Lord of Chaos

“Help” is out of the question. It is not a doodle! Not like that! Not that many times!

She was mad, *I could tell, but I couldn’t care.

My response comes out with my sigh, “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

Sorry can be said. It doesn’t have to be meant. That lesson is hard to learn; it’s always the others who don’t mean their sorries, and you who get all the blame.

The nagging woman leaves the same way she came, back through the dark hall, and through the door on the other side. I’m not allowed to go through there, but I don’t want to. I want to settle, and I do, back into my cocoon, my notebooks, my stories, my way of life.

“help” I write in the corner of my notebook. Just a little one, nothing she’d ever notice, but…But…BUT…The desire to write in big, bold, all caps grows so strong that I start to worry I will scream out

“HELP!” a big gone, a loud one. A real one.

Loud enough, real enough for the neighbors to hear. Loud enough, real enough for the police to hear. Loud enough, real enough for my Dad to come home.

But that will never work, and she would be there in a second, huge feet running down the hall. Soles slapping on wood, a warning of what was about to happen to me.

So, instead, I settle for the best nexdt thing. A slightly larger “HELP” on the top of the page. It will get her yelled at, but at least it’s out.

There’s no rebel in this room, but her actions are the start of one.

“Help! HELp! HELP!” I writes scribbles and stampinto the page. The paper rips down the middle, and I stare to cry. The rip feels personal, and I tear too. Fat raindrops land on the paper, her essay on the holocaust smudges and blurs.

I cry because I cannot turn in this essay. I cry because I worked hard on it. I cry because I can’t scream “Help.” I cry because it’s the only thing I can do.