Perfect
I sank to my knees as the full impact of what had happened hit me. My mind went blank. Slowly, a lump formed in my throat. Then it happened. I let out what sounded like a high-pitched wail. Tears streamed down my cheeks in bucketful, as I knelt there by the fireside, my hand firmly pressed on my stomach. I couldn’t think anymore. I just couldn’t. I picked up the nearest thing, a neat flower vase my husband had bought me and hurled it at the window. Glass pieces rained down everywhere. I snatched the lamp from my bedside table and hurled it at the window too. Those sharp transparent pieces penetrated into my frail skin, but I could no longer feel any pain. I roared like a hungry beast.
My fingers curled themselves around the next object I was to fling. I mustered all the energy I had left in my body, which was now panting in exhaustion, sweat mixing with my tears, raised my hand over my head and prepared for another shower of glass, when the door swung open, and my husband’s burly figure was framed in the doorway. He was grasping in one hand a leather briefcase, and in the other, a hand, coated in blood, a suicide note clamped within. Shivers ran down my spine. I threw the book back into the drawer and hurried over. I saw her. Her body lay there, cold and lifeless. It wasn’t the prettiest of creatures, but it was perfect in my eyes. That mass of curly, red hair I would plait as she hurried to school every morning her blunt features that resonated with beauty, her cheeks, chubby since childhood, the now blood-stained clothes we had bought for her birthday, the extra flabs of fat poking from underneath it, those bright, blue, smiling eyes, which would brighten up my day, now hollow and lifeless as she lay there in the moonlight. Dead.
I caressed her red locks, as my tears splattered on her bulging cheeks. All those memories flashed through me. The day she came home crying because her friends called her chubby, the day she complained about herself not being beautiful enough, every single time that I had dismissed this, thinking it to be unimportant. Those years of pain slowly grew into struggle. Every step seemed to weigh her down, she refused to go out anywhere, never had any friends, never ate the way she should. This caused her immense agony, which hardened into resolve. That child, the one I knew better than she knew herself, took her life tonight. Why? Because she was so perfect, that others couldn’t bear her existence. So beautiful, that her aura shone brighter than the rest. So generous, that she let others feed off of her, until there was nothing more left to give. Basking in the moonlight, I leaned in and pressed my cracked lips to her ear, hoping her spirit would hear me. “You are perfect.” I whispered.
Note: This story touches upon sensitive subjects that may be disturbing to younger readers. If you or someone you know is struggling with depression, please reach out to someone you can trust personally or professionally.
