Pre-note: My blog now has pictures! The slideshow thing wouldn't work for me so they are just posted. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see "drawings pulled from Nika's sketchbook." :)
Also, here's the next section. This is the section that I pulled the quote about love from and posted on my Facebook. Enjoy.
Chapter eighteen, section three:
Running away from things; I was always good at that. If it hurts, then why keep it around? Run from it, loose it, forget the pain.
I hate pain. Physical pain, emotional pain, psychological pain; hate it. I can’t stand to watch it, can’t stand to have it. Meds were my best friend – Advil for headaches, Tylenol for cramps. Keep the pain at a distance, keep it from coming too close, and maybe it’ll all just go away.
The thing about pain is that it’s not always physical and it doesn’t always have a cure in the form of a pill. The thing about pain is that it often defies space and time, so although you try to run from it, you’re never getting away from it.
Of course I knew this, of course, it’s obvious, but I still pushed everything down. Everything I felt that hurt got squished into tiny, organizational boxes and filed away in the back of my head, in the dusty corners that I didn’t dare clean.
Pain is a funny thing, since it sneaks up on you and without explanation. The feelings always found ways to the surface; to the clean, shiny space in the front of my mind, where things may get a little messy but never dusty.
My family, friends, even teachers and faces I’d just seen in the halls; I missed them. I missed them so much that my insides would curl with the thought, and all the pain in my mind would start to fight to get to the forefront. I missed the familiarity, I missed the human connection. I missed being loved.
Because, really, love is the opposite of pain. Love is what we strive for, makes every breath worth breathing and everything worth doing. Love takes pain and wraps it in the warm blankets of hope. Without love, the world would be made of individual people doing individual things; never interacting, never smiling, never looking up. We would go about our daily lives with blank faces; no one would cry, but no one would laugh. Without love, you would know no pain, but without love, you would know no happiness.
I had no love. There was no one here that knew me inside and out the way my family did, and no one to stick by me no matter what the way my friends did. When I wandered the halls, no one smiled at me or waved me over. Then, when I found my way to my residence, no one was there to welcome me home, to give me a hug and ask me how my day had been. I had never known so little love and so much pain.
I missed love.
Ahoy there! I would be careful with these next sections, as they veer dangerously close to a rant. You seem to use montages quite a lot (for covering larger time spaces such as days or weeks) but I think that in the process your audience may be loosing your character. Since Annika's thoughts are so personal, some personal, "real-time" passages might help to ground us in her life again. Maybe she is preparing a solo dinner for herself? (sniff) Shopping alone? (My personal prefer--I mean, um, normal people find that sad, right?) Anyhoo, you are telling a bit more than showing. Let us remain invested in her life rather than skirting long periods of time with summaries.
ReplyDeleteUm...this is all made in the spirit of the Holidays, rest assured.
(Speaking of which, spam-security text-in-a-box machine, shouldn't we be on a first-name basis by now? Whaddya say, ol' buddy?)