To the Gallows I will go
by Josiah Posey
May 3, 2026 | Fiction | Shocked
I wash my hands until the cool crystal liquid turns into a silk-like scarlet that would scare most people- but it feels just right. I like to watch my hands as they are raw and red and peeling, clean, like the fingers of an infected child that have been chopped at birth.
The liquid spills down my hands, it’s red but beautiful, a shade of red that shouldn’t leave your body unless drawn by a doctor.
I can hardly write, but that’s what makes it feel- just right.
I hear my mom scurry up the stairs. I didn’t try to scare her. I love her. But she screams my name.
Not again, I think.
My mind was stolen from me. Like a child given to corruption at a young age. My soul was broken from birth. My mother knows this. Even if she won’t admit it. My brother makes it plain to me. He’s clear-cut, sharp as an arrow, and to the point. Though sometimes I wish he were dull.
They both know that I am neither eloquent nor wise.
She has never been elegant either. As she stumbles up the stairs, crying my name. The door knocks, but I lock it faster than a child running from his nightmares, as the heart of war rises in my chest. The beginning of a long journey.
I feel as though I’m preparing for the gallows. One would think it illegal for a child to go to the gallows, but to the gallows I will go.
I hear her behind the door. My brother is behind her and to the left. I can tell by the footsteps.
“What are you doing?”
“Just washing my hands.”
“C-Can you open the door?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Son… open the door.”
She says it calmly, the calmest I’ve heard her in weeks, so I oblige.
She stares as the blood sprinkles down my hand. A purer liquid runs down her own face, as the dish soap sits next to me. Both of our solutions flow onto the beige carpet, one freshwater, the other saltwater.
I never cut myself. But the wounds of a broken mind cut deeper than bone.
I’ve been washing my hands all day- and it feels just right.
She screams. I cry, but only because she screams. I wish I could keep us safe- but the dish soap feels- just right.
No job. No friends. No life outside of writing, unemployed, some would say. But a child broken from youth, grown into a man who has little time for anything but washing his hands.
To the gallows I will go.
Is this what a man has been reduced to? Dish soap and bleached bone. And a mind that’s scared of itself.
“You need to see someone.”
“Just give him some black-seed oil,” my brother says.
My mother glares at him.
“I will,” I say.
I disagree. Because at the end of the day, I’d rather just sit here washing my hands. But to the gallows I will go.
Very disturbing thinking some people have to endure these feelings.
As someone who suffers from OCD this is soooo realistic….
!!!