Authors: Yolanda Olson
Unwound
produce tears for the betrayal I had let myself feel of trying not to add much merit to Mother’s stories, I could hear her laughter
echo down the hall and the sound of her drills whirring soundly
into the night.
I decided not to leave at that moment. The horror of what I
had finally found to be true kept me stuck in my place. I couldn’t bring myself to sit or lay down. I couldn’t even bring myself to
look at the book anymore. I just held it and wondered if I had
brought this upon myself. Maybe this is what happened to bad
boys that tried to leave her. They would find their way into their own closets, drawers, or trunks hiding the truth of what they were.
Maybe it drove them mad. It was enough to make anyone mad. I
had spent the night standing in my same spot wondering if mother
would care if I found some way to dismantle myself, but I knew
that would be a cowardly thing to do. I couldn’t, for the sake of
any that would come after me, leave without being able to help
me. Spare the rest, don’t make any more Mother, I thought
silently to myself.
Forcing myself to move, I tossed the book onto the bed. No
matter if I left now or years from now, that’s not something I
would dare leave behind. If this was the only way she would
know how to put something like me together, then I would make
sure she would never be able to do it again.
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I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself. Such a slew of defiant
thoughts I had been thinking lately. Maybe I could find it in
myself to do it then. Maybe I could find the will power to leave
her.
My only chance for survival depended on it.
I’ll do it today. I won’t stay here any longer, if she even sees
me in anything other than the tattered pants she gave me to wear,
she’ll torture me again.
I let the medley of tortures Mother had used against me play
through my mind like a deadly sonata. How I had survived them
all was a miracle. The most brutal was the time she tied me down
in a murderous rage when I was sleeping, and used an unstitching
tool on my body. I woke up screaming in pain to which she just
pulled harder and more crudely. I hadn’t done anything to deserve
that that night and to be honest I had never done anything to
deserve any of the vile and cruel things she did to me.
While I had laid there in pure agony as she unstitched and
then stitched me back up again, I wondered what horror she had
faced that made her what she was. What horrible things had been
done to my mother? Who had done these things? How did she
survive them still somewhat intact?
Yes, while she took great pleasure in hiding in her rooms and
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building things, she would have days where she would be almost
normal; days where she would enter my room and sit with me and
just talk. Those days were very rare, but those days where the
ones that I held onto when I convinced myself that she was still
worth loving and respecting.
Sometimes she would even tell me how proud she was of me.
She would tell me that even though she created me that she was
proud of what I had become and was becoming.
I could feel my insides flutter with a soft sadness as I thought
of those days. Not only were they very rare, they were long gone.
Stop thinking of things like that or you’ll never leave her, I
thought to myself. Finally stirring from where I stood all night I made my way to my bed ignoring the stings of pain from the
makeshift carpet and sat down next to the book. I put my head in
my hands and sighed deeply. I had to do it now because if I didn’t, I never would.
I stood and turned toward the window that she had used to
shelter me from the world. Sliding my fingers into the cracks I
took a deep breath and pulled on the first plank as hard as I could.
I had to catch my balance as I almost fell back. It snapped easily in my hands. I stared at it in disbelief wondering how she had
used nails to hold it in place I was able to pull freely so easily.
Letting the shattered pieces of wood fall from my hands, I
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reached up for the next plank and gave it a soft tug and it too
pulled freely quite easily.
It seemed that without meaning too, she had given me some
kind me so extra strength. If I had dared to try to escape sooner, I would have known this. She never would’ve kept me tied down
that night had I tried to fight her. She never would have tortured me; ever.
As I ripped each piece of wood free and the sunlight began to
pour in through and illuminate the room, I couldn’t help but
wonder how easy it would be to find her and squeeze the life out
of her.
When the last plank was free, I stood there breathing in the
fresh air and staring into the crisp, blue sky pondering this idea. I dismissed it after a moment though. No matter how hurtful she
had been to me if I killed her, I’d be no better than her.
Grabbing the book from the bed, I hoisted myself up onto the
windowsill and for just a moment, the thought of killing London
crossed my mind again.
London?
Had I dared to think of her as anything other than Mother?
While the thought somewhat frightened me, it also gave me an
exhilarated sense of freedom. If mentally, I could start
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disassociating her as my mother, then I would never care about
what would happen to her or think about her ever again.
Yes. Her name is London, I forcefully told myself, and
London is not my mother. London is not my keeper. London has
no control over me.
I tucked the book into the waistband of my new pants and
looked down. It looked like I was at least four windows up.
Maybe she never told me stories of castles because she lived in a
home almost as big? No; she wasn’t that thoughtful. She never
told me those stories because she knew I would then find a way to
escape this prison I had been kept in since my “birth”. That was
one thing I knew she couldn’t risk.
Looking down again, I took a deep breath and leapt to the
ground below.
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Two
I had never run before but I had seen it done on those nights
when London would come into my room and watch movies with
me. Before I was completed into a full torso, she would take my
upper half, place it in a wheelchair, and cart me down to the main hall. She would then lift me and set me on the couch and turn on
the television. I recognized the motion I was doing because of
that sole reason.
I had just robbed myself of so much. Surrounding London’s
home was a lush forest of trees and animals I think, that I had
never gotten the pleasure of seeing. Some of the animals ran with
me, others ahead of me. Almost as if they were trying to help me
escape or shield me from her if she were to see me.
There were a great deal of different lives around me in those
trees and I had never known them, nor did I give myself the
opportunity to do so as I ran.
As quickly as my legs would take me, I pounded the ground
underneath me and ran until I could feel myself begin to tire. It
wasn’t tiring really, it was my insides; I felt them starting to
tighten up and that’s when I decided it would be best to stop and
rest altogether.
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Sitting on a bench I felt my waistband to make sure that the
book hadn’t fallen out during my escape. It was still there.
I couldn’t help but smile. I had done something, that if any
that had been made before me had dare tried, were probably
dismantled because of it.
I shoved London and any thoughts of what the repercussions
those before me and what repercussions I would probably have to
suffer if she found me. Leaning back on the bench, I decided
started to watch the humans as they went by. Some were in small
groups, others were alone, but all of them seemed so full of
something I longed for.
Never mind that; you’ll never have it and if you let yourself
think about it, you’ll torture yourself more than she ever did to
you.
Suddenly I had the feeling that I was being watched. Glancing
around me I saw a little male human standing no more than
fifteen feet away from me holding a balloon in his hand. I knew
what it was from when London celebrated the years I was alive.
She called them my birthday and said that balloons were part of
the celebration.
That lasted two years.
I smiled uneasily at him. Upon seeing my smile, without
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hesitation he came over and sat down next to me.
“What happened to your eye?” he asked curiously.
“My eye?”
“Yeah, it’s like a hole,” he said reaching out to touch my face.
A hole? I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. Then it
dawned on me. In my clumsy need to run away from London I
hadn’t taken any care to cover the part of my face that was
unfinished.
Quickly, I put a hand over the left side of my face and looked
away.
“Don’t hide it,” he said tugging on my hand, “I think it looks
cool!”
I turned back to him doubtfully wondering if he was lying to
me, but the sudden big smile on his freckled little face told me he was being truthful.
“Okay,” I said putting my hand down.
I decided to take him in. He was average size for a child I
would assume. Light brown hair, golden brown eyes, a smattering
of freckles around his nose, and when he smiled you could see
that at least two of his teeth were missing.
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“My name is Jared, what’s yours?” he asked as he tugged as
his balloon string.
I wasn’t prepared for that question. I wasn’t prepared for
human interaction at all, but least of all to answer something as
simple as what my name was. Instead of answering him, I
tentatively reached over and gave his balloon string a tug.
He smiled that big smile at me in return, and then stood up.
“Mom and Dad said I shouldn’t talk to strangers so I should
go before they come out of the store,” he said pointing across the street, “But don’t leave yet. I want to go in there and get you a
present for being so cool.”
Before I could protest, he got to the edge of the sidewalk,
looked both ways and took off like one of the animals I had seen
in the forest straight into the store. For just a moment I felt like running away. London had once promised me a present, which
was the night I had woke up screaming in pain as she unstitched
me.
My leg started to shake. It had only been a few moments but I
could feel myself start to panic. What if this was a trap? What if London was in there? She was smart enough but was she fast
enough to catch me?
I felt a small tap on my shoulder.
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“Here you go,” he said holding out a small article.
I hadn’t even realized that I had closed my eyes in my fear of
London coming out of the store to drag me back to hell.
Grabbing my hand, he turned it over and dropped the present
in it. I started at for a moment. It seemed to be a black patch of some sort with some kind of thick string attached to it.
“It’s an eye patch, I won it out of the claw machine,” he said
proudly. “For me?” I asked softly. Nodding, he grabbed it from
my hand and fastened it over my eye, adjusting the string so that
it would sit comfortably around my head.
“Now you look like a pirate! There’s nothing cooler than
that,” he exclaimed with a grin of satisfaction.
“Thank you,” I whisper as I watch him walk away. I had
never known genuine kindness until this moment. Any nice thing
London had done for me I knew was a lie.
I spent the rest of the day on that bench. I watched everyone
as they walked by and noticed how the adults would not as much
as glance at me. To them I was probably a vagrant and I could not
fault them for that. I’m sure I looked anything but dashing after
my sprint through the woods. I reached up and ran my hands
through my hair. No, it’s not yours. It never was. I cringe at that thought. So many things attached to me were not mine but it had
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never crossed my mind until I found that damn journal.
Leaning back in the bench I search my memory, I couldn’t
remember who she had gotten my hair from, though I’m sure she
had made a very intricate entry about it.
I still damn myself for my curiosity. I should’ve known better
than to touch anything that London created yet I had found myself
so drawn to the numbers on the journal. They were just too
familiar for me not to open it and see.
Looking down at my arm I made sure that I couldn’t see the
numbers. Even though it had been a bright, warm day, I kept my
hooded jacket on and my sleeves rolled down. I had enough
reminders moving inside of me to let me know that I wasn’t like
the ones walking around me, I didn’t need another.
I sighed.
The longer I sat here the longer I realized I was alone now. I
had nowhere to sleep, no one to talk to, and no mother. I was