The Novella Life of Illuscia Nester Himawari

My sister killed herself last week. I remember when the police called. A neighbour had called when they heard the screaming. They thought it was a home invasion. They said that she was screaming in terror, that she sounded so scared. I ran straight to my car and drove as fast as I could. There was police tape and blue lights outside her apartment. A police officer greeted me, told me it was suicide, told me there was a note. I didn’t understand. I only wanted to be perfect. Doesn’t everybody? I only wanted to rid myself of this disgusting defect. How can anyone expect me to just ignore this? How can anyone expect me to spend everyday for the rest of my life hating and fearing how I look in the mirror? Sure I can cover it up, I can hide it when I’m in public, but it’s still there. I still know, and every time I go to be I’m reminded of it, every time I shower. I can never be normal whilst this plagues me. I’m finally committed to ridding myself of this. My family tell me I’m sick. I ne...

I could never understand how anyone could like clowns. Their ugly white painted faces are scary to look at and they act happy non-stop with their big shoes and squeaking red noses. Stupid high pitched silly voices. I swear if there was one thing on this earth that I can eliminate clowns would be definitely it. And of course, a clown is exactly what my daughter wants at her party. I told her it was going to scare her and make her cry but she didn’t care. She wanted balloon animals and silliness. I love the kid but she takes after her mother a little too much. You walk into her room and there are clown dolls, statues, figurines, and other clown junk. I never thought I would need to give myself a motivational pep talk to walk into my child’s room. I’ve thought about playing that “It” movie for her and then sending Stephen King a thank you note. Maybe he’s actually the reason I hate clowns. Who knows? They just make me so damned uncomfortable. Maybe Killer Clowns from Outer Space would ch...

I had been unemployed for the greater part of a year when my case worker at the unemployment office got me an interview for a gig as a groundskeeper for the city cemetery. I was to meet a Mr. Bowman at 2pm for the interview. I showed up in jeans and a t-shirt hoping to get to work as soon as possible. Mr. Bowman was an elderly gentleman who walked with a cane and spoke with a deep southern accent. He reached out to shake my hand and I instantly jumped at a grip far firmer than I had expected. He smiled and ran me through the usual questions. I told him that I didn’t drink or smoke and that I had my own car. He smiled again before telling me to show up each morning at dawn. For the next few weeks I showed up at the crack of dawn and tasked myself with mowing the grass, weed eating around the gravestones and picking up cigarette butts along the roads. It was hard work but a welcome change of pace from sitting on my butt watching daytime television. Mr. Bowman passed a few weeks after I ...

8/13/10 In the middle of the night. In the morning. In the day. In the evening. Her whispers are soft and low, like a lullaby. I can’t see her. She’s in the shadows. In the darkest corners of my room. Her words drive me insane. They’re always my name.  Jasmine… Jasmine… Jasmine  They’re jolting, and I find myself driven from sleep. I sob, and sob, and sob, and beg her to stop, but she never listens. She just.. keeps… whispering. Even now, as I write in my journal, I can hear her. The door is creaking open. I can see her hair peek out. She’s never come outside the wardrobe before. 8/15/10 She has a pure white face. Her eyes are pure white, as if rolled back in her head. Her jaw is slacked, and drool spits out from her lips. She moves in this weird way, a way physically impossible for humans, that should break all her bones. Her legs twist backwards, her head spinning until the crown reaches her spine, her jaw flat against her chest. Her arms bend backwards, her fingers tips to...

It’s been two years and some change since this event happened. I want to say that I am a logical person; mumbo-jumbo doesn’t exactly jive well with me. If something strange happens, I immediately try to figure out why in a scientific way. I think this night terrifies me because there is no real scientific explanation, no real closure on what the fuck happened to us during a simple camping trip. I’ll get on with the story. As a twenty-four year old mother fresh out of the Navy, I wanted to spend time with my three year old, Harlee. Working in the military meant I spent a lot of her life away from her and I wanted to reconnect. It was a spontaneous decision. I was good at those. I didn’t want a camp ground. I didn’t want other people around me pretending to be camping while they settled on a piece of mowed clearing next to their car. I wanted real camping, authentic primitive camping. That’s actually much harder to find, believe it or not. I turned to Google, found a place about an hour...