Flash Story: So Tired!

by Lola T.

 
Kpo!-kpo!-kpo!—the knocks on the door persisted.

On the bed, I scratched through my hair and groaned again.

‘Why are you always in your room alone?’ my mother asked when I finally opened the door for her.

She walked over to the bed and sat beside me. She took my hand. ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Please.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You keep saying that.’

‘Mummy, really I don’t.’

‘Is there anything you are upset about?’ She was rubbing my fingers now. ‘You know you can always talk to me.’

‘I am not upset about anything,’ I said.

But the truth is that I am getting upset now. With all of them!

Why can’t they just understand me?

Why?

Why do I have to be sad before I can stay with myself?

Why do I have to be upset about something because I choose to have a little me time?

Why do I have to act in a particular way to be normal?

My name is Lola and I’m a crazy little loner who’d rather stuff her ears with headphones, bury herself in the sheets and enjoy the creepily soothing tune of Dominique by Souer Marie while reading my favourite blog or novel.

Or, times I get a little high on me alcohol, pull on my tight panties and shake my small pair of ass to Rihanna’s Work.

My mother feels I’m hurt by something.

My brother thinks of me as egoistical.

‘I know why you are always by yourself,’ he said to me once.

‘Why?’ I asked him.

‘You think so highly of yourself that you feel nobody on this earth deserve your presence at all!’

I was stunned.

Not really by what he said, but the anger on his face.

I did not understand it.

I never did understand why people find it that hard, offensive even too, that I prefer being on my own.

But the truth is that it is exactly how I find it hard to comprehend why someone would prefer loud, jarring noise to some nice peace and calm.

Why people become sad when they couldn’t find somewhere to go, or someone to talk to and laugh with.

Why people crave attention so much.

Why people do not fear to be discovered.

Why someone will readily climb on the stage and volunteer to dance because some company had come into the street with loud music and petty gifts.

I am almost 25 now and I think I do understand now. Or let’s say I am beginning to.

We are all different individuals, with nerves and neurones wired differently.

If anything we should all be amazed, entertained, captivated, by the marked diversity of all species, and not be bothered by it.

Like fingerprints, we each are single copies of ourselves.

I pray you discover your freedom and not try so hard to fit in because you may actually never.