it to safety.

Again, I’m sorry to disappoint.

We were grabbing things, left right and centre. That’s what you do in this situation, but not photo albums, not mix tapes, nothing you’d want on a desert island. I went for the old wool jacket. I leant away from nostalgia, and more towards not freezing to death. It was still sizes too large, and incredibly scratchy, but it was probably the most practical thing I could have laid my hands on. At least that’s what I’m trying to tell myself, now that I look like some kind of homeless person wrapped up in it.

We ran out, and everything was chaos. I could hear ruptures, explosions. Some guy was yelling, “down, down, down.” He sounded calm. Years of training, I’d think. We climbed up into the back of the truck, and I watched the first of the papers float gently out the back as it shivered to life.

And I jammed my hand into the pocket and felt something hard and plastic.

For a moment I thought it was makeup. That would have been something useful. Won’t be a lot of powder and shadow where we’re going. Not that I’m shallow or anything, but come on, I’m sitting here in the back of a truck with a bunch of humourless people shitting themselves. I felt duty bound to make some kind of ironic gesture.

Maybe it wouldn’t have gone down so well.

Anyway, you can imagine my horror when I pulled out this thing, and it was the diary. Ok, my diary. Yes, I once wrote all my deep, dark secrets into a pink clamshell diary. With lovehearts on the pages. There you go, that’s the worst one right there.

And I start flicking back through the pages. Because the reading material supplied in the truck is somewhat less than inspiring. I’ve got no desire to paw through the hastily prepared leaflets that are really just an incredibly round about and unnecessarily optimistic way of saying just how completely screwed we are. Which is “quite”. So I entertain myself instead by flicking through the pages of my autobiography.

My god, was I really that mindless? I sound like a yappy dog. So eager to please. So desperate to be liked. Again, I really, really hope you can appreciate the contrast.

Anyways, that’s how my one last treasured possession turns out to be a plastic piece of crap that I picked up by accident. And thus shall I be judged for eternity. Someone will find me, and I’ll be wearing a hideous wool jacket, and my hand will be clasped around a ridiculous plastic diary, and I’ll become a sad indictment of not only myself, but the fashion sense of my whole generation. They’ll look at me, and think I was a sensitive, sweet soul, a tiny flame snuffed out too quickly, swept in the tide of a global catastrophe.

God, I think I’m going to be sick.

I could be done with it now. A flick of the wrist, and it goes sailing outwards, end over end. Let someone else take the responsibility. I can see it as a silhouette against the orange sky, dropping to the ground. I can hear the delicious crunch as it slips under an oncoming tyre and shatters into fragments. I get this sudden urge to do it.

But then I change my mind. And I stuff the hideous thing back into my pocket.

13F – Drawings

He shifted uncomfortably, the suit collar scratching roughly at the back of his neck. He looked for a glance, eye contact, a way to plead, to threaten, anything.

She spoke without giving him an opportunity.

“Please understand. This is not a decision that we have made lightly. We’ll be asking her to leave the school. Effective immediately.”

A lungful of breath hissed out between his teeth. He slowed himself, counted, tried all the exercises. There was a heavy pounding behind his right ear.

“I’m yet to hear a decent reason why.”

“Mr Patrick, this is usually quite simple for us. Open and shut cases, with clear evidence of behavioural malfunction. Helps us weed out problem children.”

She caught herself, glanced up.

“But not this time. I have none of the – unpleasant details that are usually my dubious pleasure to impart on parents such as yourself.

Be that as it may, we must always consider whether or not the needs of a single student are jeopardising the development of the overall student body. We have come to the conclusion that this is such a case.”

He felt blood rush to his head, but struggled to keep his voice low and even.

“You said yourself that she’s not a… behavioural problem.”

A heavy file dropped on the table between them. Her fingers skimmed through the pages pulled out a report. She stared at him for a moment and then began to read.

“Keeps to herself, is reluctant to speak to others, seems unresponsive, unemotional… Refuses to participate in group activity, simply slips away and amuses herself with her own projects… Will rarely respond to direct requests… Has no real social interactions that we are aware of…”

“You want to expel her for being shy?”

“Mr Patrick, I assure you, she is not merely shy.”

There was an edge to her voice, a terseness. She reached into the folder and pulled out a thin sheet of paper, laying it flat on the table between them. It crackled with a weight of ink.

“Mr Patrick, this is one of her drawings. I know, it’s a little hard to believe. The sheer number of pen strokes, the straightness of the line… At first, we thought it was a trick, but we’ve analysed it, and it was definitely completed by hand. Her hand.”

He looked at it. The same, tiny concentric circles. The same incredibly fine lines. It had been years, but she was making them again. Maybe these people knew why.

“What is it?”

“It’s nothing. Garbage. Very intricate, precisely ordered, obeying some kind of internal logic perhaps, but it might as well be scribble. It’s meaningless.”

He shook his head. It wasn’t random. It was beautiful. It wasn’t just the precision. There was something in there, something hiding, moving between the lines, just out of reach.

She returned to her reports for a second, flicked through the pages, came to a halt.

“Creative exploration 410 – Still Life. The class was asked to create a graphite illustration of a still life… We asked her why she’d disobeyed a direct, polite request. She seemed confused. We asked her what she’d drawn. She claimed that she had drawn the rose.”

She picked up the drawing again.

“Mr Patrick, I cannot see the rose here. Can you?”

He stared at it, tried to will it to reform itself into some other shape, even an abstraction of something that he could understand. The drawing refused to move.

She opened another file and began to lay drawing after drawing onto the desk, each one cementing his daughter’s guilt. There must have been hundreds of them. A universe of tiny little details. Lines. Circles. The faintest traces of ink. All hopelessly accurate.

“Now, there are two possibilities in this situation, Mr Patrick. One, she is being wilfully disruptive, and thinks of these drawings as a game, playing the innocent while she inwardly laughs at us for attempting to decipher the meaningless. And if I believed that to be the case, there would be no need for this conversation. I’d simply send her home and that would be the end of it.”

She paused, weighted her words carefully, almost compassionately.

“However, we have concluded that this is not the case. Rather, we believe that this girl has no grasp on reality. When she looks at this scribble she does, in fact, see a rose. To her, there’s no difference. Her mind can’t tell one from the other. Now we pride ourselves in taking the utmost care of the development of our charges. But we believe she would be better served by an institution more specifically geared to her… special needs.”
He was on his feet now, rising up over the desk, snatching the precious drawing back. The thing that wasn’t a rose. His voice broke, stumbled.

“This is outrageous. She had a scholarship. You have no right to…”

“Dad.”

They both looked up. His girl was standing next to him. He wanted to hide from her, disappear.

“I’m sorry, Mr Patrick, but the decision is final.”

Her tiny hand grabbed two of his fingers. He went to speak, but nothing came.

“Dad, we have to go now.”

She led him away. Out in the corridor, he stopped, coughed and looked at her. It was over. The world had turned its back on his girl, closed so many doors. Her fate had been decided. Unless he could make her understand.

He held up the picture, shook it in front of her.

“Janey… this, what is it?”

Her eyes widened a little.

“Janey, look at me. Is this a rose?”

“No.”

She let go of his hand.

“It’s a picture of how to make one.”

She wandered off down the corridor. She didn’t look to see if he followed.