Category : Stories

Sub Category : Horror

       In 1968 mother and I were living in a two bedroom mobile home approximately two hundred feet from Number one Morgan Lee Road . Our closest neighbor was my maternal grandmother. For months events had subconsciously drawing me toward an up close and all to personal reintroduction to the spirit of my departed father.

     School had always been difficult for me. Until my freshman year at Poplarville High I had persevered and to some extent by opting out of breaks and all minimumly supervised activities. To say I was bullied was a gross understatement. I was tormented. Encounters with my fellow students was terrorism.  

I was different, I can admit that now.  I was the tall ackward girl with third and fourth generation hand me down clothes. My hairstyle was always home cut. The thick coke bottle lenses set in my mother's hand me down cat_ eye frames further subtracted from my attractiveness and added to exponentially to my ackwardness and unpopularity. Everything about
 My outward appearance supplied ammunition for my tormenters.

 Staying ceclostered inside the classroom offered a small sense of security and protection. I was not illuded I knew my teachers loathed me as much as my fellow students. The difference was the teacher was obligated to provide a safe environment conductive to education and learning. The difference between the atmosphere inside the classroom and the playground was if a teacher physically or emotionally assaulted me someone would see, someone would hear and someone would intercede.

   I had tried talking to my mother about the negative experience school had become. She was living the illusion that community and school was exactly as it had been when she was a student attending Poplarville Schools. Mother was incapable of comprehending my situation. Her insight was my lack of positive experience and friendships was  my problem and of my own creation. Her sage advice was " Be a friend and you will have friends."  

    The other sage advice mother gave was, if you are forced to fight your punishment will be the same for a black eye as if you send someone to the emergency room or the morgue. Maybe, in the 1940's her philosophy applied. But, in1968 if I sent someone to the E.R. or forbid, the morgue, I was looking at eight years in the reformatory, possibly prison after that.

   This day the tormenters at school and the psychological, emotional,and physical abuse at home had pounded me down into my socks so much that I had to roll my sweat socks down to see. Still, I made another failed attempt to have a serious conversation with mother about school and what was happening on a daily basis. She coldly informed me " suck it up, you're going to school,end of discussion."

   Without further discussion I ask mother to hold my dinner. I wanted to get a nap before dinner. I promised to eat when I woke up. She agreed. In silence I walked to the bathroom medicine cabinet. I did not know what the prescriptions were or what effect they would have. One bottle,one pill at a time I emptied the medicine cabinet. 

Two_ Thirds of my way to completion my cousin Nora, discovered my plan. She begged me " please don't kill yourself. You are all I have left. For the  briefest second I felt empathy for her. Looking at the mountain of discarded empty prescription bottles we both rationalized I had passed the point of no return. 

Nora,looked me in the eye, " your crazy ! But,if you're dying you're not leaving me behind." My deliberate premeditated attempt to end my physical and emotional torment now included my ten year old cousin. When she and I had swallowed the last capsule. Nora and I went to bed.

 The only mention of death was Nora cry of complaint," Aunt Evelyn, Martha is sleeping dead." To which mother shouted " Martha, stop scareing your cousin. I had positioned my body in what I imagined to be the most attractive pose. As stupid as it sounds, in that moment, I wanted to leave behind a beautiful corpse.

   Sometime between the self induced coma and sunrise the spirit of my departed father came to me three separate times.each time he woke me, demanding I get up and go tell mother what was happening. The third and final time he was insistive," Get up! Go tell your mama what is happening. Martha, you are dying. If you go back to sleep, you will die. Go tell your mother, I won't be back. I won't warn you again.i cant come back to you again.

    In obedience and possibly some subconscious desire to live. I staggered down the hall colliding first with one wall then the other. When I reached mother's room, I collapsed across the foot of her bed. I pleaded," Mama Im dying, please don't let me die." First, she thought I'd had a nightmare. " You're dreaming, go back to bed." Somehow, I managed to tell her I took some pills and unless she helped me, I would die.

    While mother tried to keep me awake and somewhat coherent she sent Nora to her brother's house for help. I tried to explain Nora took some of the pills too. This became crystal clear when my uncle walked through mother's bedroom door with Nora unconscious in his arms. Mother relayed the broken incoherent message I had given her.

   My uncle strongly suggested he and she take us to the nearest E.R. as I recall, my uncle expressed serious doubt I would survive the fifteen mile trip. We reached the E.R. only to be turned away. The county hospital lacked the trauma facilities or multiple E.R. bays. For an additional seventy miles my mother continued to slap me, supposedly in an attempt to keep me conscious and alive. 

    The trauma center had the equipment and bays to treat the emergency. Again, someone was saying it was doubtful I would survive. Throughout the evening and night two shifts of physicans nurses and technicians worked to return me to the conscious world. In the early morning hours Nora, came to my side she held my hand and pleaded with me not to die. The problem was, medical science had done it's best. I and my fate was in God's hands. 

 
 The worst senario for me had come true. After my best effort, several hours of uninterrupted sleep was my only reprieve.  But, for Nora sleep would be the best senario.

My mother ignored the suggestions made by the social workers, psychiatrist,and others that she become involved and investigate why two adolescents in her charge would rather die than return to school. In her arrogance, mother said investgation was not necessary. She insisted this was not a serious suicide attempt. Nora, and I had staged the " suicide" to miss class. Mother, was half right. Nora was sincere only in her desire to keep me company.