a father's gun, and a daughter's mental instability, written by edward vivisection

For all the pain Annika had been through in their life, nothing was worse than the sound of her mother banging her fists into the drywall before she had to go to school. Maybe it was the intrinsic response that she had been taught through years of it happening before, that even talking with her -- looking at her meant trouble was the thing doing her in, but ths time, it was worse.

Twelve years she had been stuck with her, beginning of first grade and now senior year, and nothing had changed, nothing ever changed, her father changed though -- albeit that was him dying so perhaps that didn’t count as change.

He died of lung cancer, and by the rate she was smoking, beside her window with her hands shaking from panic, another cigarette (the third of the morning) was in her mouth. School wouldn’t start for another hour, and she lived close enough to walk, so the only way she knew how to spend the time was by sitting alone.

Why had it come to this?

All the people around her were living happy lives, at least on the surface, hers was quite obvious, the fact her eyes were sunk in from the lack of sleep she got, her arms looking like Hiroshima right after it’s bombing -- even her mannerism spoke of somebody who was deeply hurting.

But yet, no teacher cared, they were busy teaching bland books she had already finished reading (the only other thing she spent her time doing), or hitting kids across the knuckles with rulers.

Her dad, for all of his many, many faults, including dying in the first place, at least tried to care, it was the effort that kept her from not killing herself in sophomore year, any other father would have sent her to asylum to never be seen again, he had every right to, after all, but he didn’t, instead he just sighed, and applied pressure to her gaping wound.

“I know you’re hurtin’” He started, “But no reason to do all this, I got time at the range today, I’ll take you, got some nice new weapons the government sent down, you’ll like em -- I hope you do, care about you a lot,”

That day was nice.

Annika sighed, putting out the cigarette into her arm.

At least he cared, in his own miserable, gun loving, truck riding sort of way -- the second part she inherent, though, it was understandable, attaching herself to something her father loved, but even before that, guns were the most comforting thing about life. They could tear, destroy and blast open anything in sight, but looked so inacious, clean and slick.

If she was to die, as silly as it sounded, she wished dearly that her ashes would be used as gunpowder, finally serving a purpose, rotting in the ground didn’t seem appealing, in all honesty. Even if she didn’t believe in an afterlife, her body should be useful for something.

FInally, she got up, it would be no use trying to use the actual door, her mother would berate her, instead, she opened up the window, and carefully made her way out of it, sleeping on the first floor had tt's perks sometimes.

The walk to school always proved to be horrible, the smog from the expensive cars were probably were for her health than the cigarette, all the pretentious, stuck-up rich kids at the other side of town riding in, not knowing that eventually, they’ll be rotting in the dirt at the speed they are going. Even the meek students -- god, she hated them, the fact they tried to be nice, but came off as insincere and the level of “care” they put into being a friend was laughable, they pretended to be unwell, but were just masquerading in front of somebody who knew what it was like to be at the limit.

A car was coming up behind her, it slowed down as she was walking.

“Hey there, girl,” A classmate of hers, Annika couldn’t remember his name, mostly because it didn’t matter, they all acted like this.

“Drive your car into a ditch,” She replied, he rolled his eyes.

“Don’t be so coy, pussycat, I’m just bein’ nice,”

Annika was glad for one thing though, that she carried a gun with her, she stopped, looked him right in the eyes before opening up her bag and pulling out the revolver.

“Told you to drive into a ditch, now fuck off before I blow my head off, certainly they’ll have reason to blame you for this,”

He was gone almost instantly. ,p> “Don’t think that was a good idea,”

She paused, looking around the empty street before her, Annika recognized that voice, it was hazy, both close and far away, she put her gun back in her bag.

“You could just say you got an open carry license, I had one, we’re similar enough,”

Her dad, his voice was like that, the drawl was obvious, he lived in the south for a good portion of his life, it was unmistakable.

No, that was stupid, obviously it couldn’t have been him, he was dead.

But what counts as dead? She knew ghosts were a thing, they had to be, it was either that or Heaven and she certainly hated the idea of that.

Annika could feel the entirety of her head begin to swell just attempting to rationalize it, this hadn’t ever occurred before, she knew that yes, madness ran in her family, it practically gallops, but her mother seemed, while deranged in a moody, aggressive at any slight hindrance way, she wasn’t having hallucinations.

She wouldn’t have them, she walked fasster, school was awful, but this was worse than any sort of catcall or suicidal thought.

The walk, or rather, light jog, was beyond noisy, her throat was tense, up until now, nothing ever occured up there, sure, sometimes the same thought would loop in her head, mostly relating to her own demise, but nothing as obtuse, as thick and smoggy as the constant chattering from her own skull.

It got worse though, once she entered the school, it was undeniable that something was wrong, every noise felt like a plane crashing, each footstep she took hurt and more importantly, her vision was ruined, everything swayed and mixed into each other, thank everything and nothing for a wonderful thing called the girl’s bathroom.

Annika threw her bag up against the door, it was large enough that nobody could see under the stall, and sat down on the floor, she looked up, fire alarms were installed in this one.

“Oh you gotta be kidding me,” The vocalization was the only thing keeping her in reality, she searched through her bag in a panic, trying to find something to at least calm her down, panic attacks weren’t something she ever believed in per say, instead, she just let what happened, happen, but this was inescapable.

There was a knock at the door, she glared up from her legs.

“Taking a shit, leave me alone,”

“I wouldn’t recommend doing that on the ground, gets a bit nasty,”

Heavy work boots were pressed up against the granite flooring, dirty, like they had been stuck at the bottom of the ocean.

Annika took a deep breath.

It isn’t real, she’s fine, if you don’t pay attention, it goes away that’s how it was like in books, maybe that had some basis in reality?

“Annika, I care about you a lot, don’t leave me out here, please?”

Most of her emotions stayed locked up, actually, all of them, they had to be, experiencing them meant mental breakdowns, which lead to psychotic breaks, and as much as she wanted to die, a lifeitme in an asylum was not what she wanted, it wasn’t death per sa, just endless torture.

“I don’t want to talk, it...it makes me upset,” Annika managed to get the revolver out her bag, her father had given it to her as a gift, while most certainly illegal to do where they lived, it was the thought that counts, it was the only thing that was his, didn’t smell like her mother.

“That’s okay,” The voice started, “What you did was brave back there,”

She paused.

“Was it?” It didn’t feel like it, it was nothing, an empty maw.

“To me, yeah, those punks got it coming, they touch you, you can shoot, you remember?” She laughed, pressing her head up against the bathroom wall.

“I know,”

This was all so uncomfortable, partially, she liked it, the fact that this was like the times she had when she wasn't a mess, but at the same time...the entire situation reeked of the classic story of a vampire, begging at a door to be let in, tricking the victim with anything in order to kill them.

“I’m sorry,” Annika didn’t know why she said it, it was better than crying, she supposed.

“For what?”

“Lettin’ you down,” Another part of her father, her voice, he always shined through when she was at the edge. “Can’t do much about mom, school is kicikin’ my ass and everytime I wake up, I -- I want to end it all, I know it’s stupid, shouldn’t be feelin’ this way but...it’s gotten worse, dad,”

She hoped it was her dad, even if it wasn’t, it was nice to pretend for a moment. He murmured something under his breath, Annika snarled.

“Might be going deaf, need to speak up a bit more,”

“It doesn’t have to be that way, yknow?”

She paused.

“What do you mean? It -- Do you want me to die?” She heard a gasp from the otherside of the door.

“No! No not -- not that I meant, you don’t have to be miserable, gotta cut the bad stuff out, leave enough room for the good,” He started, “It’s hard, had to do it all my life, but I ended up with you at the end of it, and that was the best moment of my life, it may seem terrible in the moment, but years from now, you’ll look back and realize that it was worth it,”

She could almost hear a pin drop in that room.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Annika took her bag and dumped the contents out, she always carried an extra few rounds, just in case of emergency, “never been better,”

She opened up the door, to find nobody outside, but that was okay, by the end of the day, each and every one of them would pay dearly for what they did.

An hour later, Annika would be laying in a pool of her own blood, not shot like she intended, no, instead her body ripped to shreds, it strewn across the back of the highschool, while a good portion of the student body lay dead as well, the smell of cigarettes and the outline of work boots leading straight back to her house.

It wouldn’t leave a family without a daughter, after all, a mother must take care of her child.