The Cocoon
“I know that you’re opposed to this, so are we Abi there is nothing we want less for you. Before we continue I just wanted you to know that.”
Of course, I really feel better for knowing that and in no way do I feel like that’s just a way of sugar coating the fact you’re a backstabbing traitor who sold me out to my own personal Devil. Tender arms try to embrace me; Mum having emerged from her circle of textbooks snuggles up to me on the chord chair. Automatically engaging my brain into annoyed setting I steel my body against her, refusing to let myself be lured into a false sense of security.
“Abi, come on stop being silly. It’s only a little needle it won’t even hurt believe me.” Mum coos as she poorly attempts to reason with me
“I thought we already discussed the fact we thought it was too dangerous to have?” Almost spitting out the words through clenched teeth, anger transparent, so most appropriately, Mum decides the comforting tactic wasn’t working.
“We did yes, we still think it is too dangerous to have but we could be taken to court, you could be forced to have it or even worse.” Dad reasons
“Worse than being turned into a rabid, brainless monster? Worse than getting killed because I’m a rabid brainless monster?” Without meaning to I lace my words with a deadly coat of sarcasm.
Seemingly being enough for Mum she rapidly heaves herself away from me, looking back with a glare of contempt in her ice blue eyes. Not even knocked out of phase I continue to passively stare at Dad who for once seems to be bothered by Mum leaving (FYI she does that a lot).
His fingers lace with each other then separate, then lace once more, he seems to be so nervous about telling me this news. He needn’t be, in his gut he already knows he won’t take me or perhaps that’s what he’s so nervous about. Realization dawns upon me…he’s going to force me to go.
“Abi…if there was another choice”
“There is another choice you just don’t want to choose it. I think I can safely say that you are afraid. How do you think I feel, I wake up in a weeks time…You’re afraid now doing this. What happens-“
“Don’t say t-“
“What happens when you have to see me die or worse what happens when you see me go insane, when you see me rot.”
“For God’s sake! That won’t happen to you!”
“It will Dad and you know what you’re going to have to do when it does, you’re going to have to watch me either run away to starve, watch me be shot in the street or you’ll have to kill me yourself.”
Despite Dad’s weak calls for me to come back, robotically I begin to climb the stairs to my attic room, ignoring the bumps creating black welts on my arms from the baby gates. I can hear soft thumps of music emanating from Ben’s room, before this would annoy me desperately but now I linger near the pine door my ear strains to listen to the beat of Lady Gaga.
Cold, worn out my body becomes emotionally drained. From excitement, to fear, to a dulling sense of realization my body changed its responses making me feel increasingly nauseous. Something that fails to dawn on Dad is the danger that he not only puts me in, but everyone in the house.
If I do develop this,
Everyone will die.
Vague shivers of horror begin to wrack their way through my goose bumped skin, too many images, too many thoughts of what could happen to me if I don’t convince those fools that this vaccine is simply too dangerous to have.
Suddenly a wave of shock sends its way inside my veins, riding the blood as if it is a choice wave on Coco Beach. If they are trying to get me to have it, what about Nan? What about Grandad? I know that Nanna Jessie won’t even venture into the doctors so I don’t have to worry that much about her, but Grandad always gets his jabs.
With all of this turmoil going on around us, it’s a wonder that I can even go on this trip let alone by myself. Something doesn’t seem right about all of this. It seems a little too…simple. What am I thinking? My parents just want me to get this hastily produced vaccine for a killer disease and I’m worried about their conditions for this trip? Whatever they are it must pivot on this needle.
In front of me cream carpeted stairs loom upwards to my room, my only escape from the madness of our house. A cocoon of sanctuary.
Whenever I go into it, my room is always ice cold…summer or winter, day or night you can always count on it being the coolest room in the house. Full of shivers and feeling quite dizzy I hurriedly lumber over to any available surface to perch on until this uncomfortable period passes.
Fortunately this perch happens to be my cast iron day bed, which may be a little hard but underneath thick warm covers a comfortable mattress lies in wait for a pajama covered Abi to snuggle on top of it.
In need of a complete comforting session but knowing that I’m not going to get one from my Mum, having put her in a severely mad mood only a few minutes ago, I seek the safety of my quilt. You know when you lye in one place for hours on end the nook gets really warm and you can get up and come back to it and it’s still warm? That’s what I’m aiming the bed to get like.
Before I know it a harsh rap sounds on my partially open bedroom door, without waiting for an invitation Mum walks in. Face streaked pink and eyes even pinker still. Almost as swiftly as she’d entered Mum wraps me up in my duvet and snuggles next to me, stroking my short brown hair with her slender fingers. I can feel them gently scrape across my scalp with every stroke.
“Mum?” My voice begins to crackle a little for reasons I don’t really know
“Yes?”
“Are you really going to put me through this?”
“Well truthfully I want you to have it but I know that there are downsides to it too, some of the vaccines went wrong and I don’t want that to happen to you.”
“I’m scared, that’s not what you want to hear right now but it’s true. I’m terrified and it’s making me feel sick. There’s not a day that’s gone by where I don’t think of it, where I don’t worry about being out and catching it.”
“It’s something that we all have to worry about now Abi, I know it applies specifically to you but as long as you carry on being cautious, staying out of infection area’s and keeping hand sanitizer with you, you’ll be alright.”
Unable to talk anymore it seems as if my throat has closed up, that the normally chattering voice box is being roughly torn out. Without knowing it, my Mum held out her hand for me to intertwine my fingers in hers.
Unexpectedly playing my lips, a smile begins to creep upwards, Mum always knows how to make me feel better even when I don’t want her to.
Despite all of this my nerves are still razor sharp, still expecting some sudden attack on my wits to get me to have this vaccine. It doesn’t seem normal, she never does this it’s normally Dad who tries to reason with me, this must truly be a mad time, never mind me if the adults are afraid…you know you should be.
Have you ever noticed that when things are really wrong, like if someone you know is very ill they’ll try to be brave and cover up their true feelings but you can pick up on the fact things are worse than they’re making out? That is what must be happening in every house all over Britain. Doubt is beginning to creep into everyone’s mind, fear is starting to cloud our thoughts and worst of all hope is ebbing away.
Last time I was in Liverpool, besides being absolutely frostbitten I was accosted no less than 7 times by Christian Fanatics. They waved badly painted placards in my rosy cheeked face trying to get me to absolve my sins. One in particular, an old woman huddled beneath a green parker, made me think. She made me think of my Nan, I began to wonder about why she feels the need to parade around a city center being jeered by groups of Chav’s.
It made me seriously question my beliefs, whether there is actually a God and if he is ending the world? I only thought about this for a split second before dismissing this addle-brained concept from my mind. I spent longer thinking about why she wasn’t in her own little sanctuary, her little cocoon?
It was then I realized that she was already a butterfly.
