Sunday, November 7, 2010

Sunday, Short Story........

      A SHORT STORY.....................

      The mother and daughter waited in the reception area for their name to be called. The daughter burried her nose in a book, while the mother chewed on the inside of her cheek, she seemed to be a thousand miles away, or at least anywhere but right here, right now. Snotty nosed kids ran around touching everything, their parents also daydreaming, not paying attention to them. You could hear sniffles constantly, sometimes interrupted by a fit of hacking coughs, followed by a parent snapping out of their fantasy world to say, "Cover your mouth please."
      Finally, the door swung open, "Smith" the nurse moaned, giving the impression that she hated her job, "the doctor will see you now." The mother looked around at the girl and said, "That's us, let's go." The girl layed her book down and stood, she then fell in closely behind her mother and followed through the door back to the scales in the hallway. No one seemed to notice the lump in the girls throat or her anxiety, but she felt it. She was terrified of the scales. "I know it will be bad, please GOD, let them skip this part, let them just this one time forget," she cried in her head, knowing good and well they wouldn't forget. "Ok, let's get your weight," the nurse snapped jolting the girl out of her own thoughts.
      The girl hesitated, looked at her mother pleading with her eyes for help, but her attempts were futile. Her mother sighed and said unsympathetically, "they have to get your weight, now just get up there and get it over with." The girl was now sick to her stomach. She knew if she had gained weight there would be consequences. The last time, after they got home, her mother had sprinkled brown stuff all over her food, she had called it "bran" and said it would help the girl eat less. The time before that she was forced to drink "Slim Fast" while all the other kids ate cereal and doughnuts for breakfast. The girl smiled for a brief moment, remembering when her sister had snuck her a bite of cake. A few weeks ago her Grandmother had offered the kids some cake, when the girl had stepped forward happily, to get a piece, her "Granny" scowled, "Not you, you're too fat!" The girl was devastated, but she didn't want anyone to catch on, she went into the bedroom where no one was watching and she sobbed. She was heartbroken, not about the cake, but her "Granny's" words, they cut her to the bone. She wondered why they couldn't just love her the way she was, not after she "lost the weight."
     The nurse set the scale on the fifty mark, then moved the top sliding part up, and up, and up, but it never balanced, she then moved the bottom number up to a hundred and started sliding again. Finally it leveled out, "ONE HUNDRED SIXTY TWO," the nurse bellowed. The girl's face flushed with crimson, she looked around to see other nurses and staff staring, her mother's  hand was clasped over her mouth. The two adult women exchanged glances with each other. The nurse clearly disapproved, then snorted, "the normal weight for a child this age is ninety pounds, she is twice that!" The girl wanted to cry but she couldn't, she wanted to run but there was nowhere to go, she just wanted to die. Dying would be easier than this humiliation, the shame she felt at eight years old was too much to bear.
      The walk was quiet back to the patient room. The girls heart burned with pain as she struggled to get onto the examination table, the paper rattled and crumpled and twisted under her as she got situated. The nurse had asked them a barrage of questions about why they were here today, and then told them the doctor would be in shortly, before she slammed the door closed. The girl didn't dare look at her mother, she was afraid of the look she would see in her mother's eyes, she couldn't stand the disappointment she had created. Her mother broke the silence saying, "wait until your Daddy hears about this, he won't believe how big you've gotten." The girl's heart sank further, she was a Daddy's girl, and it hurt her even more thinking he would be embarrassed by her.
      The door rattled, you could hear the clipboard being taken out of the box on the door, the knob turned, in walked the doctor. He was an older man, in his sixties, he wore a white lab coat and black rimmed trifocals, his nose and ears looked as though they had grown bigger over the years, and now didn't properly fit his face. The girl stared at the carpet, afraid to make eye contact with anyone. She had learned as much in her eight years of life about people, as most others do in a lifetime. She knew what would happen if she aknowledged someone, if she let someone "see" her. People were cruel, they always, without fail, wanted to point out, or tell her how "fat" she was, as if she didn't beat herself up about it daily.  The Doctor was the first to speak, "so what is the problem today?" The girl's mother started to give a list of the girls symptoms, "well she has asthma and is on medicine for that, but she has been complaining lately of problems when she pees, she says it burns." The doctor sat on the stool in front of the girl, he interupted her mother, "Well, can I be frank?" The mother shook her head, then allowed the doctor to continue. The doctor laughed heartily and blurted out, "Well, if you ask me, it looks like the problem is, you were supposed to have twins and they forgot to seperate." He was clearly amused with his "joke."
      The girl's heart stopped, she was crushed by his blatant insult. At this very moment, that memory would be burned into her head. That day she drew even deeper inside of herself, vowing to never let anyone in. She knew that she had to put up a wall between herself and her enemy. She started hating herself more and more, she avoided people at all costs. She felt alone in the world. And this incident would be the beginning of more to come, for the next several years she would be tortured and tormented by kids and adults alike.

*This story is about ME, this is a true story that happened when I was eight years old. I have tried to hold it in as long as I could, but these memories still haunt me today. I figure maybe if I try and let them out, I can heal, I can stop hating myself, forgive and move on. I want to start a new chapter in my life without all of this baggage I carry around daily. I want to let it go.    
P.S. I used a fake name and left other names out completely.

5 comments:

  1. It's hard to let things go like this from the past. That being said you turned out to be one hot momma.... just saying.

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  2. Oh sweet girl I read this and gasped and the comments made by the insensitive "adults" in your story. I am a Mama to 9 and 11 year girls. Your story made my heart ache. I hope you do find the tellling of this story helpful. I hope you have found someone you can let in and love you for who you are! Hugs!

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  3. I am so sory for this. I can't imagine having to live with this as a child. You changed it though and are a great momma! I am glad that you let it all out!

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  4. :( I'm very sorry you went through this. I know from personal experience how things like this in our childhood affect us the rest of our lives.

    Btw, I have never heard of the smoking monkey, but there IS a bar here called the Smokin' Monkey. Weird.

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  5. I was really hoping this was fiction! I am so very sorry you had to go through this!! People can be so mean! It's hard sometime to let go of the past. So glad you are moving forward!1

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Give it to me straight from the heart.....