So far Untitled (prologue)

Oh god. There’s a feeling that hits you during that moment when an airplane defies gravity and heaves it’s heavy load into the atmosphere. You’re forced back into your seat, you feel the bottom of your stomach drop like you‘re a kid experiencing a theme park ride for the first time, and then, before there’s time for you to even adjust to the annoying pressure in your ears, you’re floating. You’re floating when really, all the laws of the universe say you shouldn’t be. There just seems something very wrong with locking yourself into a metal box that hangs in limbo ten thousand feet above the earth. There seems something very wrong in placing your life in the hands of two pilots - two humans - who have the power to take your whole existence from you within a matter of seconds. There seems something very wrong with being in a plane, hanging dangerously in an unexplored universe, when you really shouldn’t be there. When no one else knows your on that plane. Especially when you’re fifteen and your mother is still asleep in the house you snuck out of only three hours ago.

To be honest, I probably hadn’t thought this through as well as I could have. Withdrawing the money from my mother’s bank account for the ticket had been simple enough, and I had at least managed to get as far as securing a seat on a plane that was now gliding smoothly across the Atlantic ocean. I figured if I could make it to this point, I’d be able to make it when I got to England. But that’s as far as my plan progressed. Not really much of a plan - I know. I had a blissfully unaware half-sister who lived just outside London, three hundred dollars in my backpack from my part time job at McDonalds, and an intense desire to get as far away from Washington DC as possible. But I had no new school, no definite accommodation, no job, no student allowance, no friends. The ‘no friends’ thing didn’t actually bother me so much - I was sort of sick of humans anyway - but occasionally I did see the other problems as a slight cause for concern.

It wasn’t as if the decision to board a plane to London (although my destination wasn’t really the point) was completely and totally impulsive. I’d been wanting to get away for a long time. My entire life, in fact. Growing up in DC just didn’t cut it for me, and combined with living in a closet-sized high rise apartment with my mother, it was the kind of existence that makes you want to slam you head repetitively against a brick wall until you smash your skull open and die from brain damage and excessive blood loss.

Maybe I should explain. I grew up in DC with my parents - my father (a violent alcoholic), and my mother (a failed musician in denial about everything and extremely lacking in any sort of empathy). I was also present, which probably seems like an absurd thing to point out, but I was always very aware of the fact. It always scared me that no matter what I did in my life, no matter how far I progressed or fell in the social, academic and creative worlds we live in, no matter where I went or the distance I put between myself, DC and my past, I would always be stuck with me. Forever. And ever. Moving now, I wanted to change as much as I could about my entire self, but I knew that wasn’t completely possible. However, whatever I could do now to make a new start here, I planned on attempting.

I had a strange sense of independence when I boarded the plane that night. For once, I felt in control of myself, my destiny, my future. I felt like even if my entire existence was a downward spiral from here on in, at least I’d always know I tried. At least I would know that I could make my own decisions and I wasn’t going to be forced into anything I didn’t want to do. And eight hours later, when I exited the terminal from London airport onto the snowy , crowded streets of early-morning England, and even though I’d never even considered the fact that it would actually be snowing in England, I felt like things were different. I was going to make a change.