DISCLAIMER: This work contains dark themes such as (implied) prostitution, still births, death and some graphic imagery. If any of this offends you, please do not read. First and foremost is that I ripped this story straight from my Deviantart account. So as long as you see it under the name Lygophiliax, it is still mine. Link is here Before you read, please take a moment to look over Silvia Plath's Lady Lazarus and Morning Song. This is what this story was based off and it will make much more sense if you understand the meaning behind the piece. I had to write this story under exam conditions for school, encompassing about 15% of our grade. I got 22/25, which I was pleased about. The unit that we were studying for my English class is called Changing Ways of Thinking - After the Bomb. We had to analyze the impact of texts into society after the dropping of the Hiroshima bomb and manipulate them into our own work. This is mine. ---- When you look into the mouth of darkness, you must remember – while you stare at the void it stares back at you. You learn as much about it as it does about you. As a result, are you truly safe from it? It happened when I was seven. What a shame to rip innocence so forcefully from a child that the umbilical cord of love is shred and bleeding. How horrific it is to watch her wail like an abused dog. Kick, kick, kick. Over and over – kick – until the dog snarls back and bites the hand of her attacker. I knew only by a wail. The crash as my mother's delicate body hit the ground like porcelain, her horse, strangled cries as the solider at the door tried to comfort her. Why did you go, Daddy? Why did you die? These medals they brought that they said were you are too cold. Too beastly – they spit on your name. Who do we fight for? England? America? Heil Hitler! Each has own foreign tone to it, like I am a neglected tourist adrift at sea. I did like the sea. You would always give me pretty shells and coloured glass. The new shells they talk about, Daddy, they're not the nice kind. What were we supposed to do without you? We wandered deaf and blind, a shepherded without his flock. They said mother could not work – "The war is over! Go back to your husband and your children." But she could not. She did not have a husband or children. I was, to her, the ghost of him and I saw her as the ghost of yesterday. Her beauty stripped with sunken eyes, her skin yellowing and wrinkling over time like old newspaper. When money slipped away from us, she would sit on an old, moth-eaten chair with a cup of hot water and stare idly at a world that held no glory to her. I think she met the void then. My cries could not reach her; my bony hands could not bring her back from the abyss. She died when I was fifteen. I was still a baby then, tossed like a tumbleweed from place to place. Daddy, your kind are cruel. They saw me as a toy to play with, but when I broke they tossed me away. They said I looked like an angel, my curly blonde hair and pale blue eyes. Daddy, I was an angel. I pleased them. Their prayers came in gold and silver, lined with gems and pretty stones. They had no time for glass and coloured shells. You did, you did – and look where it got you? Under one. But Daddy, something happened. Over time I began to get fat. My belly swelled like a hot air balloon. People would pass me in the street and congratulate me. They said I was glowing. Daddy, I was not glowing. I was dirty, dirty and fat – ever so fat. Some days I would lie in an alleyway unable to move. Starving, I would press my fingers into the monster inside of me hoping I would eat it instead. After a while, the kicking would stop and I would fall into a fitful sleep. Then there was the pain. Something so awful it left me screaming and screaming. Daddy, a man who looked like you ran to help me. He called an ambulance. I didn't like them. Mother rode in one. Push, push, push – and soon the monster was out of me; dangled limply in a woman's arms, covered in blood. The monster was dead. Oh how I laughed! I cackled and leered at the imp as the people around me cried. I cared little then. They had their own monsters, their own demons. I was free, free as a bird. They said I was manic from grief. Daddy, they were wrong. I had looked into the void and saw no fear. I had traded my imp's life for it. They asked me to name him. *******, Devil – all manner of things crossed my mind. I named him Lucifer instead. They said they'd take Lucifer to you and I wept. Why was the imp to lie with you? To lay beside you and mother, to return to the void that you went? I tried to stop them, but their yellow eyes burned holes like cigarettes into my soul and I could not stop them. They offered me a chance to watch him go. To see you more like it. I took it. They dressed me like a widow when I wanted to look like a queen. They paraded my imp like a circus, weeping, crying and wailing. Like dogs – kick, kick, kick. They lay my monster to rest, inscribing his name on stone. There was a song – Hallelujah. And as the soil was dumped on his tiny body, I feared his cocoon of wood would act like a seed and grow from it more imps to torment me. I waited until they all had left and I acted. My hands clutched and moved at the soil; I worked until night and beyond. When I reached his cocoon, I ripped it open. What did I see? Daddy, not an imp or a monster, but an angel. You; I saw you. The void had tricked me, Daddy! Your tiny face, so peaceful and asleep. I brought you to my breast and I wept. I tore at the earth until it covered me. I wanted to be with you. I looked into the mouth of darkness. When you look into the mouth of darkness, you must remember – while you stare at the void it stares back at you. Void
