Kierra’s sixth grade teacher told her that she was ‘phenomenally intelligent and mature beyond her years’. From that point on, she devoted herself to living up to that remark. She considered herself an adult in children’s clothing. Much to her chagrin, however, she was not only smart for her age, but also quite small. When she started grade 8, an absent-minded aunt had asked her if she was going into grade 4. She still wasn’t over that. Now, at 13, she had delicate little features and her face and arms were peppered with freckles. She was a quiet kid, but she had a wonderfully disarming smile. She was sweet, intelligent and well behaved. A dream come true for her parents. Beneath this unassuming exterior, however, lay something else. Something peculiar. Something dark.
Where this darkness had it’s genesis is a mystery. It was television, I suppose, that inspired her. And her parents lack of attention gave her the freedom to pursue her dark obsession. But would it still have been there without these two factors; waiting to manifest itself at some other time, in some other way? Could Kierra ever have led a happy, quiet life? Or was it in her blood, this obsession?
Kierra’s obsession began, innocently enough, with a news story. She saw a child, her own age. He’d found a dead body in a park near his home. Something sparked inside of her as she watched the story. She’d seen plenty of violence, plenty of dead bodies (Kierra watched a lot of shows that her parents wouldn’t have let her watch, had they been around), but all on TV. Nothing for real. This kid had seen the real thing. What was it that she was feeling? That spark… jealousy? The word doesn’t quite sum it up. What she was feeling, it was something more like need. To be a part of something like that – not just to see tragedy, but to be a part of it. To play an active role.
Kierra considered her options. She was not a killer and there was no way she could play that part; nor did she have any desire to be the victim; she didn’t want to be a relative or friend of the victim; she didn’t want to be a relative or friend of the murderer; taking part in catching and punishing the killer was out of the question too. But finding a body – that was something she could do. So Kierra’s search began.
It’s strange to think of a child devoting themselves so persistently to such a task, but that is exactly what Kierra did. Of course, Kierra had always been decisive and stubborn. Once she made a decision, she stuck with it and never gave up until she got what she wanted. For instance, at her first swimming lesson, at the age of three, Kierra nearly drowned. She refused to go to another lesson after that and there was nothing anyone could do to persuade her. At the age of three, she overruled her parents and got her own way! So Kierra never learned to swim.
She was just as stubborn and persistent when it came to her search. However, apart from a few false alarms, nothing really came of it. Not until she reached the age of 13.
Her parents were often away and she spent a lot of time baby-sitting her three year old brother. Kierra suspected that her parents had purposely waited until she was old enough to baby-sit before having another child so that they could palm him off onto her.
On Saturday afternoons she would take him for a walk down to the river near where they lived. As she walked, his little hand clasped in hers, she would keep her eyes on the bank of the river, looking for anything unusual.
This particular day, her eyes scanned along, and passed over a strange red and blue lump. She paused, cocked her head, and looked back. Clothing? It didn’t look right. She took a few steps towards it, leaving the path. It was definitely clothes. And, more to the point, there was something in the clothes! She moved closer still. It was quite a large mass, and long. There was a dark, round lump (a head perhaps?), in front of the red and blue mass. And were those legs half immersed in the water? It was hard to tell because whatever it was, it was partially hidden by reeds. Kierra twitched, as jolts of excitement ran through her body. She felt the rest of the world close off around her. This was it. Unable to make herself move, Kierra stared at the form in the water. What was she doing? This was the time to act! Finally, she unglued herself, slid down the bank and knelt at the waters edge. She looked down.
Everything in her sank. She stopped even to breathe for a moment. Clothes, yes. But it was just clothes. What she had mistaken for legs was actually a long brown sports bag. The torso was bunched up footy clothes and the head… a football. Disappointed, she shook off what remained of her excitement. Well, another false alarm was no big deal.
She was almost ready to laugh at her own stupidity; the smile already flickering on her face, when she remembered that she had had something in her hand before she’d run over. But her hand was now empty. Her brother. She looked around. He was nowhere. This time, instead of the world closing off, it seemed to swell out all around her. She scanned for him as she ran back to the path. Nothing. He couldn’t have gotten far, not on his little legs. Without even thinking about it, perhaps out of habit, she turned and looked towards the water. She looked at the river, so familiar to her, where she had searched so long in vain for her dream. She looked, and she saw, not far from the edge, a little shape in the water. Her heart dropped, it dropped right out of her. She fell to her knees.
She wasn’t even the one to pull him out. Someone else had noticed, come running, pulled him out, tried to revive him. It was no use. She had known it wouldn’t be. She knew the moment she saw him – there was no saving him.
From that point on, Kierra felt disconnected. The next few hours were the worst of her life, but she experienced them as though through a veil. She was pushed and pulled a lot; faces in her face; voices; yelling. It all seemed so distant though. She was aware of the fact that her parents, both of them, blamed her. Some stranger, someone at the hospital tried to defend her. Her parents said nothing.
When finally she was left alone, she retreated to the only place she felt she could go: back to the river. She walked slowly. From a distance, you wouldn’t even have noticed her; the forlorn little figure, alone on the bank; the little girl who was feeling as helpless as the child she was, but as accountable as the adult she believed herself to be.
It seemed that in returning there, she had found a gap in the curtain that had been surrounding her and, for the first time since it had happened, she was able to see and to think clearly. She sat down.
All the thoughts and feelings that had been unable to push through the curtain now swarmed around her. She blamed herself, for the obvious reason that she had let go of his hand and stopped watching him. But there was something else. The wishing. All her life she had been wishing for it. She hadn’t even considered what she was wishing for – wasn’t she wishing for someone to die? Someone had to suffer and die for there to be a dead body for her to find. Had she brought this on herself with her selfish wish? Was this supposed to teach her a lesson? Was it karma? Was god punishing her?
She had chosen her part in the tragedy, but had ended up playing every part but the one she had wanted. She hadn’t even pulled him out. Someone else had.
Her thoughts continued in this vein for hours, but slowly, very slowly, they became less fevered. Somehow, sitting by the river gave her peace. When she finally stood up to go, she was totally calm; serene; happy even. She smiled, and, as she waded out into the water and allowed the darkness to engulf her, she wondered – who would find her?
Kath Cashion
oooh. very dark. beautifully written.
Damian
I think I followed similar emotions as Kierra as I read through; her journey really connected. Then I sat and thought and re-read and thought and re-read. I appreciate the experience I’ve had with your story, it really got to me.