You walk over to the small desk in the corner of “your” room. It sits right next to the window which gives you a clear view of the dreary weather outside. You look around at the blank white walls of the room and let out a sigh. Finished with examining yet another new environment you sit down at the desk and pull out a small journal and a pen from your shoulder bag. You open the journal to the first page and begin to write.
Hey there, me. You and I both know why I’m doing this but I’ll explain anyway. My new Psychiatrist thinks it’ll help my depression if I write down my thoughts and feelings down in this journal. I’m still wondering if she was joking with me or not. If she was serious then it’s obvious that she’s an idiot and will hopefully lose her license soon. Anyway, until then I may as well start this journal with my life story and all that. I won’t hear the end of it otherwise. My name is [your name] and I’m seventeen. My life started out like anybody else’s. I had a mom and dad who loved me and for a while things were great. Then, when I was six years old my mom learned that she had a rare heart disease that would require a massive surgery if she even wanted a chance to live. She died three months later on the operating table, and I had just turned seven years old.
Unfortunately, this story continues and so far my depression remains very much intact. My dad lost a lot of money on the surgery even though it had failed miserably. Funny how that works isn’t it? When someone at a restaurant makes an error with your order you usually get a new one and have the item removed from your bill. When someone fails to save the people we love most we give them the money and end up with sorrow and debt. The point of that little rant was that my dad and I ended up living in poverty because of the medical bill. My father became depressed and took to drinking. He never abused me or anything like that so there’s one thing I can add to the list of things that didn’t go wrong. While he may not have beaten me my father was still far from functioning and balanced. Whenever I did something wrong or misbehaved he would start sobbing uncontrollably.
This was and still is a heartbreaking image. Think about it, your dad is the person you look to for guidance and support, now imagine him breaking down completely every time you came home with the slightest bit of bad news. Sometimes I actually wish he had hit me instead because of how much pain the memory brings. Anyway, I didn’t have to live with a depressed father for long. When I was nine years old he committed suicide one night after tucking me into bed. I’ll never forget the sound of that gunshot. Sometimes I can still hear it in my dreams or in the back of my head when my thoughts begin to wander. The night is still vivid in my memory; I jumped out of my bed to make sure my dad was alright. Of course I found him in a heap on the floor with pieces of his skull brain and a lot of blood everywhere. The stench of blood was so heavy that I threw up. I ran over to my dad’s body and asked him if he was okay.
I knew there wouldn’t be a response but I was young and had farfetched hopes. When he didn’t respond I ran to the phone to call the ambulance telling them what had happened. As soon I got off of the phone with the dispatcher I fell to the floor, crying. The ambulance came in about twenty minutes later and wheeled him out of our apartment with a sheet over what remained of his face. The paramedics wrapped me in a blanket and took me to the police station and placed me in some small room to leave me alone in while they collected evidence o could find a gentle way to tell me that my life was going to fall apart entirely. Either way it took about three hours for some police office to tell me what I had already guessed, my father killed himself. Then he gave me an envelope that had my name written on it.
The envelope had some blood splattered on it and was already open. The officer told me that the police had investigated in the off chance someone had forged it and that he was murdered. I pulled a piece of paper out of the envelope and started to read my father’s suicide note. He had written that he couldn’t take the way of life he was providing for me. He claimed that his death would somehow benefit me and that it was all for the best. He told me that he wished that there had been some other way. Then the bastard had the nerve to write that he loved me and always would. Like that would make his death any less painful. If anything that note left me with mixed feelings.
Now, whenever I look at the thing I feel angry and upset about my dad’s death, and yet I carry the note with me everywhere. At the time I just started bawling again and the officer tried to comfort me in some way. I told him to leave me alone and he respected that. The next morning I was told that I had no known relatives so I would have to be put in the foster care system or an orphanage. I’ve actually been in both, being passed along like some sort of baton at a sick kind of track event.
I was taken into my first orphanage with everything I owned, the most important of it I now keep in my shoulder bag. The other orphans had all come from broken homes of one kind or another and so cared little about me and my problems. If anything they were just like any other set of children only with more emotional baggage and the mean streak that occasionally went with that. I spent a week or so in the orphanage before things went bad. I was staring at the only photo I had of my family together and was crying. A few of the older boys picked up on this weakness and stole the picture from me. I begged and pleaded for them to return it, tears streaming down my face. The lead boy mocked me mercilessly and eventually tore the photo in half. That had sent me over the deep end. I had lost my mother while she was receiving the treatment that was supposed to save her. Tossed into poverty and watched as my dad slowly ate at himself before he snapped. Then I was thrown into an orphanage and was helpless when the only reminder that I had once belonged to a happy family was destroyed.
I reared back and kicked the boy who had ripped my photo right in his “family jewels”. When he staggered to his knees with his eyes watering I punched him in the nose and probably broke it. Then I tackled him and pounded away furiously until his friends recovered from the shock and ripped me off of him and returned the favor. I found myself in the police station with welts and dried blood on my face. The officer from before came to see me and told me that I wouldn’t have to go to Juvie because he had worked out some way for what had happened to be considered self-defense. Then I was sent into my first foster home. It was an alright place I don’t have much to say about the rest of my life. Some families were abusive and others were hopelessly optimistic that they could help me with my depression.
I hated both of those types of houses equally. I’m not sure maybe I hated the optimistic households more. With the abusive houses I knew I was gonna get screamed at or hit and then left alone for a while. The optimistic households would always try some new and idiotic treatment. At one point I was given a one hour hug and warm thought session. I’m not kidding these people actually thought that would actually work. Let’s just say I mastered self-control that day and leave it at that. I was tossed around from home to home on an almost monthly basis. I never had time for any real friends, and most of the education I have is from doing the reading on my own.
I ended up doing an alright job I guess considering I requested an IQ test once and scored a one seventy-five. Along the way I earned the nickname Murphy in the foster care system, after that damn law. I never enjoyed the name but I never said anything about it partly because I didn’t think it mattered, and mostly because the name seemed fitting to me. That’s basically it; my life can be summed up just like that. Right now I’m in the care of some politician. I didn’t bother to remember his position because I know I’m not gonna be staying here long anyway. He claims he wants to help me, but I’ve learned how to read people over the years. I’m sure he’s only using me for sympathy, people like him usually do. I may write down something later… if I feel like it.
You closed the journal and put it and the pen back in your shoulder bag. You slipped a jacket on because you liked taking walks at night, even if it was raining outside. You made your way down the stairs and saw your new foster father talking to some people from the media.
“Yes [your name] has been through a lot but I believe that with the Psychiatrist I’m sending him to for treatment and my loving care at his side he may finally forget the pain he’s in. Speak of the devil there he is now.” You roll your eyes and attempt to walk down the stairs without being pulled into this. Your foster father wasn’t about to let that happen and wrapped an arm around your shoulders as you walked by. “Why don’t you tell them all about the progress you’ve made so far, Son?” he said with a perfected camera face.
“Leave me alone. I’m in no mood for this, old man.” You whispered in a hushed tone that only he could here.
“I don’t care. Just say something that the press will love, or its back in the system for you, you ungrateful brat.” He hissed back, making sure the press didn’t pick up on it. He would come to regret those words. You didn’t really respond well to anything, but threats were something you hated the most. Threats implied that the person threatening you could actually do something that could harm you in any way. After the life you’ve lived you felt that nothing could compare to anything you’d already seen or done.
“If I had to say anything about my foster father and the time we’ve spent together it would have to be… He plans on spending all tax money on his own gain, he makes shady deals on a regular basis, he pays prostitutes to dress him up in women’s clothing and then smack him with a riding crop, and he threatened to kill me just a moment ago.” You said, each word leaving your mouth at an almost unnatural speed. The reporters and newscasters went into a fury and surrounded your now ex-foster father to hear his defense to these accusations. He gave you a look of complete and utter rage as you slipped out the door and into the rain.
You took your iPod out of its side compartment on your shoulder bag and placed the ear buds into your ears before pressing play. Mozart’s violin concerto number three came on. You listened to classical music because you remembered that your mother had played violin in a community orchestra. This was the same song that she would play to you before telling you good night growing up. You felt a warm feeling spread throughout your body for a moment before it was replaced with bitter regret.
You tried to take your mind off of these feelings by thinking about what you had just done to your most recent foster parent. He had told you to say something the cameras would like, and you had. Although it wasn’t something he liked.
“He should’ve picked his words a little more carefully” You said with a hint of a smirk on your face. Then you looked down at the iPod in your hand and continued, “But he did give me a nice toy here and there.”
You continued walking with the raindrops landing in near perfect harmony with the notes of the violin. You took a left at a crosswalk to go to the town park to sit up and look at the stars when a bright light filled your vision. You swiveled your head just in time to see the fuzzy outline of a car barrel towards you. Then, your vision goes dark and the last thing you can hear is the final stroke of the violin as the concerto and your life end.