“I can’t stop”
By:Skylar W

The lights flickered,and then they went off.The sirens started,she was coming,I knew it wouldn’t be the last time.The beaten body in front of me was screaming,but it was blurred out,like my ears needed to pop.The petite blonde was wailing in the bathroom,fighting for her last breaths,floor covered in red,the liquid covering my hands.
There she was,a cold chill went through my already freezing body…
”Just do it Bradley,make your mother proud”.My mother stood behind me,I could feel her hand on my shoulder,icy but comforting..I knew I had to listen to her demands.My night ended with a razor blade in my victim's windpipe,and my mother nowhere to be found.

“Hello Bradley,how are you today?”
,I didn’t know what to say,i could barely get words out,but I managed an ,“I’m okay”.
My father had been sending me to these places since I was 25.Why?I didn’t know,but every Wednesday and Friday there was a black chauffeur car outside my house,the sound of a car door opening and closing,heavy footsteps up the walk,then a light knock on my door.My father would stand in front of me,nut colored dress shoes and all,and lead me to the ebony automobile.I didn’t argue,I just went.
This fiery redheaded lady was always asking me questions, her thin painted red lips would never stop moving,and half the time I wasn’t even listening.
”How was your day?”,or “What’d you do today?” , and always she asked,”Have you seen your mother recently?” I would respond ,
“Oh,yes,I took her to dinner last night,she never eats her food though”.That day was nice until the cops showed.Apparently the hostess had reported me for “talking to myself”,and asking for a table for two when there was “only one of us”. The policeman stopped me on the way out of the little diner I was sitting in only minutes before. He shined a bright flashlight in my direction,and I froze like a deer in headlights.
“Where you heading son?”,his southern accent was thick,Georgia maybe?
I replied, but with hesitance, “Good Evening sir,I was just about to head home and hit the hay”. He had a look on his face that intimidated me.
“Oh,really? It is kind of late,have you had any drinks”?He stepped closer to me,sweat was collecting on his cupid’s bow,and the smell of coffee with a hint of bubble gum filled the air. I could feel his heavy breath on my face,he took a deep breath in ,showing he was annoyed that I hadn’t responded yet.
“No sir,only some great dinner,unless you count water as alcohol”,I laughed.He didn’t seem to think my joke was funny,his lips pursed, as if to say he didn’t approve..He made me blow on a breathalyzer and then sent me home.

3:27am,it seems impossible to sleep,there's a car alarm going off in the vacant street,a gorgeous brunette comes running out of the apartment building.Her hair falling out of the loose ponytail she had pulled up.I stopped looking out the window,I could feel a presence,she was here.Then the ice went through my body,a cold hand,my mother.
”Hey Bradley,that’s a pretty girl,isn’t it?Bet she’d look even prettier in her own blood”.And I listened, I always listened.I went outside,and shouted across the unfilled avenue,
“Hey, you need some help”?

“Yeah,I’m kind of desperate,looks like someone slashed my tire again”.Getting your tires slashed in this part of town wasn’t abnormal.
“Probably just some hoodlums”,I said with a smile.She showed the way to the back of her teal colored Accord,it was beaten up,and a little rough around the edges, but it was still a car.She directed to me where the jack was in the back of her trunk, I took it and started fixing the compact motor vehicle.I didn’t know exactly what I was doing but I had a rough idea.I grabbed a screwdriver, it was white,why’d I need it? I didn’t know.I went back to the tire, and she asked,
”how’s it going over there,because it doesn’t look like you know what you're doing?”By this point I was furious.How dare she question me like that. I didn't realize how tight I was holding the screwdriver, until it wasn’t too white anymore,more like blood red.
“A-are you ok?You can go home if you're too tired,you can do it in the morning”. I was hot headed now,
”You ought to feel lucky I came out here at all, that I even offered.”She gave me this look,and suddenly my hot head wasn’t so hot, ice cold...my mother…
“You're just going to let her talk to you like that Bradley,haven’t I taught you any better”?I took the screwdriver and threw it full force,not at my alleged victim,but my mother.Why did she make me do these things?I turned around my mother in her own pool of blood screwdriver in the chest,lying on the black asphalt.

Most would tell you my mother died August 2nd,2011 of heart disease,but I’d tell you she died today 4:01am at the hand of a murderer.

Lights flickered in the distance,and then they went off,the sirens,the brunette crying on the phone,“Yes,yes I’m on Bay Avenue,please send help immediately,this man is ballistic.”Her eyes were welling with tears and I could see the fear in her eyes as I inched closer to her.Red and blue lights shined on the tall city buildings around us, and suddenly it felt below zero degrees again,I turned around hoping to see my mother's frail hands on my wrists,but I was only disappointed because the cold chill was from the freezing metal cuffs restricting me from movement,from running.So I just stood still,trying to comprehend what was happening.The same tall cop from the all-American diner I was at earlier in the night,was standing next to me,pulling me along like a rag doll.
”Should’ve caught you when I had the chance”.He said with a look of disappointment.

“What’s your name?”,asked the old lady in the white nurses uniform. Who is this lady?Someone intervened from the side of the small colorless room,
”His name is Bradley Simmons.”,said the familiar voice.I turned around, it was my father,nut colored dress shoes and all.
“You need help Bradley.”As those words left my father's lips two strong men in grey scrubs grabbed me by both arms,lead me down the narrow hallways that lead to many doors,we reached the number 600127 and stopped.The same lady stood in front of me ,holding out a little cup of water and a clear container with three pills inside.One royal blue,one burnt orange,and the third as white as the room behind the thick steel door.I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this “disease” they keep telling me about.Schizophrenia.They keep telling me I didn’t kill my mother,that she’s been dead for 6 years now.I go into the milk colored room and the walls are made of pillows,I sit and I think,and just as I’m about to sleep,it feels like someone dumped me in arctic water...my mother.

“Hello Bradley.”