What+Guilt+Feels+Like

** By Erina Leask ** The rain had no beginning and no end. No droplets fell from the sky; water did not trail down the window. Ash did. I pulled my coarse blanket over my head in frustration, but the screams could still reach me, pulling at me, digging into my flesh with their jagged claws. I tossed in my old creaky bed which moaned as I flipped onto my stomach. I buried my face into my dirty mattress and pulled my pillow firmly around my ears, hoping to block out the cries, but even if I succeeded, they would echo in my mind like a vivid memory that was too fresh to forget. Even over the screams of agony I could hear the flickering flames licking hungrily at the crumbling houses. It was more than I could bear. I threw down my pillow and struggled to kick my blankets off which had tangled and twisted around my legs. I stood in irritation, pacing around the small bedroom, trying to calm myself, but it was the screaming, the shrill cries of suffering and death. They were a constant reminder of my terrible deed. Water, I needed a glass of water. I took the spiralling stair case down to my old shabby kitchen. I tore open the cupboard and grabbed a glass, shoving it under the unsteady flow of water. I tilted my head back and let the water gush down my dry throat but it did nothing to quench my feverish guilt as I hoped it would have. I looked at the glass, that cup of water I had just drunk, it could have been used to help save one of their lives but it was far too late. They had unwittingly suffered the penalty of my ugly greed and selfishness. They were all going to be ash in the morning, just like the ash that drifted slowly from the sky, unidentifiable from the burnt ruins of their quaint town. It was my fault it had been engulfed in flames but I was a coward and filled with hideous pride, I would never have had confessed anyway. //Why did I do it? Why did I steal that cigarette? And what idiocy had plagued my mind to leave it at the edge of her house…still lit? I should have known that it would fail, fires aren’t easily controlled… Why did I do it? // I wondered silently. By the time the fire had been noticed it was too late, uncontainable, it had spread, house to house. Unaware of the danger most of them had slept through it until it had taken a hold of their abodes, until the burning embers were scorching their wooden homes. My intentions had not been to destroy the village, only to have //her// house burn down and the cigarette to be found. Thanks to her filthy addiction to the things she would have been blamed for the blaze and been sent away. //Even though it wouldn’t have been technically her fault, she would have deserved such punishment // I heard the bitter words in my head say. This time, however, it was past my normal petty insults and hate letters, I had gone too far and //innocent// people were paying the price for my stubbornness. Far from anywhere help was not coming. Hope was lost. There would be no survivors. Locked away in my house, far from danger, I was safe. It was strange; I would be the only one to live, but the least deserving.  I had broken away from her village and lived alone, my hatred of her prevented me from bearing the sight of her. Her beautiful red wavy hair that bounced on her shoulders as she walked and the freckles that dotted her nose and that sympathetic smile she gave me. But I saw past her, past her cunning disguise, a monster lived beneath her skin. I leaned my back against the wall, feeling the cold plaster seep through my thin clothes. I sighed unsteadily, my body shuddering uncontrollably. I took a glance outside the window, a sinister red glow could be seen in the distance along with billowing dark smoke that hid the stars and turned the sky into an empty black void.  I started to make my way back upstairs, passing a mirror that hung, lop-sided on the wall. I paused mid-step to look in it and view the distant reflection of myself. I didn’t see the young man who stood before it, I saw further, I saw someone else, //her//. I could feel something bubbling up inside myself as I gazed at this figure that stood in my own image. My face twisted in revulsion as I looked at her red hair and freckled face.  “She had smoked…” I stuttered slowly as if each word was so engulfed in anger it was a strain to push it out my throat. “She… had left some cigarettes on her table… it would have been the perfect set up… the //perfect// crime and then she would have been driven away. It wasn’t //my// fault, she had brought this about herself, I was only trying to help the others see her true… treachery,” I thought to myself with an unexpected hatred. I wanted so desperately to pin this on her, but my excuses were in vain. I could feel my hands clench at my sides as the anger swelled in my chest, adrenaline pumping, raging through my blood. I muttered her name, the word falling sourly off my lips: “Mother dear,” I whispered resentfully. S//he// had forced me to the brink of drastic measures. //She// was responsible for the deaths to come. Anger suddenly lit up in my stomach, it blazed through me with an equal ferocity as the fire that was swallowing the village, devouring my sense of calm in an instant. <span style="font-family: 'Goudy Old Style','serif'; text-align: justify;">“//Murderer//!” I screamed. I lashed out in this sudden rage, hurling my tight fist at the mirror. It shattered on impact; I didn’t even feel the sharp pain in my knuckles as they crashed into the glass, causing an elaborate spider-web of jagged cracks to spread from where my fist had made contact. The fragments fell, scattering on my floor. I looked down - only half conscious of what I had just done - at my broken image in the fragments and did not see that woman. She was gone. A wicked smile spread across my face without even realising. //I// had turned into a monster. <span style="font-family: 'Goudy Old Style','serif'; text-align: justify;">I trudged back to my bed, collapsing on it with a loud moan. I curled up, not bothering to pull my blankets over myself. I thought over my predicament, over what I had accused my own mother of. I lay for hours, whispering screams still crying in my head. Finally I realised in my own insanity what I had done. I couldn’t hide the lies that were in my scornful words; I couldn’t hold her responsible for my wrongs. The rush of adrenaline had long passed and painful sadness crept in, chilling my bones. It //was// my fault; it was //my// fault they were going to perish. Shame was added to the cocktail of emotions that swirled in my stomach making me feel sick. <span style="font-family: 'Goudy Old Style','serif'; text-align: justify;">But the worst reason was //why// I harboured these hostile emotions towards her. Father’s death… <span style="font-family: 'Goudy Old Style','serif'; text-align: justify;">I sat up, hugging my pillow to my chest. When father had died she had fallen into a spiralling depression. She wouldn’t talk to me, she wouldn’t eat, and she wouldn’t sleep. I had tried to help her but she had closed her heart and forgotten how to love. Pushed away and rejected I let my feelings spread to deep into my soul, into my very core which now, had turned numb. Through the years my reason must have been twisted into a lie like a story being changed a little each time it’s told. It was such a feeble reason. I just wanted revenge for a small part of my childhood where I had been abandoned. All I wanted was to be loved. I was going to lose her now as well and then I’d be lonely. My chance of being loved burnt to dust like the village. <span style="font-family: 'Goudy Old Style','serif'; text-align: justify;">The sudden change of emotion was startling and I shivered. The realisation began to sink in, I looked down at my pale clammy hands, and at what horrible things I had done with them. <span style="font-family: 'Goudy Old Style','serif'; text-align: justify;">The regret and remorse began to creep under my skin, haunting me and the pain was more then any physical agony that could ever be inflicted upon me yet I couldn’t die from it. Death would be too easy, I didn’t deserve to die, I deserved to //suffer//. <span style="font-family: 'Goudy Old Style','serif'; text-align: justify;">I just lay there, shivering in the dark, wanting to forget my past and not wanting to face the grim future. Faraway, the village had become silent, thin lines of blue smoke rose from the charred black remains of a small peaceful settlement that had fallen under my folly rage. Although the people had faded, their bodies sprawled in the ruins of their homes, their faces masks of terror and fingers curled and hooked in silent agony, I could still their hear screams. I closed my eyes and let the pitiful cries penetrate into my desolate soul. A nostalgic silver tear slipped from my eye and dribbled down my cheek leaving a wet glistening trail streaking down my face… <span style="font-family: 'Goudy Old Style','serif'; text-align: justify;"> Deep down, I knew that one of those tormented screams was hers. <span style="font-family: 'Goudy Old Style','serif'; text-align: justify;">“So this is what guilt feels like…”
 * What guilt feels like **