Raised by the Internet, HE and SHE, THE PLAN
This is happening. I am here and soon I will not be, but, in this moment, I am safe. I put my pen in my mouth and bite down hard. My hand caresses the worn whiskey colored leather of my journal, the words on the page echoing like a mantra in my head to the beat of the rushing water in the creek below.
April 17, 2017
Sunday Foster will be dead next week. I know this to be true because I am Sunday Foster. One day soon I will disappear, and all evidence will point to my death. Everyone wants to escape something. I want to escape my life. No, I’m not going to kill myself—PSEUDOCIDE, not suicide.
The water provides white noise, blocking out my reality for at least a minute. My safe spot, my refuge, is a small patch of dirt under a low hanging tree by the creek below the house I live in. When I was younger it hid my body in its entirety. Sheltered me from all eyes except for the tiny silvery fish travelers who always swam below me in the stream. Now, my 5’5” frame can curl up cross-legged, but between my new height and my uncontrollable mane of blonde hair halfway down my back, it’s impossible to hide.
There are other ways to hide. I love my journal, full of my thoughts and ideas. It belongs to me. A rare item paid for with cash, not an overcharged plastic card from the people I call HE and SHE. Thinking of them as anything but HE and SHE is impossible. They don’t deserve the names Dad and Mom. Mothers and fathers are supposed to love their children. Not mine. I’ve been raised by the internet, silence, and anger.
I remember forcing myself to hand over fifty-five dollars of my hard-earned money three years ago in a shop down by the wharf in Baltimore, an eclectic place with a musty scent. I had imagined Shakespeare lounging against the old walls with cracks and peeling wallpaper, books stacked three feet high around clusters of bound words from the past and rows and rows of bookshelves almost touching the ceiling. A leather journal, filled with creamy white empty pages, beckoned to me, begging for the touch of ink. My companion now bears the stains of my tears and holds the secrets of my heart. A tight brown cord wraps around it three times to keep the truth hidden inside. No one will ever read my words—but somehow, the inked words on the paper make what I’m planning a reality.
Does leather burn? If not, the pages will. Again, I rub my hand over the cover. I know I can’t take my comrade with me—it’s my witness to the truth.
Truth. What a concept. Faking my death will make my whole existence as a human being a lie. THE PLAN didn’t start this way, but if I learned one thing in sixteen years, even the best-laid plans change.
