Down Here

Down Here
10/21/03

You’ll never really be able to tell what’s up and what’s down. When I stand on my head things almost seem more correct than they are when I’m on my feet. I used to get up a half an hour before my alarm went off each morning, walk out side, and place my head on the ground. Then I’d heave my legs into the air and slam them against the wall to support me. I would “stand” there for ten, sometimes twenty, minutes and watch the world spin along like it did every other day. I knew the kids walking by my house to get to school every morning thought I was crazy, but I didn’t care. Because every time I was out there in the frigid cold the world seemed the way it should be. The moment I began to realize that I was happier in my reversed world, was the moment I began to realize I couldn’t survive in my real one. I think that was also the day my father started to dig.
Each morning, after my surrealistic fetish had been fulfilled, I would walk back up the stairs to my room. I was mad when we moved to that house because the stairs were so silent. I had always been used to loud, squeaky steps. My alarm would usually go off just as I would enter my room. Sometimes, when I got really caught up in my dream, the alarm would go off early and wake up my younger brother in the next room. “Heather!” he would yell, “Shut that stupid thing off!” Every time he did this I would just let it go on for longer. I had gotten used to the constant beeping because I had started to hear it twenty four hours a day at one point. So I would let it go through breakfast, my shower, when I got dressed. The funny thing was my lazy brother would never even get up to turn it off himself, after complaining for almost an hour sometimes.
One morning I heard a habitual sound coming from the back yard. Being about the time I would normally go outside for my head-stand, I decided to investigate instead. I wearily brought my tiresome body to its feet and ordered it across the room. I moped across the hall to the master bathroom, with a window that had been placed perfectly behind a tree so that the person on the inside can spy without being seen. I peered outside and saw my father with his million-year-old shovel which practically didn’t have a handle anymore. He was digging a hole in a random section of the lawn. It was around the middle now that I think of it. The dirt mounted in a pile next to the slowly increasing gap in the grass. In a way I felt sorry for the grass. A few days prior to the incident I had started to feel sorry for a lot of things. The chicken I would eat, the couch we had just recently disposed of, now the grass being torn from the ground. I tilted my head to the side, but it wouldn’t move as far as I had wished it to. I stood on the toilet seat and grabbed the shower rod for support. I then contorted my body so that my head was completely upside-down. I gazed at the hole again, but what used to be a monstrosity was now something beautiful. The emptiness it proposed replaced my tension with ease, and my anger with delight. The darkness of the clouded sun was lifted as the dim shine from the bathroom light fixture brightened. And as the artificial light joined that of the sun’s, all seemed right with the world, as the shower rod broke free from the wall, inviting my face to meet the moldy porcelain tiles of the shower floor. When I managed to resurface, I returned to the window only to find the shovel neatly placed on the pile of dirt stacked neatly next to the circular chunk of air in my yard.
For each morning after that, you could find me and my father in the exact same place every day. My dad, shovel in hand, digging in the back. In the bathroom you could find me, my hands firmly on the shower rod as I twisted my head around. Without fail, the railing would slip every time, and I would tumble to the floor. It became something to look forward to everyday. The sensation of my body separating from the earth (even though I was on the second floor) was almost too pleasurable for me to think about. The world would change quickly from right to wrong and back again before my eyes until it ceased all together with a thud against my cheek. I told my only friend, Maressa, about this once and she just laughed in my face. She’s really good at that sort of thing.
I never made it a point to ask my father what the hole was for until one Saturday. I had forgotten to turn my alarm off from the previous week of school, so it woke me up way too early. I heard the sound of my dad in the back, so I figured I would watch him some more. The hole had gotten to be really really big, and I had no idea why he continued to labor himself so. It was to the point where he was down so far digging I couldn’t even see him anymore from the window. That’s when I decided to walk outside and go ask him what was up.
“Hey dad,” I gazed down until he looked up at me, “What’s the hole for?”
“I’m exercising honey. Gotta get these biceps ripped before I start getting old ya know”
I wanted to laugh. “Ok dad. Have fun,” spilled out instead.
I turned back to the house and entered through our screened-in porch. I sat on the lounge and pulled out a pen and paper. Adjusting the back support of the lounge so that it was completely straight up in the air, I rested my head on the soft cushion of the chair and leaned up against the back of it. Across the room I saw myself in the mirror, a heinous smile slapped on my face. I had never been so beautiful before in my life. I slowly began to sketch the lines of my face. When I was rounding off the tip of my nose, the supports on the back rest snapped and I flipped over backwards onto my knees. A thick, bulging line from my pen had serrated the middle of my paper. I screamed as I threw my now crumpled drawing against the wall and continued to scream and cry out inaudible words I couldn’t even understand. I wanted to throw up all over myself to destroy the beautiful image the mirror had given me. When I looked back over to it; however, the portrait that was now shown to me could not have even shared a canvas with its prior depiction. Revolutionary to myself was the fact that had just at that moment dawned upon me. I really couldn’t survive in this world. The other was just so much more beautiful to let alone.
The dust embedded in the cushion began to rise as I pounded my fists against the hard metal plating which encased the chair. Soon my fists became my head. Blood streamed out from the forest of hair on my scalp as it repeatedly shot forward against the cool, iron arm rest. After my final thrust I pulled myself away and flew back onto the carpet. I picked up my body but left my soul on the floor. I left the room and shut the door, leaving it trapped outside. Never would I let it in again. I entered the bathroom and pierced my own stare with itself. There was no life behind my eyes. I stampeded out of the bathroom and almost tumbled down the silent stairs as I ran outside into the openness of my front lawn. A black car drove by just as I emerged onto the windy terrain. Within was a man, laughing hysterically. He looked over at me and was suddenly firm. He quickly returned his head to a forward position as a precaution and continued to drive. He remained sullen, at least for as long as I could see his face. I briskly wrapped around the side of the house and let the brick fortress shield me from the oncoming wind. The gusts returned once I reached the other side and found myself placed in front of daddy’s hole. I peered over the edge and saw him digging. I quickly placed my hands onto the ground and used my perfected balancing skills to firmly reverse myself and enter my dream place.
“Hey dad,” I gazed down until he looked up at me, “What’s the hole for?”
“Why it’s for you honey,” he said with a large smile.
I tipped over and fell lightly into the pit. My back lay against the ground, and my legs went up the side of the circular prism. I saw above me the sky, some clouds, and the tips of the few trees in my yard tall enough to reach my view. My dad was gone and it was beautiful.
I remained down there for the majority of my life. I survived through my hunger and my thirst. Through my sorrow and my pain. Through my hatred and my delight. I survived until one foggy day in June of a random year. The thick clouds masked the beautiful gems of the world from my dying eyes. During these last moments of my life I returned to my feet which had not been used for countless years that I had put behind me. I reached my arms into the air and pulled my stomach high enough to rest upon the brim of my underground dwelling. I opened my weary eyes and saw the sun. I died.