I am fourteen years old. It is four fifty-four. There are fourteen doctors in the building, nine of them trudge wearily out of the door. As they walk past me, I judge them. I am glad that the man with ever shifting eyes looked behind large horn-rimmed glasses has found his way back to his car. The tall woman, perhaps 6ft 1, leaves, her curled hair nestling precariously on the very top of her head pushes past the huge doors, I am a little sad she is gone.
Eventually, I am left with the five of them. Three men, two women. The first woman has dark hair, tugged back into a ‘facelift’ ponytail, her eyes slant and her mouth is thin. The second is a curvy woman, blonde frizzy curls bounce around her face and a perpetual smile is fixed on her face as she natters to a not so interested male doctor. The doctor she is speaking to leans forward a little at everything she says and agrees very quietly, he seems like some of the doctors at Birchwood. I think he is my most likely counterpart today. This is slightly disappointing, out of the two that are left for me to scrutinise I have one man who, rather than having an outstanding physical feature, just looks tired. And the other, my favourite this time. Is a man of reasonable height, perhaps a little taller than the particularly tall woman doctor with the curls, he has a large nose but is not unattractive I suppose, but the reason why he is mine, is purely for the fact that every five seconds, almost exactly, he taps his fingers five times up against the wall he leans on. He’s counting.
System A
Sophie Mandi Max Gwen Mercy Erin AVA Tracey Bridget My Isaac
It is four o’clock. I am sixteen years old. School let me out early, they said I’d be best to go home now, stay hydrated and then see how I felt in the morning. As if I would miss a day. I’d fainted before in school, in the times when food was a complete enemy. Now food was a minor irritation, something to be planned, lists were still made of course. Some things would never be consumed again. But who would blame me? The calories in a gram of cheese, chocolate, the thick, stuffy pizza crusts?
Of course, if needs must, if I had to do so to appear normal I could eat these things smiling. I’d feel mildly sick afterwards and perhaps a small cut to the thigh, to be aware of where exactly the fat was, where exactly I had failed.
Eating and not eating was an easy progression for ordinary life for me. I have to know the time, answers to problems, letters on signs, lengths, heights, years, days, almost everything. So why not measure myself. Why not be aware that the less numbers I put in, the less I am? I plotted graphs and charts at the time, weight loss to calorific intake. Watched how I lost weight, rather that just watching it drop off of me. I enjoyed knowing that if I screwed up, the numbers, my only sureness, would tell me of my failure, and then it would be undisputable.
I brought my key up to the door, leant heavily on it as the thick wood seemed oblivious to the turning of the handle, and as per usual I burst in through the door, very inelegantly, very quickly. Removing my shoes and lining them by the door I tried to work out the logistics of finding Lily. I think she is in the second loft, tucked behind the boiler. God, I hope no part of her is liable to melt. I grabbed the glue from the second drawer along, counting my footsteps. Everything was to be in fives, if I didn’t reach the stairs in a set of five, I would take the excess step or two backwards and try again. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. I reached my room. Stop, back step, one two, three, four five. Placed the glue safely on the dresser, one two, three, four five. Pulled down the steps from the loft and went, to rescue my baby.
System A
Sophie Mandi Max Gwen Mercy Erin AVA Tracey Bridget My Isaac
It is six forty. I am six years old. My heart is beating very quickly. As soon as Daddy picked me up from school I was so scared that he would see into my head, see what had happened to Lily that day. I held my fear tight to my chest and took it inside of me. I couldn’t let him know what had happened, it would be awful. Sitting at the dinner table, just Daddy and me, I felt very small indeed. He smiled at me very weakly and reminded me to eat my vegetables. I did so, slowly and in ten bites per section. This made me feel safer. I wanted to tuck my knees up under my chin, the hug myself as tightly as I could but I didn’t do it. I stayed quiet, stayed normal.
He started to ask me about Mummy, if and when I wanted to go and see her again. I remembered how she’d looked last week. So thin. She looked littler that I was. I shook my head, I didn’t want to see her. Daddy looked up at me, he looked surprised. I wanted to cry but I didn’t want him to think I’d done anything wrong so I bit my lip as hard as I could, then I tasted a little bit of blood. The iron in the blood, Daddy had told me, is what you can taste. I wonder why blood needs a metal in it. I suppose blood has to keep a person strong and so metal is a good choice.
I don’t really think I felt Daddy hugging me when I started crying. I don’t really remember him putting me into my car seat and driving me to my grandparents’ house. I do remember what happened when we got there though. He unclipped me from the reins of the car seat, the little ‘pop’ telling me that I was free. I wriggled out and he placed me on the concrete of their drive. I looked at the straggly grass poking through where the concrete had been worn away. He knocked on the door, standing straighter than normal and we were greeted with “Andrew? You really should have called ahead.”
My Daddy tugged on my hand and we walked in, then he said something that made me feel so odd I don’t think I will ever forget it.
“Margret, Jocelyn really isn’t okay. She hasn’t been for a little bit now.”
My Grandma looked at my father, her fierce glare hit him and I was a little surprised he didn’t flinch like I would have.
“What exactly,” she paused, drawing herself upwards, “are you suggesting?”
Daddy reached down and ruffled my hair, “unfortunately, Jocelyn’s very much her mother’s daughter.”
System A
Sophie Mandi Max Gwen Mercy Erin AVA Tracey Bridget My Isaac
It is eleven sixteen. I am ten years old. Sam never had the flu. He’s gone, he’d always been going and he never told me. I dig my fingers into my hand and glare at my teacher, my messenger.
System A
Sophie Mandi Max Gwen Mercy Erin AVA Tracey Bridget My Isaac
It is three minutes past five. I am fourteen years old. The lottery has been drawn; I am sitting outside a room now. Blue chairs, large imposing plants that lean right over me. Dr Goldman. The fun of this game of course being, I have no clue which of the five is mine. I do not know names. Goldman. Seven letters. I’d better hope she or he had an odd number of letters in the first name too. Drumming my hair along the chair I spotted my doctor, to my delight it was the tapping doctor; he rummaged for his keys for a moment, pausing only to smile gently at me. Eventually, he managed to open his own door and slid across the plastic plate that read Vacant or Engaged. With the room officially engaged, I was allowed in. The exterior was no better, the same blue, square chairs, three and one, his, on wheels.
“What is your first name?” I blurted out, unable to wait any longer and not observant enough to watch every piece of paper he drew out, each click of the computer screen for the name.
He smiled, and raised an eyebrow. “You first.” I couldn’t help but smile back, someone was playing my game. “I’m Jocelyn,” I said, and uncharacteristically stuck my hand out, the doctor took it, “Jonathon.” I immediately cursed inside, eight letters, oh well, at least he is a descending sequence of integers. “However,” he continued, “I would appreciate it if you could call me Dr Goldman.”
I lent back into the chair, raised my own eyebrow and nodded. He tapped his fingers on the table, seven times. The letters in my own name I wondered? Or his.
“So.” He began, interrupting my internal monologue, “would you like to tell me why you are here today Jocelyn.” Tapped fingers seven times. My name, it was my name I muttered to myself.
“I’m here,” I said, taking a deep breath, “because I think I am going to die.” Startled he drew his chair back from me, “Well that’s quite an assumption to make. Could you expand on it.”
In my own head I saw tens of conversations running out of my mouth, the weight, the cutting, bruising, the fears. I couldn’t say them, any of them, I was, for a moment muted. I didn’t give the words permission but they seemed to have a mind of their own. “It’s my mother’s fault.”
He didn’t raise his eyebrows. He didn’t move away or move forwards. He sat, like me, watching me try to control the barrage of emotions I felt. I felt, in no particular order, a wrenching guilt for what I had said, the relief of having someone else to blame, the tightening feeling in my chest that made me want to run, sadness an extreme kind, anger at myself and him, confusion but mostly I felt broken. It wasn’t an emotion, it was a sense of myself. It was my thin arms, the cuts along them like train tracks, or an unsteady line of dominos. Eventually, in all of the confusion, I began to cry. ‘I don’t cry. I just don’t.’ I thought as I felt the tears land on my arms, run along my nose and make dark splotches on my skirt.
I felt the need to confess my sins, and here he was, a doctor, as close to a priest as I was ever going to find.
System A
Sophie Mandi Max Gwen Mercy Erin AVA Tracey Bridget My Isaac
It is four thirty five. I am sixteen years old. Lily is whole again, she is perfect. Absolutely perfect. I placed each edge of her broken body together so gently, held her together as she healed. I treated her with more respect than any medical professional had ever treated me. I was so glad at this moment that my six year old self had been observant enough to fetch every piece of her. Her broken body lay in my arms, cracked eye stared blindly into mine. I realised I preferred her this way. The Lily I had been given wasn’t perfect, she was just in one piece. Now she was better, so much better, because know I knew that she would break into a thousand pieces, shatter. I knew that to let her fall would be the same as letting her die. And yet, she was so much better, because she could be fixed. And, for the first time since I’d been given her, I didn’t feel inferior to a china doll. The scars on my body, the cracks on hers. We were equals.
System A
Sophie Mandi Max Gwen Mercy Erin AVA Tracey Bridget My Isaac
It is ten thirty four. I am six years old, very nearly seven mind. I am sitting on the carpet again. Playing with the dolls house. I don’t like playing with her watching me. Her pad of paper with the stickers of blue frogs on the front balances on her bony knees. She smiles at me every weeks, offers me a room full of toys with the one condition, always the same condition. She has to be allowed to watch me. I agree, because, it was never really up to me.
Today, I want to play with the doll’s house, I never really wanted to before, I like the building blocks and the abacus but the lady looked very excited to see me move towards the doll’s house. I played the most obvious game I could. I made my house. I moved the sofas and the table and chairs and the beds until the house looked almost like ours. Anything that was in the house that shouldn’t be was put to one side and anything that wasn’t there was left. A hole that didn’t need filling with some equivalent.
The room that was left empty was the loft, and I decided that this would be a good place for Mummy to live, she should really be in the hospital, but there wasn’t a hospital and I didn’t really want to have to build one out of Lego. I put one of the spare beds up there and lay the Mummy doll on it, arms by her side, head back on the soft pillow. The Daddy sat in the living room, watching over the house and then there was me. I put myself into my room. But it didn’t look right. I picked up one of the spare dolls, a baby, and placed it into my arms. I sat back on my heels, clearly finished and the lady rushed over to me. “May I have a little look poppet?” she asked, leaning in before I could have gotten the word ‘no’ out of my mouth. She looked very confused I thought, and I suppose I was right because she asked me what was happening.
“The Daddy is in the living room,” I said pointing to where he sat, “he likes to read books in there. And the lady in the loft is Mummy, she shouldn’t be in the house because she’s in the hospital now but I didn’t want her to be outside so I put her up here. She lies in bed a lot. And that’s me.” I finished, pointing to the room I had made my own.
“And is that your dolly?” Asked the lady, pointing to the baby I held. I frowned, “no. That’s me too.”
System A
Sophie Mandi Max Gwen Mercy Erin AVA Tracey Bridget My Isaac
And sail away these faces we hide behind
Cutting through the airwaves
Open up our minds
Show ourselves to the world tonight
Cause we are.. No longer in disguise ♫
