Authors: Yolanda Olson

Unwound (5 page)

The agony of standing for as long as I had seemed to drag on

for hours. I watched as the sky became light lavender with rays of 43

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orange lighting up the morning sky like a supernova. I lifted my

hand to shield my eye from the brightness of the sun rising and

watched in wonder as dawn was upon the world as if a match had

been stricken in the darkness slowly illuminating everything that

it could. I had only really seen this slightly through the boarded windows in my room but seeing it in all its glory was something

much more different. In some ways I felt like a newborn baby

seeing the world for the first time. I could hear the animals as

they rose from their slumber begin to scurry back and forth. I

heard the sounds of birds chirping around me but one distinct

sound caught my attention in particular. I strained to listen to the sound as it quickened and knew what it was. If I had the ability to cry a tear would’ve slowly crept down my face I was sure. And

then it flew past me and hovered for just a few moments; it was a

sparrow. My face began to slowly melt into a smile as I watched

it dance a few feet from me as it went from flower to flower. If

only I could touch it for just one moment, I thought to myself.

I raised a hand and it fluttered a little further away from me

giving me a curious look. Just one small touch; I craned my hand

toward its small body. It backed away again but this time I was

closer than I had been a moment ago. I looked down and reached

for the bird again. I became ecstatic as my leg moved a small step closer. They were starting to unstiffen and move ever so slightly.

“Thank you,” I whispered as I watched it fly busily away

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from me.

Not wanting to take the chance I stood in the spot the bird had

left me for another hour. I counted the ticks inside of me with my eyes closed, not caring if anyone that went by me thought me

strange. I wouldn’t lose another precious moment to move

forward.

I lowered my face away from the sun and after I had counted

3,600 ticks I decided to try again and this time my legs moved

effortlessly. Opening my eye I smiled and looked down at them

as I took my first few steps. I decided to move slowly as I did not want my legs to lock up on me again, but after a few moments of

taking small steps, I began to walk as normally as I had before.

For now I was okay.

The humans bustled around me busily. As I walked down the

hard, gray pavement I watched everyone I could without being

obvious. Some were dressed more importantly than others some

were dressed like me. The ones that wore similar clothes to the

only things I had managed to steal for myself looked more

carefree than the others. I couldn’t tell anyone’s age by looking at them but everyone seemed different and special in their own way.

I wondered if they all knew how lucky they were to have been

born in the same bodies they had their whole lives and never have

to worry about withering away at any given moment.

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That’s not something I think any of them considered and I

wanted so badly to tell them all but I knew I had to keep to myself.

Just because a child and a monstrous misfit had been kind to me,

it didn’t mean that the rest of the world would be so accepting.

Some of the last bedtime stories London had told me were of the

wars that they waged against each other. Honestly I felt that I

feared no one as much as her, but now that I was out in the world

I wondered if I should fear them as well.

As I approached a crossroads I winced with slight pain.

Maybe it was because my legs had the chance to recharge, but the

cuts on my feet from her netting were starting to hurt me more

now. Adjust the weight of the leg that hurts the most and you’ll

be okay.

I had to agree with that thought. I waited for the others around

me to move and I started to walk with a slight shuffle which

alleviated my hurt more than I thought it would. I liked having

these helpful thoughts, even if they weren’t my own.

One thing I did know that came from inside of me and not

from my borrowed mind was that I needed to find a place to live.

I closed off any other thoughts that might be able to sway me

from my new mission and shuffled along as quickly as I could. I

crossed more roads than I had ever thought possible before I

found something I would think could be suitable for something

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like me.

I stood in front of what appeared to be an abandoned three

story fabric factory. Most of the windows looked like they had

been broken and there was a colorful smattering of words on parts

of the building. The closer I walked the more I noticed the doors.

They were large pieces of wood hammered shut over the

entranceway with the words DO NOT ENTER painted across

them.

I wonder.

I put my hands in the middle of the doors and gave a small tug

and the doors moved. Just like the windows in my prison had.

Looking around to make sure no one was watching, I leaned in

and gave a harder tug and one of the planks pulled free. I couldn’t help but feel proud of myself as I stepped into the darkness of the cold factory and placed the board back in place.

Once it was securely fastened I glanced around me.

There were large sewing machines around me; larger than the

ones London used. There were also web like pieces of yarn and

cotton that looked like they had been abandoned in the middle of

what they were meant to create.

Just like I had been.

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I saw dolls standing around; dolls with no faces. Some were

broken some were missing pieces. I crossed the room to the

nearest doll and ran my fingers down its face then I reached up

and felt my patch that the boy had given me.

This wasn’t a place of death; it didn’t have that smell that

would sometimes creep out of any one of London’s workrooms.

These dolls felt different than I did. They had a damp smell to

them, but it wasn’t something that struck fear in me.

Looking down at one of the large tables, I noticed pins and

needles, tattered design books, and shredded pieces of cloth lying all over. There was a thin layer of dust covering almost every inch of it so I knew that this place had been abandoned for some time,

but why?

To me these were discarded treasures.

I let out the breath I didn’t realize I had been holding.

I’m home.

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Four

I slept soundly that night. I had no fear of anything for the

first time in what felt like an eternity. I had found my way up to the third floor where there small cots and laid there staring out the window until my insides slowed to a dull whir. I didn’t dream that night either which to me was a blessing.

When I awoke that dawn I felt a little different. The

consistency of the parts inside of me weren’t as prominent as they had been so many times before but they were more than enough

to allow me to become alert again.

I push myself up to a seated position and stretch my arms over

my head. I felt a couple of small readjustments in my shoulders

that for some reason made me feel slightly better. I swung my

legs over the side of the cot and got to my feet. I felt something soft underneath my foot which I bent down to pick up. It was my

hooded jacket; I hadn’t even realized I had taken it off. Tossing it onto the cot I glanced around in the dim light of the newborn day.

I jumped. I couldn’t help it; I didn’t realize there was a mirror

in this room. I looked away from it for a moment, but my eyes

kept moving back toward it. Now was the time for my first act of

bravery and I knew it.

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If I had enough courage to run from London, I had enough

courage to do what needed to be done. I turned back toward the

mirror and began to make my way to it. I wanted to be able to

face myself and know that even though I wasn’t finished and

never would be that this would no longer be something that could

taunt me and make me feel insignificant.

The closer I got to it the more I realized that this was a full

sized mirror, not like the one’s she had hung around my room.

Not broken pieces mended together in odd shapes and angles to

make me look like a sideshow freak. I didn’t look as distorted as

she had allowed me to believe.

Once I was within ten feet of it, I took myself in.

The hair that she had harvested for me was golden brown, soft

looking, and wild. It stood up at certain angles but I think that was because I hadn’t had the time to care for it properly. I looked into my face. My eyes or the one I had was large, round, and black. I

could see the fear in it that she had inflicted in me starting to

slowly fade. Now I was able to look at the patch that Jared had

won for me, it was the same color as my eye with a small spider

web etched into it and he was right about one thing; it did cover

most of the scarring on my face. Only a small wisp of where I had

been stitched showed at the bottom.

My nose made me smile. It wasn’t large and it wasn’t small. It

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seemed to fit the frame of my face which to me said that she had

harvested my head from one person. At least one part of me was

more whole than any other. My jaw seemed strong, but not too

square. I leaned into the mirror a little closer and saw that my lips had slight scarring on them but nothing too drastic. They were

slightly full but not painfully so.

Stepping back I realized that I looked like a young man with

fair skin. I noticed that I stood with an almost imperceptible

hunch in my shoulders which I promptly tried to straighten out.

After a couple of attempts I was able to stand up straight. I made a mental note to myself and my borrowed mind to keep my

shoulders back and my head held high.

Once that was accomplished I looked at the rest of myself.

When I had removed the hooded jacket, I had also removed the

shirt I wore underneath it. My body looked like it had been

ravaged by an army of angry centipedes. London had made no

attempt to hide the scars that were crudely wound from the top of

my chest around and scattered about my torso. My mind was

screaming at me to tear my eyes away but I refused. This was one

thought I wouldn’t take into consideration. I had to look at myself.

I had to take in all the scars and careless stitching she had done to me to remind myself that escaping was the right thing to do. But

it also started to form a new emotion inside of me. It wasn’t the

pain she had made sure I was in a constant state of and it wasn’t

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the fear that I had allowed myself to feel every time I heard her

voice, saw her face, or listened to her working. My body started

to shake and my fists clenched. I knew what this emotion was. It

was the same one that had taken over her whenever I asked her

too many questions.

It was anger and it was powerful.

I pulled at the drawstring on the pants I had been wearing and

let them drop to the ground, standing in front of the mirror naked.

While powerful and defined, my legs too were covered with

malicious, cruel scars. There was one patch on the left side of my leg that looked like it had been stretched too far as if she didn’t have enough skin to work with, which slightly exposed what I

looked like on the inside. I turned slightly and got closer to the mirror again to take a better look. Since the sun had been steadily rising I was able to do a better inspection.

Surprise almost over took me for a moment when I realized

that she had used bone in my construction which shown slightly

through the side of worn skin. I scoffed. Maybe London wasn’t as

adept at perfection as she thought she was. Leaning down I

touched the open wound and felt a small wheel that kept clicking

back then forward almost as if in a panic and the bone. More parts to remind me constantly of my falsehood. Standing up to my full

height I gathered myself to be around six feet tall. The body she

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had constructed for me was strong, even though it bore the labors

of her work.

I turned my body away from the mirror and looked over my

shoulder. My back was the same. The twisted scarring from the