My Journal

Dear Reader:
If you’ve had the unfortunate opportunity to stumble upon this pathetic collection of words, called My Journal, then I pity you, my hapless friend. We are bound now, you and I, to an ever increasing sharing of all things at once personal, yet worn, futile, and eternally sorrowful. I say bound with full understanding of it's meaning; for once someone as soft of heart as yourself has sensed… no, breathed, the torment contained within these pages, your very being will not rest until I am rescued, as if you could rescue me… if only you could.

My Journal
I promise you, my friend, to be honest and truthful in my tale of woe. I owe you that much. I will guide my pen therefore, to lie before you nothing of my own imagining, but only those things in which others can bear testimony. There are many who have turned aside from the sorrow they claimed I’ve brought them, but they can be found and compelled to give account of what I say, if you feel the need after my tale is told.
You must believe.
I need you to believe.
The living can choose to believe… or not, but it isn’t so with the dead. The dead have no need to believe… for they know.
My tale begins in 1968 when I turned twelve. Yes, yes of course there was a life I led up to my twelfth year, but I can barely remember it. I had family then. I had friends then. All that changed when I turned twelve.
I do remember the party, my twelfth birthday. It is such a vivid memory, although I think my mind has been at play with some of the details. Most of the memory of that day is intact…unchanged, but not all. I say this to be completely honest with you, dear reader, as I promised. There are clues that not all I remember is as it really was. Some faces in this horrible memory are different, I’m sure of it. They are fierce and hard now, and I know that couldn’t have been the way it was. After the accident, certainly, they were that way...but not before. They all loved me before it happened.
My true love was at the party, my soul mate, Dora. …I hear you laughing. Don’t laugh at what I tell you. Never laugh at me. I loved her, and she loved me. It didn’t matter that we were only twelve. Our love was a pure, sweet thing that you cannot fathom.
I told you that you could believe me, didn’t I? Haven’t I been honest with you?
I’ll try to tell you everything about the accident, the first one, on the day my life changed forever, but sometimes I cannot remember all things that happened. The doctors told me my mind did those kinds of things on it's own, playing hide and seek. The rules of this game are hazy to me. I call out words like 'Safety' and 'Olli- Olli-Oxen-Free' and other silly things, but they refuse to come out from their hiding places. The doctors said this was normal, under the circumstances, but I don’t believe them. I think my mind is changing the rules without telling me…not telling me the new calling words… and that’s not fair, is it?
The party; I remember it all today. It was at Dora’s house, just down the street from the park where we all played, and ran, and shouted at the top of our lungs. I liked her house. It was small with a bright white wooden fence around it. Dora’s mother said the fence kept dogs out of her yard. She said they dug up her flowers. But Dora’s older sister Janice… a horrible name for a horrible girl… she said it was to keep boys out, especially me. She hated me, and I hated her. But I didn’t hurt her on purpose, no matter what anyone says.
Dora’s mother knew how much we cared for each other. That is why she gave me the party, so we could share my day. And she baked a most beautiful birthday cake. She made it just for me; did I tell you that? It was so perfect. The icing was white; swirled and caressed into waves of frosting. And on the top she wrote my name in the most brilliant of blue icing I have ever seen. I like the memory of the cake; it has remained the most pleasant of thoughts, and I think of it often. In my mind’s eye the cake occasionally has red frosting; sometimes only the writing is crimson and dripping. That is only on my very worst days, the days my mind wants to hurt me… punish me.
Janice had to be at the party. I think she could have been somewhere else if she wanted. But, no… she would not go away. Her friends had to be at my birthday too. They ruined everything. They taunted me. They told lies about me, and ruined our games. I hate Janice; did I tell you that?
Dora handed me a knife. It was large and heavy and sharp. Have you seen the knives for wedding cakes? It was a grand knife like one of those. I remember standing at the table with the knife, and the knife glinted in the light. It was like a mirror.
Do you know what Janice did to my cake; my beautiful birthday cake that Dora’s mom made special, just for me? She took one of her pudgy hands and her dirty fingernails and dug deep finger furrows through my name.
Janice then leaned close to me, and with fruit-punch tainted breath said, "Next, we'll dig in your back yard...yes! A scavenger hunt! I bet we find Pixy and Princess!"
And she laughed at me; her giddy, cackling laugh.
Never laugh at me… did I tell you that?
I turned and pointed the knife at Janice’s fleshy, pink neck.
You must be careful with knives or bad things can happen; but I’m sure you already know that.
I must be honest with you again before I continue this tale because I keep my promises. I’m not sure Cole was the boy who shoved Janice. I told the policeman it was him. I can’t say that now. My memory plays nasty tricks on me when I try too hard to remember. In one trick I see it’s not Cole at all, but Steven pushing Janice. Another trick I see, Janice is screaming. But that memory can’t be true. She couldn’t have screamed, even if she wanted to. Could she scream with all that red icing bubbling from her mouth? All that crimson icing dripping over my beautiful, white cake.