" Pale blue moonlight shone through our apartment window on my mothers face. Making the sweat dripping down her forehead sparkle. Her face contorted into a grimace. She screamed out in pain, anguish and sorrow.
Pain, because she was currently in labor. Anguish,because of the sudden turn of events. Sorrow, because one hour before going into labor, my father was pronounced dead.
We lived in a small apartment complex. Situated in what you could call the slums. The ghetto, or the streets. We could go to the hospital, but me and my mother both knew our wallets could beg to differ.
Luckly, I was prepared enough for what was to come. I knew we wouldn't be going to the hospital for this delivery. And my mother delivered me the same way. I had a basin filled with steaming water. Using a rag to whip off her sweat.
"I can see her crowning," I yelled. Thank god this wasn't a breech
birth.
I inwardly thanked my biology teacher for making us watch a video of birth. Although, it was a poor representation of my current feelings on the matter. I felt great fear, anxiety and stress. I mean it was one thing to watch it from the comfortable seating behind a screen. But when it was happening to your own mother, and you're expected to deliver it properly? No way, I almost couldn't handle it.
No, I have to keep myself strong. For her, and for my baby sister, whose head I was currently holding in my hands.
The labor was long, or maybe it just felt that way. I'm not even sure how we did it. Maybe I should say how SHE did it.
I was almost glad my sister was born when she was. It kept my mind off the crippling anxiety that was building up.
How were we going to pay for a baby? What was going to happen to me? I'm only in highschool, how can I pay for my mother and my sister?
My mother worked, but it was just a low paying Job at a fast food place. I did the same but at a grocery store.
To pay the bills and his college, my father was in a large amount of debt. He did bring enough in to sustain the three of us. But now we've effectively switched roles. How was I going to be the breadwinner?
We may have lived in a small apartment, but that was only a "temporary" situation. My parents would say " It will be fine, leave the money to the grown ups." Well damn they said that all the way up until this year in fact. I was 17 dammit! Even so I would still work and give half my paycheck to the family.
Now I had to do something. My mother couldn't work, not now at least. She was on maternity leave as of 2 weeks ago. I was working part time because of school.
My fate is sealed, I might as well have been the father in the first place. Despite being happy I had a sister, I was still bitter about the whole thing.
So naturally I quit school. Maybe not naturally, but what choice did I have? I couldn't work full time because I was a minor. But I could still get multiple jobs. I was working all the time. Home became a place just to sleep every so often.
I was working a guard duty for some big corporation. It seemed sketchy at first, I was still a minor. Is it even legal to be in charge of a building's safety? I also enrolled into an online school of sorts. TO get my equivalent of a highschool diploma. It also could transfer me to a college if I was lucky and smart enough.
I did this for three reasons. One, it cost me virtually nothing to enroll and take high school classes. The video calls were held at night so while on guard duty I could work and occalnly check the monitors. Three, I could be done in half a year, which kind of baffled me. I was only a junior in highschool. What was the point in public schools if I could get an equivalent in less time. And honestly the classes were fun, and more informative than three years in highschool ever did.
So I worked, worked, and even did more work. I had no friends, aside from the acquaintances at my job. The friends I did have disconnected with me as soon as I quit school. I only had my family to care about. And the thought kept me from collapsing from exhaustion.
We were still a long way away from paying off our debts. And I mean a long, long way aways. But through my efforts I was able to stabilize our financial situation.
My mother and I never talked about it. How I was working myself to death for them. We didn't talk all that often really. I was always gone, or she was. She still worked part time, to take care of my sister. We only bought the bare necessities, and skipping meals often, excluding my sister of course.
My mother went from being a skinny beauty to a thin skeleton. Well i was looking similar so I couldn't say anything.
I'm not entirely sure why, but I felt grateful for the sudden turn of events. It's just that I had no drive, no goal in mind for my life. I was just a stuck up teenager with anxiety and anger hormones.
But now I feel as if I have grown as a person. Letting me just float through life, from paycheck to paycheck, and taking on challenges as they came. And believe me there were alot of them. It sort of puts my mind at ease, knowing how I'll spend the next eighteen years of my life.
I was eighteen now as well and the only thing I had in common with my peers was being addicted to oxygen. But I never really liked them to begin with. I was sort of always detached and introverted with them. Starting from middle school and up, I never really understood them.
They were the pursuers of dreams, and I was just a supporting role. Just an outcast. Barely a name or face to remember me by.
I sort of want to kill myself.
The thought slipped my mind. I was having these thoughts recently. I mean my life wasn't particularly good or bad. There were definitely people worse off than me. But I felt no happiness. No contentment with my life.
Then why? The thought frustrated me to no end. I just simply wanted to. Kill myself that is. It was hell. It's not like I could get help. I couldn't afford that, and I had nobody to talk to about this sort of thing. After the string of thoughts led me to my alternative goal was etched into my brain. I couldn't stop thinking about them.
I was frustrated, angry and sad. How was I supposed to deal with this on top of all the other shit I have to walk through. I couldn't, I simply couldn't.
I never understood the concept of god. Why would an almighty omnipresent, omnipotent, and caring father to all of his children let them suffer like this?
In the Bible or whatever, God hid away when Jesus was crucified. So how can he just sit there and watch his "Children" Kill themselves? And then punish them for it?
What's the actual point? If Lucifer can get One third of heaven on his side, then doesn't that mean lies, false hope, pride, envy, and various other "Evil" emotions exist in heaven as well?
What's so different from here to there? I felt as if there was no difference at all. If he didnt care for us here, what makes him care for us up there? Nothing. He willingly sends his children to eternal oblivion after all.
So I chose the safer route. There was nothing after death. Absolutely nothing, you don't exist anymore. Nothing does, at least from your perspective.
Now that's a comforting thought.If there was nothing then, no worrying, no stress, no sadness, and no suffering. It was the perfect answer to all my problems.
The way out.
And that's what led me to make the same decision my father did."