Elixir Of Life | Teen Ink

Elixir Of Life

November 6, 2008
By Katie McElhattan BRONZE, Littleton, Colorado
Katie McElhattan BRONZE, Littleton, Colorado
1 article 1 photo 0 comments

My eyes searched the darkness and I saw his eyes. My head throbbed as I felt another piercing sting in my leg. I knew this would never end. His elixir of life was a drink so vile that it turned him into a demon. He could easily see the fear in my eyes as I watched him slowly walk towards me. My whole body ached but every scream I made just woke the demon even more. So I cried to myself quietly as he advanced. I needed light in my dark world. I needed someone to show me light in my world of darkness.

My eyes opened the next morning and I saw the demon sleeping on the couch. The bottle next to the couch was empty and drained. I wore sweaters and jeans to cover my secret. No one at school could know. I was a shell; I needed to be a shell. No one would listen to me if I spoke. What’s the point? They’ll just feel bad for me. I don’t get the point of trying to show another side to me when this was all I had.

The orange fall leaves floated from the trees above me. Why couldn’t I be a leaf? It was easy for them to escape. They just had to wait till fall. I have to wait till I’m 18.

Everyday of mine is the same. I go to school and act like I’m learning something that could actually help me in my life but they don’t have any classes for kids who are troubled. What about a class that shows you how to escape a closet, even if you have binding ropes? I’ve learned how to do that by myself, and how to not scream. It wasn’t easy and it never will be, but if I close my eyes things are easier. Then I go home to my father. He doesn’t like me going to school. It prevented him from letting out all his anger in the world. I was a walking punching bag to him never more and never less. He couldn’t love the elixir wouldn’t let him. Usually I had to stare into his blood shot eyes and watch his shaky fist wave in the air as he ran towards me. I was a wall and I just let him come. He would catch me anyway.

Someone yelled my name and I turned to see my teacher walking towards me. He held my sweater that hid all my bruises. I didn’t realize everyone staring at my arms that were painted black and blue with bruises. I ran towards him to grab my sweater but he wouldn’t give it to me. Thunder rumbled in the sky and rain drops started to fall. It felt like the sky was crying maybe it was using my tears. I lifted my arms and let it come. My mom once told me that God was in the rain and he will wash away all my sins. I knew she was still looking after me even after her life had ended.

“God is in the rain,” I whispered and let it wash me. Soon I would join her and I would finally be able to embrace her.

The demon was resting on the couch and my arm was pulsing. It felt broken but that wouldn’t matter where I was going. I walked into the kitchen and looked at the blade. It welcomed me and glistened in the flickering light above me. Maybe this was the light I was looking for; this would lead me out of the darkness. Maybe it wouldn’t. This blade will probably lead me so far under the darkness that I would drown. I wouldn’t be remembered but forgotten. I was a whisper in the wind and I needed to become a yell. The shimmering blade dropped out of my hands and shattered on the floor. I needed to start over so I ran. I ran away from the blade and away from the demon.

I don’t know where I am now but those dark memories always enter my mind unwelcomed. I will not be shaken or driven into the darkness ever again. The light always welcomes those who want it and I so badly wished for it that it blinded me. I would rather walk into blinding light than drowning darkness.


Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 2 comments.


on Oct. 12 2016 at 3:09 pm
socialkaysualty PLATINUM, Dover, Delaware
25 articles 0 photos 37 comments

Favorite Quote:
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.



So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?



And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.



And should I then presume?



And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head



Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;



That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:



“That is not it at all,



That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

are you okay? did this happen to you?

on Nov. 13 2008 at 11:30 pm
AHH!dude this is so amazing kinda creepy and depressing but amazing, i love it!You should really write more.