MORRISEY, raymond

[raymond]

raymond jean morrisey

name: melinda
age: old enough
gender: female
writing experience: let's go with a lot
how’d you find us?: I was here from the beginning
a favorite book: there's a lot
other character(s): adèle, noah, liam, ethan, emma, kaelynn, and ainsley


name: Raymond Jean Morrisey
age: twenty-two
citizen? upper or lower schooling?: citizen
previous residence: paris, france
eye color: ice blue
hair color: dark brown, bordering on black
height: 6'1"
distinguishing features: scar along his right hip bone


four good personality traits

four bad personality traits

three quirks

important people

history

Vous êtes belles, mais vous êtes vides …

Every child has that place where they know they are safe from whatever monsters they are hiding from. There was only one place like that for me, within the well-worn pages of my favourite story, Le Petit Prince. The only way I would go to sleep at night was if I was read the story I could quote from memory. Without it my dreams were filled with monsters, pain, and a fear so thick I would wake up choking on it. I learned quickly not to mention the contents of my dreams to myself. My parents didn’t want to think about their possible meanings, and I could never find the words.

I suppose many would believe that I have little to complain about, and in many ways I would have to agree. I have never wanted for anything. If there was a toy or book I desired, I merely needed to speak the words and the item was mine. In many ways I was nothing more than an accessory for my parents, and like the jewels my mother is so fond of, it was important that I appear flawless. It didn’t take long for me to figure out how best to exploit my position within my family. If I excelled at school and sports it provided my parents with things to brag about to their friends. My reward was whatever my heart desired - at least materialistically, because what I desired more than anything was a family.

The demands of my father’s job often had him travelling abroad. My mother felt that it was her personal responsibility to accompany him on these journeys. Her presence would belie her support and their dedication to one another and their family. No one ever thought about the son they left behind. I think they were glad to be rid of me. I think their marriage was founded on ambition rather than romance. The only proof I have is the lack of intimacy I witnessed between the two of them. The only affection my parents ever showed one another was a smile or reassuring pat on the other’s hand. I could be wrong. They could have been passionate away from my eyes, but I doubt it. The only real love I ever saw was whenever my cousins vacationed with us. I hated them – Julianna and her brother, Jared – for it.

Whenever my parents would leave town, it was not their home I would be farmed out to. They lived too far away and my parents didn’t want to interrupt my studies. In actuality I think the logistics involved played a larger role than my academics. Instead I was made to stay with my mother’s cousin, Auguste Desroches – a middle-aged waste-of potential – and his live-in girlfriend, Sylvie Martineau. They were a boring pair who didn’t go out much. I always stayed in Augste’s daughters’ room; a frilly pink thing with no toys that appealed to me. I was permitted to bring a small bag of my own toys with me whenever such visits took place, but Auguste took pleasure in mocking my selections and I stopped to avoid his comments.

Sylvie was never around much, only making an appearance during meals. Auguste told me one night as he combed my hair with his fingers that she felt unnerved around children, like she didn’t know what to say or do around me. I think he told her to stay away and she lacked the ability to stand up to him. Regardless of the reason, Auguste was charged with my care while I was at his home.

I can’t remember how it started – a washcloth lingering too long during a bath, the insistence that I kiss him on the lips, odd games that only make sense now. Perhaps the fact that I can’t pinpoint the moment says something about my complacency with the whole thing. If I was unwilling, if the attention was completely unwanted, wouldn’t I be able to select the moment when it spiralled out of my control? What I do know is that things had been set into motion long before Auguste crept into my room that night. Whatever innocence I’d had was already splintered, waiting to be broken. It didn’t take much for him to strip the rest away.

I remember the sickly smell of his sweat. And the pain. The pain still lingers now. There was no one to hear my cries; no one who ever came to my rescue. Even when I was not at Auguste’s home, he would visit me in my dreams. I would awaken slick with sweat, the edge of my pillow shoved in my mouth to muffle my screams. No one listened because no once cared. Deep down I knew Auguste was right about me – I had wanted this attention from him all along.

There were plenty of girls’ toys at Auguste’s home, but only one I ever dared to touch. It was a beautiful porcelain doll. She had long, dark hair that fell in a soft wave to the middle of her back. Her pale green eyes were always on me during Auguste’s visits, judging me. I would stare at her so I wouldn’t have to focus on him. I hated her as she sat on her shelf, safe and mocking. I wanted her to know how it felt. I wanted her to know what it was to be powerless. That night, after Auguste had left, I took her from the shelf. That night I got my power back.

It became my therapy of sorts. Auguste would hurt me and then I would hurt that doll. As long as she was there I knew I could survive. I would survive. I did.

As I grew, Auguste’s interest in me waned. Most of my childhood had been coloured with his attention and I found myself angry and lost. The moment I was old enough, my mother sent me to an exclusive boarding school in Paris, eliminating any need for me to be sent to Auguste’s. My grades slipped and I was dropped from the sports teams that I had once excelled at. At first my parents attributed it to my adjusting to a new school, but as the months passed it became apparent that was not my problem. Feelings were not something that were ever openly discussed in my family. To talk about them meant that there was something to discuss; that there was a problem. Instead of talking to me, my parents withdrew. If they ignored me they could reinvent me for their friends. Not that I minded. It wasn’t like they had ever really been there for me before.

Then the unthinkable happened: my aunt and uncle died and my parents were named guardians for their children, the seemingly perfect Julianna and Jared Sellenger.

They were all I heard about. How well-mannered they were; what beautiful children they were. What a tragic loss for someone so young. My parents rose to their new role, taking care of their new wards with all the affection they could muster. Everyone ate it up, too. They looked at my parents and saw nothing but goodness. We all played our parts. Julianna and Jared were the tragic orphans. My parents were their saviours. And I was the troubled youth, away at school.

Naturally I was summoned for. After all the family tragedy wouldn’t be complete without all the players. Even my parents couldn’t fabricate a tale to explain my absence from the funeral. So I went. I went and watched Jared wrap his arm around his sister’s shoulder as she cried before the gravesite. They clearly loved each other. They were clearly a family. I had been right about them all along – they’d had everything I’d ever wanted. I couldn’t find a way not to hate them.

That night, Auguste visited my room for the last time. He stayed longer than ever before, holding me close in the moments in between. I hated him. Hated myself. Because as much as I hated him being there with me, touching me, using me, I craved it as well. Auguste acknowledged me and reminded me that I was alive. My parents might not see me anymore, but he did. This time, when he left me, there was no doll to take things out on; no one to listen to me. Instead I curled into a ball in my closet and cried for the last time in my life. Something changed inside me that night. Perhaps it was in there all along. When I emerged from my room hours later I’d had a metamorphosis. No one would ever use me like Auguste had again. I would never be powerless. I would be in control, no matter the cost.

I withdrew from my family after that night. I had no use for them, and they had none for me. Well that’s not entirely true. As I threw myself back into academics and sports I gave them something to brag about again. Of course, by that point no one cared about their son, I was nothing when compared to my “poor cousins”. When I was home I avoided my parents new pets. I had no use for them, and they bored me. The only thing we appeared to have in common was insomnia. I would lie in bed and listen to Julianna cry herself to sleep until the sound threatened to drive me mad. Only then would I tune her out with my music and forget she existed.

One night I couldn’t find my iPod. I lay there for what felt like hours, listening to her soft cries and wondering why no one was comforting her. All I’d heard were such wonderful things about her, surely there’d be someone willing to dry her tears and lie about things getting better. As the minutes ticked by it became apparent no one was going to go to her. Not my supposedly doting parents or her wonderful brother. If I wanted any peace I would have to go myself.

She didn’t say anything when I entered the room; didn’t stop me as I sat next to her on her bed and held her. I murmured what I hoped she would take as words of comfort, smoothing her hair, and allowing her to rock within her pain. My mind was not on what I was telling her, though. There was something strangely familiar about her, and I needed to connect the pieces of the puzzle. As my hands rubbed her shoulders it came to me: with her long dark hair, porcelain-smooth skin, and green eyes she looked just like that doll. She was that doll. All this time she had been smugly judging me. Somehow she’d known all along about Auguste. She had known because she was there, on that shelf, watching with apathetic eyes. The only thing that didn’t make sense was the sound of her voice. My doll had never told me to stop before. I needed to silence the sound.

I can vaguely remember the dampness of her tears against my hand as I held it over my mouth. Eventually she stopped struggling and lay as still as the doll I knew she was. She liked it. Deep down she needed the attention I gave her, just like I needed her. In the nights that followed she grew more and more complacent, almost anticipating my arrival. Unlike Auguste I made certain she knew how special she was, telling her so whenever I saw her. Holding her hand whenever her brother’s back was turned. She never told anyone, just like I had asked. Her silence spoke louder than her voice ever could. If she didn’t want me there she could have told someone. She craved my presence even though she hated me for it; hated herself. I hated myself as well. Hated that I depended on a stupid, weak doll in order to survive. But if I was sick, at least I was sick with someone else.

Time has, of course, altered the amount of time we can spend together. Eventually my parents sent her and her useless brother off to school in Paris. For a short period of time I thought they might have figured out how dependant Jules was on me. I thought Jared might be jealous that I could give her the comfort he could not. I was wrong, though. I realised this as soon as he died in the Paris earthquake. She needed me more after that and I, her. This need might kill us but it’s all we have. It’s why I find myself in St. Michel despite my father’s wishes. I don’t care about them, though.

I’m like that line in my favourite childhood story: You are beautiful, but you are empty. When I’m around Julianna the emptiness finally seems tolerable.

if you could be anywhere, where would you be? i wouldn't, but that's the point isn't it?

character’s play-by: Florian Bourdilla

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[headmaster.]