Post by antehya on Dec 6, 2008 9:58:56 GMT
There was advantage, Antehya decided, in being the sort of person whom nobody really notices. While it was lonely she found the silence and coolness of the school ballroom a perfect place to go when she had nothing to do and the rest of the school was hanging out with friends. She pushed the large door open, having to lean on it to make it budge, and made her way across to the piano, untouched save by her visits every now and again. Its stark black wood seemed to appeal to her, contrasted greatly by the keys, however dusty, their fine ivory brilliance tarnished by time and neglect.
Seated at this fine instrument Antehya would while away hours into the night without realising. Meals were not a problem - nobody knew that her friend Ana had never really left her for good - and there wasn't a soul in the school that knew how much she just didn't care about health or happiness anymore, or so she thought. Sometimes she would come down here at the ridiculous hour of three of four in the morning after no sleep and would stare out the grand French windows into the sky, resisting the urge not to simply slit open her wrists and let it all end there. Well, sometimes she resisted the urge.
This particular afternoon she played softly on those grand ivory keys, bird-thin fingers dancing over them in sensitive melody and harmony as she whiled away the hour with Chopin's nocturne in E minor, moving onto Ravel, Beethoven, Debussy, Chopin again and even her own compositions, each piece somehow weaving seamlessly into the next without rest. She wondered what the time was. She guessed most of the school would be finishing off dinner by this time, judging by the dark, and she tried to recollect the last time she sat in the dining hall at all. It was Thursday and so the last time would have been Monday morning when she ate that plum, its blood red juice staining her fingers giving her faint satisfaction that she could prove the food to be destructive in some way.
Her idea of perfection was three plums a week in summer, and two or three of something else in the other seasons. Winter she was allowed four because it was cold and that burnt off more than the summertime weather. The final chords of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata faded and she stood to approach the window of the ballroom. It was dark and so the room was a little fuzzy around the edges but Antehya wasn't prepared for the double images, spinning head and nauseous wave she felt come over her in an instant. She swayed and fell, her head cracking hard against the edge of the piano stood as gravity took control.
This was different to normal. Antehya was no stranger to dizziness of clautrophobia or lack of food, though she would never admit it. This sent strange pulsiung of blood through her head and heart, making her feel as it she would either vomit, pass out or be sent into cardiac arrest.
Her eyes tearing up she knelt and retched for a moment, hand over her mouth, while the world still spun around her. She could feel her heart beating erratically and her stomach churning, which eventually brought up bile into her mouth. Disgusted, she pulled herself up and sprinted to the window to spit it out, staggering as the dizziness tried to take control. She still felt sick and pulled herself up to the windowsill, heaving bile out the window into the bushes outside. She wiped her mouth and was horrified to discover her hand now tinged red, her malnourished brain vaguely recognising the taste of blood.
She wondered what she must look like. Bruise-like shadows beneath her eyes against her chalk white face, blood staining her hand and probably her mouth, eyes bloodshot from vomiting and all this, she decided, must have been the wretched plum. No more this week, the Voice in her head murmurs smoothly and slyly, for punishment. Deluded, she slipped to the floor with a slight bang as her protruding bones made contact with the dark and hard wood of the ballroom floor.
I'll try harder, Ana, even though it will be my downfall.
Her eyes fluttered closed, exhausted.
Seated at this fine instrument Antehya would while away hours into the night without realising. Meals were not a problem - nobody knew that her friend Ana had never really left her for good - and there wasn't a soul in the school that knew how much she just didn't care about health or happiness anymore, or so she thought. Sometimes she would come down here at the ridiculous hour of three of four in the morning after no sleep and would stare out the grand French windows into the sky, resisting the urge not to simply slit open her wrists and let it all end there. Well, sometimes she resisted the urge.
This particular afternoon she played softly on those grand ivory keys, bird-thin fingers dancing over them in sensitive melody and harmony as she whiled away the hour with Chopin's nocturne in E minor, moving onto Ravel, Beethoven, Debussy, Chopin again and even her own compositions, each piece somehow weaving seamlessly into the next without rest. She wondered what the time was. She guessed most of the school would be finishing off dinner by this time, judging by the dark, and she tried to recollect the last time she sat in the dining hall at all. It was Thursday and so the last time would have been Monday morning when she ate that plum, its blood red juice staining her fingers giving her faint satisfaction that she could prove the food to be destructive in some way.
Her idea of perfection was three plums a week in summer, and two or three of something else in the other seasons. Winter she was allowed four because it was cold and that burnt off more than the summertime weather. The final chords of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata faded and she stood to approach the window of the ballroom. It was dark and so the room was a little fuzzy around the edges but Antehya wasn't prepared for the double images, spinning head and nauseous wave she felt come over her in an instant. She swayed and fell, her head cracking hard against the edge of the piano stood as gravity took control.
This was different to normal. Antehya was no stranger to dizziness of clautrophobia or lack of food, though she would never admit it. This sent strange pulsiung of blood through her head and heart, making her feel as it she would either vomit, pass out or be sent into cardiac arrest.
Her eyes tearing up she knelt and retched for a moment, hand over her mouth, while the world still spun around her. She could feel her heart beating erratically and her stomach churning, which eventually brought up bile into her mouth. Disgusted, she pulled herself up and sprinted to the window to spit it out, staggering as the dizziness tried to take control. She still felt sick and pulled herself up to the windowsill, heaving bile out the window into the bushes outside. She wiped her mouth and was horrified to discover her hand now tinged red, her malnourished brain vaguely recognising the taste of blood.
She wondered what she must look like. Bruise-like shadows beneath her eyes against her chalk white face, blood staining her hand and probably her mouth, eyes bloodshot from vomiting and all this, she decided, must have been the wretched plum. No more this week, the Voice in her head murmurs smoothly and slyly, for punishment. Deluded, she slipped to the floor with a slight bang as her protruding bones made contact with the dark and hard wood of the ballroom floor.
I'll try harder, Ana, even though it will be my downfall.
Her eyes fluttered closed, exhausted.