Tears For Corrin

i can say, without any doubt, that i am being haunted by a little girl i once knew.

she had eyes like lime green glow sticks and hair the same color as hand rolled cigars. there wasn't anything really extraordinary about her except that fact that she was funny and she liked being my friend. we spent hours together playing in her yard, coloring in coloring-books, watching cartoons and talking about childhood nothings that seem so trivial by today's standards.

her name was Corrin and she was my first crush.

it was after she died that i found out how disturbed and emotionally troubled she was. maybe that is what drew me to her: the mental defects that sprayed out into the world in the form of hyperactivity and surrealistic chatter. her imagination was clearly what she saw all the time, a world she created and controlled, despite the numerous medications she was fed on a daily basis.

sometime, just after fall had taken the world in its hands, Corrin decided that she was done with the standardized dosage of her medications and she wanted to know what exactly would happen if she went overboard with her four course spread of pills.

Novemeber 14th, 1996 was the start date of her "new routine" of pill consumption, it would also be the last day she would see the sun rise and fall, much the same way we all see it today.

she gorged herself on anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, diabetes medication and blood thinners. shortly after he dad came home he discovered her on the floor of the kitchen puking blood and crying for someone to kill her. due to shock, or incredible fear, her dad skipped on calling the paramedics and gathered her up in his arms and rushed her to the car and headed for the nearest hospital.

along the highway, speeding toward the emergency room, he lost control of the car and hit a guardrail, sending the car into a slide that ended with a set of large trees. he was appearantly killed instantly while Corrin was left with several broken bones but still alive and suffering.

she sat in that wrecked car, strapped tightly into the front passenger seat, wishing for a quick end to her torment and pain. it would not come to her, instead the smoke started to pour out from under the hood of the car. the flames began to grow and lap at the sides of the hood, taking hold of it and pulling their way to the windshield. she sat in her dad's car, next to his bleeding and lifeless body, watching the flames grow brighter as they inched their way toward her.

she cried and screamed and cringed, but nothing would stop the assault of fire that was now consuming her body, cooking her alive inside her steel roadside tomb. when the fire crews got there she was already gone, they had to identify her by her dental records, although i'm sure no one had a doubt in their mind that the small, charred body was her's and her's alone.

the only reason i know all of this is because two years later, as i began the decent into my teenage years, she came to me in a nightmare that i will never forget, no matter how hard i try. she whispered my name and woke me from my bed, which was positioned just behind the wreckage of her dad's car. she took my hand and walked me to the rear passenger door which was wide open. she asked me to sit in the back seat, so i did, and she opened the front passenger door and sat down. she leaned her head back to her right side and spoke these words to me:

"paul, i hope you're ready to see fireworks. the show is about to begin so buckle up."

that's when the flames rose from under the hood of the car and started their climb toward the inside of the car that we now sat in. i tried so hard to open that door and get away from the horrible stench of cooking human flesh, but that door wouldn't budge a fraction of an inch. i started to scream for help, just as she had all that time ago, but no sound came out of my throat. my voice was useless in that horrid nightmare. i looked out of the car window where i was sitting and i could see Corrin standing on the highway smiling at the car as it was engulfed by the living lights of the fire.

thats when i woke up, in a cold sweat, and she was standing at the foot of my bed just staring at me with the same smile she had just a few seconds ago. she told me that she is bound to the wreckage and to the road and to me, because as it turns out, i was the only kid who wasn't freaked out by her over active imagination and her hyperactivity.

i was her only friend before she was eaten alive by fire, alone, on the side of the road.

so now i am haunted by Corrin:

my friend

my first crush

my eternal shadowy companion

my tormented ghost child

i carry around a small amount of her personality and mannerisms. somehow, as a way of coming back to play, she has attached herself to me in strange ways that i can not yet begin to explain or understand. so, to this day, i can still feel her walking around with me and beckoning me to watch cartoons with her, color in coloring-books with her, play outside in the yard with her and talk about childhood nothings with her.

Corrin is haunting me and i wouldn't have it any other way.

Dax.