CHAPTER EIGHT
“Sometimes it doesn’t matter how hard you fight,
You just weren’t meant to win
That does not mean you failed!”
This was blackness like I had never seen before. It was much darker than the black from a black car or the night’s sky; it was even blacker than my room with the spray painted window shut. This was real black as pure as it could be. Occasionally it would be replaced by horrible images of the man standing over me hitting me repeatedly with the piece of wood, and I could see chunks of flesh coming off with the nails. Then blackness again! So much blackness.
After a long, long time I finally began to regain conciseness. I opened my eyes, but couldn’t really make anything out except that it seemed nighttime already. My vision had become extremely blurry; it was a shockingly frightening situation. I could tell I was lying in the shrubs still, I could feel the sting of the branches digging into my back. I tried to stand up but had no strength.
I didn’t pass out again. I just lay there in total agony for what felt like hours. After a while I began to regain focus in my eyes and looked around to see that the shrubs were covered in blood.
I realized I had to get out of here no matter how painful it was going to me. I started to push my way out of out of the shrub and felt the most intense pain of my life. I tried to yell out but nothing came out at all, just a heavy breath of air. I decided to try and roll my way out, and felt a spiral of pain as I broke free, then collapsed again sideways and rolled onto the soft grass.
I lay like that for a minute or two regaining my breath. Then pushed myself back up to my feet, and then tried to walk. I took about four or five wobbly steps, like I had just drunk five cases of beer. Then fell to my knees.
I tried this again for the same result. Then again. The old me I think would have given up in times like this and just allowed myself to pass out again and hope someone helped me eventually, for some reason though I was consumed with determination here. I couldn’t stand for more than a few steps in a row, but I still managed to half crawl, half wobbly step my way home. Cars drove past almost constantly the whole time, I couldn’t believe no one stopped to help me, but I guess that’s the world we live in these days. Strangely I was almost glad about this; I hated the thought of having to explain what had happened to me.
I opened my door while still on my knees and collapsed inside onto the floor, and that’s where I stayed. I lay there with the door wide open face down for several hours. It amazed me how incredibly worn out walking/crawling around two blocks had been. I was in lots of pain too of course, and just moving any part of me would hurt, even lifting a finger or wiggling my toes, there wasn’t a section of my body which had escaped their cruel punishment. All I could do was try to stay as still as possible.
I didn’t pass out and I didn’t sleep either. I just lay there. I spent eons of time just focusing on a single thread which was hanging off the end of tattered blanket. Barely another thought went through my head the whole time I was on the ground. I didn’t think about the attack, I buried it deep into my mind and basically never really thought about it again. One of the skills you acquire when you live a crappy life is the ability to hide bad memories in your own mind.
Eventually I got up off the floor and stumbled over to the bed. As I lay there, finally starting to try and sleep, I began to feel a real sense of regret. Regret and guilt! It took over me. I felt guilty for Wendy “for Christ sakes that wasn’t even her real name, I had been calling her that for months” I screamed at myself.
With the advantage of hindsight it suddenly became clear what a downright awful a thing it was to invade her privacy like that. At the time I had justified it to myself by thinking “I find her attractive, girls want to be found attractive, and so she would be happy to have a guy looking at her because he finds her attractive”. Not like that though. The honest truth is that it’s the most disgraceful thing I have ever done. I am not at all proud of it, but I can’t take it back, and I can’t deny I enjoyed it in the moment, but I do honestly regret those actions.
I felt guilty towards her brother. I started to think about if I had a sister and someone violated her like that. I’d want to do the exact same thing as he did. Only I wouldn’t have the guts! Maybe it didn’t matter if I was lonely and depressed, so what if it wasn’t fair that arseholes and bullies from school got to have sex with beautiful girls where as guys like me get nothing . Life isn’t fair, that’s not an excuse to treat other people with so little respect.
I felt guilty towards myself. Why hadn’t I just chosen against becoming a peeping tom? People make that decision every day, “should I go look in some girl’s window tomorrow? Hmmm no I think not, I might go to work instead!” What if I had quit peeping the day before this, why did I wait till today to start seriously considering it? Why didn’t I keep a better eye out for people coming? If only?
My life always seemed to come down to ‘If only’s’. If only I was better looking! If only I was smarter! If only I was taller! If only I was thinner! If only I had more money! Always blaming something out of my control, I never seemed to say if only I had tried harder, or if only I had put up with a little embarrassment for a lot of gain. Always excuses. I was sick of making excuses.
I eventually got to sleep and actually slept through the night. When I woke up the sun was already shining through my open window. The warmth of the beam of sun hitting me right in the face was what woke me up. My first thought was “mmmmmmm that’s nice”, “then oh fuck I slept in I’ve missed Wendy!” and then “Why do I hurt so incredibility badly”, to finally remembering, “That’s right, I had the fucking shit beaten out of me”.
I climbed up out of bed and walked over to the mirror. I looked into it and immediately burst into tears. I looked like a can of spaghetti had exploded inside of me and had ripped holes in my skin everywhere and was slowly eeking out.
There wasn’t a part of me which wasn’t red with blood or black from bruises. I had full chunks of flesh hanging off me by thin threads of skin. I was missing two teeth from the top near the back, and my lips were so swollen I looked like one of those awful victims of wanting collagen injections. I pulled off my shirt, painfully, and found similar grotesqness there. I took off my pants and realized I was one enormous bruise with a million cuts thrown in. On top of that my family jewels (not worth much in our family) were swollen to about three times their normal size and were as purple as a piece of grape bubblegum. Worst was that they were also covered in blood veins which made the whole package look like something from a “worlds ugliest sea creatures” TV show. Not the fashionable look for ones goolies.
I cried hard, so hard I could barely make any noise, my mouth was just stuck wide open with a weird squeal noise coming out. I just stood still looking at my mangled body in the mirror. It was damn well frightening. It’s not an image of yourself you ever think you will see. I stumbled into bed and realized something. My life had spiraled out of control. No that’s not right, that suggests my life was once in control, that’s certainly not true. What I realized was this was officially my rock bottom!
I thought I had hit rock bottom several times before. In high school, in University, and of course not that long ago at the cling wrap factory. And at hitting those points I always went through a period of improvement. Before suddenly, as I was climbing out of my hole, the walls would give in and I’d smash into the ground again and this time break through the surface into a whole new hole and hit the bottom of that one. This bottom I was in now however, I was sure this one had to be the absolute bottom of my seemingly bottomless pit.
It was like I had been eaten by a lion and the lion had shitted me out, and then a giraffe came and ate that shit, and then shitted that shit out, then a zebra had come along and eaten the shitted giraffe shit of the shitted lion shit of me and shitted that shit out. All the while hyenas stood by laughing, laughing, laughing. And this had gone on through bugs eating the shit of the shit of the shit of the shit, and then the bugs been eaten and shitted and that shit had been eaten and shitted until finally I had got the point where there were no more animals of life willing to eat my shit. My life was so shit that shit eaters thought I was too shitty to eat.
Ironically I reached this conclusion while sitting on the toilet not shitting due to my chronic constipation. Having the shit beaten out of you seems to not be a literal term. When I have the shit beaten out of me, the shit stays in there for a long time. It’s really quite a shitty feeling. Especially when all your ribs are broken and bruised and you have a million cuts on your body that stretch open as you struggle to squeeze out your human waste. But that’s what hitting bottom is all about isn’t it. It’s far too shitty to actually be shitty.
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