My Memories - Original Writing

He dragged me deeper and deeper into the alley so that the dark completely surrounded us. I kicked and screamed, struggling to try to escape his firm grip. Becoming light headed, I screamed until I had no more breath. I felt the feeling leave my arms and legs as I tried to take one last desperate gasp for air. My effort was too little too late, and before I knew it, I had blacked out.

Seven years earlier, I migrated to Hawaii when I was twenty-three. I had flown away from my mother and my life in the Philippines. Like young adults and being rebellious, I wanted to live on my own away from my mother 's roof. I left the city life I grew up with in the Philippines in hope of a better life in another country.

I awoke to a cacophony of screams, both of excitement and of pain. I jolted up quickly, unable to control my own muscles or vocal chords, as if a spectre was holding me back with airy fingers of death.

I woke startled, dazed and confused basically drowning in my own sweat. Where on earth am I. I got up and spun around and all I could see was four blank walls that seemed like they were closing in on me. The only thing that stood out was a lone door placed right in the middle of one of the walls. Without even thinking about it, I started to carefully creep forward towards the door, but as I did this I could hear movement on the other side and the door began to open. I was lightning quick to react and rushed up to the wall right beside the door and nervously watched as a large figure began to enter the dimly lit room. He looked around and noticed the empty space and shouted out in surprise, but I was quick and without a second thought grabbed him and slammed his head against the wall, knocking him out cold.

When I woke up, I couldn’t muster the strength to even hold my head up, but I could open my eyes. Looking around, I saw I was chained to a table with very loose chains. I also saw a man

The familiar, tortured strain of my mother’s voice curdled my stomach. I flung open my bedroom door and sprinted into the living room. My lungs were on fire. My eyes darted around the room frantically until they landed on him. There he was, the man I was forced to call my father. He lumbered towards me, this big atrocity of a creature, swaying dangerously from side to side. His dark, hooded eyes met mine. A supercilious, arrogant smirk was plastered onto his face. Tumescent flesh spilt from the sides of his leather belt, his stomach jutting out comically. He was a man with barely any neck, the red flush of alcohol staining his pug-like face. Oh, how the sight of him boiled my blood.

Blood flow rushing through my veins, lungs heavily breathing through thin air, heart pounding loudly, I couldn’t bear. Slowly I unsealed my eyes from its long tender slumber, and grazed everything around me. Pitch black light loomed in my sight. I perceived nothing except darkness and a shadowy site. Terrified of my blindness, cascades of water started whooshing down my eyes. With all my might, I stretched out my long podgy arms as stiff as I can as it hit a large rigid structure similar to a wall. Four compacted fortifications built to confine me inside this hollow full of terror.

Almost everyone has a moment in their life when the world ceases to turn, when the clouds still and the very breath of the soul stands frozen. Revelation, realization and inspiration all collide in an epiphany of tumultuous truth. A split second when one’s life is displayed, not as the guise so artfully rendered day in and day out, but in brutal, Technicolor honesty. The lies that bind so tightly unravel and leave you bare, at least to yourself. Some call it insight, I just call it ugly. Because that is all I saw when the mirror shattered my soul, leaving me metaphorically bleeding and bereft. There was no warm person asleep inside of me waiting to wake up, no golden intent I could draw on for comfort, or even a spirit guide caught beneath

The slim, white framed mirror positioned in the corner of my room glares back at me, projecting a transparent image of reality. The reflective glass reveals my hazel brown eyes, pale smile, freckled face and confident stature. Yet what lies beyond the perfection–beyond the seemingly faultless façade–is a tsunami of fear suppressing the strength I once possessed…

I sigh, staring at the light flooding in from the cracks and crevices in the ceiling. The light gave a gentle hue of gold, making the room I’m sitting in seem cozy. One question lingers in my mind, how long have I’ve been here, sitting on this old, rigid wooden stool, in the middle of this room? I get up from the stool, twiddling my thumbs and trying not to vomit from the knots forming in my stomach. I walk over to the shattered mirror that stands to my left. I stare at my reflection, but I don’t see myself. I see some girl, with long silky blonde hair that flows to her shoulder, she stands there with her long and scrawny frame. However, where her face should look gentle and beautiful is a face etched with terror. That girl was trembling and twiddling her thumbs, that girl was me.

Footsteps echoed through the pitch black room, cold sweat trickled down my nose, my hands itched from the rope which tied my hands to a metal chair, and my body shook with such an uncontrollable speed. I wanted more. I didn’t understand what I wanted, but everything around me was useless, I didn’t want more. No, I needed more. When suddenly, I had felt something press into my arm. That was it. I felt incredible, the begging stopped, and I enjoyed the euphoria which I so desperately wanted minutes ago.

And the mirrors. Mirrors of every imaginable shape and size line the walls like a post-apocalyptic art gallery. Faces lurk behind the glass, with their wide yellow grins and irises like the eyes of hurricanes drawing me. A fatal storm pulling me in. I spin around, eyes widening, staring up and out and across until the full weight of the significance of the creatures seizes me, and I collapse. They were once human. They were once like me.

I wake up to the smell of grass, the rustling leaves and the sound of nature. As I open my eyes I can see the clouds moving through the sky while I lay on the ground.

One of my earliest memories, as a young child growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, was the visits to my Nan’s home in south Ealing, west London.

My earliest memories I could think of is when I was probably five years old. That was a year before I started Kindergarten. I was always bored because we didn 't have television. We had the radio where we listen to for news, sports, drama series, and even typhoons update. At age five I would wake up before six in the morning because my mother would get so angry if I ever stayed on bed passed six o’clock. I would fix our bed, brush my teeth, and sweep the entire yard. That was my routine every morning with or without school. I grew up in a farm in the Philippines where we grew our own rice, fruits and vegetables. We have lots of dogs, pigs, ducks, and chicken. We didn’t have all the luxuries like fridge, washing machine, cars, and specially tv. I was always jealous with my cousins who lives in the city. Instead of watching tv, I started to read tagalog books before I started Kindergarten. I was the only student that knew how to read and writes nicely.