New Narrative Fiction from Olivia Robson
Coraline: Week one Project
‘Tell me how you really feel, Coraline’.
A white coat, clipboard, glasses perched close to the tip of his nose. This man was becoming the only constant in her life now. She’s seen him a thousand times before, yet each time she feels as though he’s never spoken to her in her life. She supposed that this was to make each week special - but if it was, she wouldn't be here.
I know Coraline. She’s is a pretty girl, not necessarily gorgeous, but pretty: her skin kissed with a slight tan, hair like red roses, eyelashes which accentuated her eyes. All these things have earned her many a compliment. However, each word is like a rubber ball being pelted at a wall: it only ricocheted, making the speaker feel good and Coraline left feeling nothing at all. She has told the man in front of her this before, that she often feels a sense of nothing almost like a fire-blanket - it suffocates every emotion, covering every bright colour with the same flat-coloured grey.
There is one thing Coraline does in an attempt to feel something. She takes on other people’s struggles. She had theorised that maybe putting others anger and trauma and stress into her head would provoke the same emotions.
It did bring her one emotion: fear. As she began to have more and more concerning anecdotes thrown her way, she began to feel this looming cloud of fear follow her everywhere. She realised that she didn’t know these people like she thought she did, and she began to fear that any word or action could throw these people beyond their crisis point they were at.
She now spends every day and night researching the different struggles these people suffered with, finding out how to deal with triggers, attacks, emotions - knowing full well the effort will never been returned.
She knows, deep down, that a person can not continue with a gaping hole in their heart. A hole of which cold air rushed through, of which left icy remains that hugged the entrance. She’s cold already, a type of cold which runs through your blood.
She’s a kid, just shy of 15-years-old, yet the weight of the world hung heavy on her shoulders. Sooner or later, she thought, sooner or later this will all crumble - leaving her trapped under a ball or pressure, fear and self-loathing.
She sighs heavily, the only way air could actually make it out of her lungs, ‘they tell me things,’ she explains, ‘they tell me I’m worth nothing. They say how I can't even walk out of a miserable door’. The man in the coat pulls an expression equivalent of pity, and she grows annoyed, ‘I will though! I will make it one day…’
I know Coraline. I tell her that she can grow up now, pack her things and leave all of this behind. She can’t. She tells me how she feels like a monster is keeping her locked in a cage, like her path is covered in mines and any wrong step could launch her into nothingness.
I tell her she can leave me behind, that if I am what holds her down, she doesn’t need me anymore. She tells me that she would rather disappear.
Coraline longs for the ocean, its deep blue waters that holds a thousand secrets. The peacefulness of the waves and how the sway over and over themselves. How the sea can be anywhere. Be everywhere. I think that the ocean is inside of her, longing to be freed.
Every word is like an axe, thrown carelessly into her back, tearing her flesh and opening up her true self to the world. She traverses the pain like a raft sailing a swollen river, on the brink of bursting the banks and destroying the world around it. But Coraline doesn’t want to be in the river anymore, she wails for the ocean’s comforting presence.
I know Coraline. I tell her comforting things. I'll be the fire and the cold. I’ll be your shelter from the winter’s wrath. I'll be what you breathe, what keeps you going. I'll understand what you hold inside, take it to hold for you. I'll even be a soldier, and fight every war under your name. Or a light in the evening, to show you where you’re safe.
I ask for nothing in return, just a simple smile - because your smile is my gold, your smile is my soul.
She, as beautiful as the sun, has no more light inside of her. She doesn’t know love. She gives what she does not have. I tell her to be strong, to find my light. Below my light is a castle - with walls of stone. A castle of strength and courage. I tell her that if she moves in. Nothing will hurt her again.
I will not hurt her again.
Eleina
Inspired by Troye Sivan’s ‘TOO GOOD’.
The atmosphere in the club changed drastically when the slow songs began. I felt my heart sink, looking across to the empty bar stool sitting in front of me. She was supposed to be with me tonight. If I hadn’t have been so foolish to let her go.
Eleina was her name. A gorgeous girl with an even bigger heart. I spent every day with her, and every day the sun shone brighter than ever - as if showing me what an angel I had been so blessed with.
I had made the mistake of taking her for granted.
She had asked me to meet with her, that fateful day, under the dark sky’s watchful gaze. I arrived expecting the same thing as any time, we’d exchange stories of the week, laugh about the people who take life way too seriously, and then share stories of our childhood together to end the night. That wasn’t the case tonight. This wonderful girl poured her heart out to me, about how far she’d fallen for me, and how she wanted to see if we could last together.
I panicked, because how can a man like me ever live up to the expectations of a girl like Eleina. I told her I couldn’t allow myself to try, as I was scared of showing her the imperfections she wouldn’t have seen otherwise. That night, that I thought would end in a hug goodbye partnered with a bright smile, ended with the girl of my dreams in floods of tears. All because I didn’t think that I could be good enough for her.
I glanced across the floor, to her and her friends, seemingly using tonight as a girls night out - something they did as a weekly ritual at this point. My heart ached terribly, gripping my chest as the pain echoed through my ribs. She looked even more pretty than I had ever seen her, and I longed for normality to fall over the both of us. I was terrified of even imagining a conversation with her now. She’d never see me the same, I’d always be the man who broke her heart.
I took a shot of my drink, feeling the burn of the liquor hit my senses, and heaved a sigh of partial pain. The way she was acting was as if she had no idea I was there, watching and praying to reverse the previous night’s mistakes. I had never experienced a need like this before, but here I was, a yearning taking over my brain like the shot I’d just had. I took a sip of my water, eyes fixed on the counter with discoloured patches from the years gone by.
I could help but wallow in my guilt and shame, because I had no other way of ever fixing what I’d said, and the hurt I had caused.
This girl was too good to be good for me, but too bad that the few years of friendship was all I needed.
I looked back up and across the floor, and found myself staring into a familiar steel blue eyes.
Eleina.
I expected a look of anger, of hurt, of shock. Instead, I was given a gentle smile, as if she’d been waiting to see me. Or for me to see her.
I smiled back at her, and her face gleamed in a look of relief. My shoulders dropped, and it felt as if nothing had happened. I heaved a breath of warm, perfume-scented air. This was my only chance to fix what I had messed up.
I stood up from my barstool, leaving the cash for my drinks sitting by the empty glasses in my place.
I weaved in and out of people dancing, locked onto finding her. As I found my way out of the other side of the floor, I found Eleina standing a few feet in front of me, arms behind her back and a nervous smile on her face.
I froze for a moment, allowing a few seconds of eye contact to pass. It felt like the both of us were trying to figure out what the other was going to do. Then, like a skipping CD suddenly freed from the same eight count, Eleina wraps her arms around my shoulders. I melted almost instantly, holding her in a tight grip and letting a smile grace my lips.
‘I’m sorry,’ I mustered up the courage to say, ‘I want this to work out, I was…’
‘Afraid of letting me down. I know, but you won’t, because you’re you, and that’ll always be enough for me.’
This girl. Too good to be good for me. Too bad to be all I need.
Thomas Dent - “Finally Asleep”
As always, a silence permeated the bedroom, and, as always, it brought no comfort to the dreamer. At this time of night, many people would kill for the sort of quietness befalling the compactness of the bedroom. Of course, just as many would be put off by the strained creaking that sounded from the floorboards just outside of the room. The dreamer, who went by the name “Jerry”, snapped his gaze to the door, like a spider tracking a fly. The gaps of the doorframe allowed a sliver of light from the landing to shine through, though that only made the silhouette of the door that much more imposing. A shadow dashed past outside, momentarily blocking the rays of light, and Jerry’s shoulders jumped. Logically, it should’ve been one of his family members, but something about the lack of noise from the footsteps gave him pause. And anyway, he had a gut feeling that this was something much more irrefutably sinister. Jerry squinted at the towering exit. Surely, it was just his father, or his sister, or his mother, or someone…
A hand gripped his ankle from under his bed and he tried to scream.
Instead of anything rising up from within his throat though, a gurgling sound drawled from under his bed, sounding almost like it was laughing at him, mocking his lack of courage. Another hand clamped down on his shin. He jolted rabidly, yet he could do nothing but tremble in complete and utter terror, staring down at the space in between the hands. His eyes were glued to the… Thing that was slowly pulling itself up, deformed fingers twisting cruelly around his pale, shaking legs. In an instant, the creature’s decrepit, mangled face loomed over Jerry, looking somewhat like a stereotype of the modern zombie. It screeched again, in place of the wordless horror of emotion clawing its way rigidly, desperately out of Jerry’s throat. His body was still locked up, yet he could hear muffled voices around him. They sounded like his family, crying, begging him to wake up. Somehow, the creature’s lips - or what could pass for them - curled upwards maniacally at this revelation. And still, try as he might, Jerry couldn’t force a single sound out of his throat.
“He must be dead”, he thought he heard. He wanted to scream that he was alive. He wanted to scream that he was right here. He wanted to scream. The creature clambered up to him and held him in a vice grip. He shivered violently, knowing that tonight, like all nights, would see no rest for him, but if he just stuck it out, even if it was the worst it had ever been, he could escape to the morning’s sunrise. An abhorrent wail sounded out from somewhere beyond him.
Jerry did not wake up again, but if he had it would’ve been to the sight of a mangled, hideous grin.