The Angelic Traits of Amanda Button
Sajjad Tameez
Copyright 2012 by Sajjad Tameez
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I can still feel the warmth from the splatter of blood across my face and the smell of gunpowder and the rotting corpse has haunted me since. I did something terrible and have suffered for many years, but today was going to be different – I could feel it.
The four white walls were closing in on me and the cold ceiling crushed my chest, suffocating me. The door exploded open and a hideous looking man, bent with age, barged in – he always dressed in all black and his eyes were always blood shot. ‘Amanda...’ his croaky voice never failed to send chills flowing down my spine, ‘Amanda...’ each time it echoed the voice became gentler and calmer until it became almost soothing and that’s when my eyes would open.
I woke up in a panic, as I did every day. My heartbeat galloped like an out of control horse, desperately trying to escape this same nightmare that I’d been having for the past year or so.
‘Amanda...’ the gentle voice of Margret emerged. Margret was my councillor, my dearest friend and the closest thing I’d ever had to a mother. But there was something different about her today; her lipstick was brighter than usual and she looked like she’d had a fight with her mascara. Her clothes appeared much more formal than usual and she walked up and down the small room, nervously.
‘Hey, what’s up?’ I asked, curiously. She stopped pacing and smiled, ‘we got it! We got the appeal!’ She replied excitedly. I sprung out of bed, thrilled at the thought of getting out of this joint for mad people. Margret sat down on the bed, placing her leather bag beside her.
‘Now Amanda, I want you to bear in mind that this is an appeal – it could go either way.’ Margret gently stroked my shoulder. I nodded slowly and maintained a serious look but, from inside, I wanted to jump up and down like a little child. I began struggling to keep the goofy smile of my face.
‘Now, I need to go and speak to someone and I will be back soon. I want you to get yourself ready, this is finally it, what we’ve been waiting for so long.’ She held my hand tight and I could tell that she felt more nervous than me. But then, everything began to sink in and all the thoughts that were whizzing around in my head suddenly stopped, like a speeding car hitting a wall, my mind went blank. I began getting goose bumps, ‘but... I don’t know if I can do this.’
‘Hey Amanda, look at me...’ She placed the palms of her hands on both sides of my face and turned it towards her; her dazzling green eyes locked onto mine. ‘You can do this... I know you can. You don’t belong here!’
‘But what about what I did? And...’ but before I could finish my sentence, Margret interrupted, ‘now listen to me, you are not that person, we’ve been through this over and over – that was many years ago – you are not that person!’ I smiled nervously and nodded, knowing that she was right. My mind often played tricks on me, so I had learned to not trust it too much. But I trusted Margret with my life and I knew she would not let me down. At first, they diagnosed me with amnesia but now they don’t believe it’s temporary at all – they told me that I suffered serious trauma and have lost part of my memory forever, and I can’t say that I was too upset about that.
Margret spent the last two years talking to me, she knew everything about me, she knew more about me than I did and she knew what I did – the terrible thing that I did.
Margret stood up and her thin black heels tortured the floor as she walked out of the room. I always hated seeing her leave, knowing that I would be here on my own. Left to think and I hated thinking.
I sat iced over and in deep thought when I noticed that Margret had left her bag; I grabbed it and dashed for the door but she had gone and the door was locked. I strolled back to the bed with no intention of looking inside the bag but by the time I sat down, I had already convinced myself that looking inside was the right thing to do. I looked from side to side, even though I knew there was no one in the room and I gently unzipped the bag, trying to make as little noise as possible. My heart was pounding and subtle beads of sweat began to form on my forehead. I rummaged through and removed some of the contents: a large purse that matched the bag perfectly, a small can of deodorant, a big bunch of chiming keys. But beneath all of that was something very peculiar – a scruffy book. It was a small size, definitely smaller than A4. It was purple and looked childish. When I opened the book, the first page read: Amanda’s diary in big, bold, blue ink. This was strange. Could this actually be my diary from when I was younger? Or maybe it’s another Amanda.
Deep down, I knew it was mine, it even looked familiar. I just didn’t know whether I was ready to unlock secrets from my past just yet. And after a short argument with myself, I turned the page and began reading the scruffy handwriting:
“Dear Diary, today was a great day at school. I aced my English test, P.E was indoors, maths teacher was a no show, and Ryan said hi to me. College is finally looking up. Home was the same story, mum and dad were at each other’s throats and there was no dinner made, lucky I had a bunch of sweets that Aunt Agatha gave me for my birthday, still stashed under my bed!”
I smiled as I read this; I had no recollection of any of these events. It felt like I was reading about someone else’s life. I carefully turned the page:
“Dear Diary, I had the most amazing day today, you’re never gonna guess who asked me out today, yup that’s right, Ryan. I can’t believe it, I am sooooo excited!
No dinner again today :(”
I turned the page, wondering what this Ryan would look like.
“Dear Diary, dad lost his job today and he and mum have been arguing worse than ever! And guess what? No going to the cinema with Ryan on the weekend. I’m grounded! Bummer!”
“Dear Diary, dad’s going crazy, he’s going out drinking almost every night and mum is on anti-depressants!
No dinner again tonight :(”
I quickly turned the page to find out what happened next but there were quite a few days where nothing had been recorded. A piece of paper fell out of the book and was covered in the same messy writing. I looked towards the door to make sure no one was around before I began to read it out aloud:
“Home was a prison, no longer a home,
Mum slammed the door when she left, leaving me all alone,
Days went by, no word, no letters, no calls on the phone,
How could she dessert me? Her heart must be a stone.
Father had become a raging alcoholic,
He often beat me to the ground,
Sometimes with his fists, and sometimes with his stick,
Either way, I dared not make a sound.
He boarded the windows and barricaded the door,
He battered me black and blue, leaving me asleep on the brown floor,
My blue lips, my bleeding nose, from my pounding head to my bleeding toes, the blood
oozed,
I lay half dead on the freezing floor, broken and bruised.
I blame him less and my mother more,
For not looking back after slamming the door.”
By now, my eyes had welled up and a warm stream of tears rolled down cheeks. I turned the page, dreading what was about to happen next:
Dear Diary, I write this last page in blood. I am bruised all over and there is blood everywhere, I can’t remember the last time I saw daylight and I haven’
t eaten a bloody thing in days. This will stop now. I have spent the last few days watching his routine and I have found where he keeps his gun. This all ends tonight!”
I sat in silence and could feel my expression turning cold as flashes of my memory came flooding back to me. I remember sneaking past his room and tip-toeing down the stairs, careful to not step on the stairs that I knew would creek. In the back room, in the beach coloured cabinet, that’s where he kept his unlicensed gun. I carefully opened the draw, screwing up my face as the rollers of the drawer made a grinding noise. I knew the gun was loaded, he always kept it loaded – paranoid freak. But as I turned around, my soul jumped out of my body, he was standing right there; his face more menacing than usual.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? You little...’ he screamed as he rushed towards me. I didn’t want to pull the trigger, I only wanted to scare him into letting me out but it was too late. The anger that I had boiled up inside was suddenly released in a single shot to the head. And to be completely honest, I only had one regret – why didn’t I do this sooner? The neighbours must have called the police. They said they found me lying on the floor with a dislocated shoulder, I guess that was from the pressure from the gun.
I put everything back into Margret’s bag and sat patiently until she barged back into the room.
‘Ok, this is it!’ Margret said excitedly. I nodded and smiled, ready to finally leave this mad house. As I stepped outside, with my legs cramping from all the extra weight I had put on over the years, I dreaded the thought of hiking up those laborious stairs.
When entering the room, the panel of two men and one woman were, as I expected, old and with raisin like faces.
‘Hello Amanda, please come in and take a seat.’ The woman on the panel said, peering over her thin framed glasses. My legs became jelly and it suddenly felt like someone punched me in the stomach. I looked at Margret and she smiled and nodded, so I walked to the chair facing the panel and sat down, nervously.
Margret fought my side valiantly, explaining that I had multiple personality disorder, which she had helped me to control.
After hours of discussion, they had agreed that I was allowed to leave with conditions of a strict curfew and I had to stay at a hostel for at least six months, but I didn’t care, I was just thrilled to get out.
‘Come on, I’ll drive you to the hostel.’ She said, pleased. And who better to drive me than my very own knight in shining armour.
When I stepped outside, the ink filled sky was more picturesque than I’d remembered it and the warm glow of the sun was indescribable.
‘It’s funny, it’s been raining for weeks and today is the first day that the sun has made an appearance!’ Margret remarked. The cheerful sunshine mirrored my mood perfectly.
I sat in the back of the car and gazed out of the window, smiling. But, peculiarly, when I saw my reflection, it wasn’t me at all. The person staring back at me was a young, confident looking girl and she wasn’t smiling at all.
The slim and pretty little girl spoke without moving her lips, ‘I think we will visit mother first...’