The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

I Am Not This Person Anymore
by Melissa R. Mendelson

All I wanted was to be healthy. Some promising ads, so many inspirational stories. I wanted to live my best life, feel healthy in mind, body and spirit. I wanted to feel alive because I haven’t in a very long time, but it was a new year, promising and hopeful. I would do everything right, but all I did was fool myself again.

Such a small fucking pill, a small fucking pill that in the beginning, I did feel better. I felt alive, so I took that pill, thinking that it was the right choice, the best thing for me, and for awhile, it was. I was happy. It was working, but then I got greedy. What about two pills? They were for different things, but they would work together. There would be no issue. Right?

It was a hot June evening when I returned home from work. I remembered walking through the front door, dropping my things on the table nearby, and going to my bedroom. Then, I was on the floor. Nobody came running. Nobody asked me if I was okay. I sat up, and I knew. I felt it. I was not me, but why was I not me? It was those pills, those damn fucking pills, and as I stood up, it felt like something else was in control. I was just sitting in the passenger seat.

I went downstairs. My family was sitting at the dinner table. They were talking and laughing. Didn’t they realize something was wrong because something was very wrong with me, but they didn’t notice. And I caught my reflection on the refrigerator door, and my face blurred. I opened my mouth to say something but closed it quickly because a scream was rising upward. I wanted to scream at all of them and keep screaming, but instead, I mumbled, “I’m not hungry. I’m going upstairs.”

It was the first night for a very long time that I laid in bed, a stranger in my own body. My mind was gone. My soul absent. What did I do? Where did I go? I just hurt, and I want to hurt them because it makes me feel better. But it is wrong. I am wrong, and my body is laughing at me. You wanted to be healthy, feel alive, so you took those pills without question, without checking with anyone. What did you think was going to happen?

“I want to be me,” I whispered to myself. “I want to be me,” but I became the stranger stepping into my shoes, pretending everything was okay, and pushing myself through work, hoping that no one would notice the strangeness in my face. I was a puppet on cruel strings, and I found myself each night clutching those strings to my chest, thinking, hoping, praying that if only I could untangle them, I would be me again. But I am wrong and maybe even past saving. What if I am not this person anymore?

.

Fiction © Copyright Melissa R. Mendelson
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

About Author Melissa R. Mendelson:

Melissa R. Mendelson is a horror, science-fiction and dystopian author and poet.  She has two publications with Wild Ink Publishing.  One is a prose poetry collection, This Will Remain With Us, and the other is a short story collection, Stories Written On Covid Walls.  She also self-published a sci-fi novella, Waken and a small short story collection, Name’s Keeper.

If you’d like to learn more about Melissa, you can visit her accounts here: www.MelissaMendelson.com