A Farewell Letter to Myself

Chapter 3

Amory woke late the next morning. It was a Saturday, and the weekend seemed a perfect opportunity. He stuffed the horrible toy into his jeans pocket, smiling as he anticipated the doll’s fate only half an hour away. He cycled up to his local landfill site, a dirty place that he avoided most of the time. However, today, his mind was only set on arriving there. Once he had propped his bike against one of the concrete walls that surrounded the stinking place, he grabbed the doll and looked at it a final time as he made his way over to the crushing machine. It truly was disturbing at how alike he and the doll looked, and he shivered as the buttons seemed to glint with dismay and he gripped it tight, watching the heavy jaws clang open and shut.

"Finally," he murmured, his knuckles turning white and he clenched the toy. "I can get rid of you once and for all." Amory stared, transfixed, as many piles of metal were crushed into tiny cubes. Perfect. Amory dangled the doll over the rapid jaws, smiling as the doll hung limply from his fingertips. "Goodbye, you freaky little thing." he dropped it, leaning as far as he could over the barrier to get a better look at the carnage. The force of the snapping blew his fringe from his eyes and Amory grinned in raptures, as the doll was ripped to shreds, until finally only scraps of white linen and a few strands of orange wool were the only sign of the toy. As he went to straighten up, the jaws stopped suddenly, and a hard hand grabbed him by the shoulder, twisting him to face the heavy figure.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" said a gruff voice.Lawrence glared at his son. "What are you doing up here?" Amory turned to see his mother and a grey haired man in overalls, stood by the controls of the machine, arms folded. He paled.

"I... er..." he stammered.Lawrence's fingers drove deeper into his shoulder blade.

"Do you want to die?" he steered his son to face the snapping jaws again. "Do you want to be crushed into pulp before your fourteenth birthday?"

"No, Father... Ow! Please, you're hurting me!" Irritated, Lawrence withdrew his fingers.

"Good! Now what in God's name possessed you come here?" he asked, his face dark.

"I needed to get rid of.... something..."

"Then use a bloody bin like everybody else! Why can't you act like a normal kid for once? I know you think you're so mature and clever and precocious, just don't forget you're not too old for a smack, do you hear me?"

"Yes! But why are you making such a big fuss? Okay, yes, I shouldn't have come here... but I'm not hurt am I?"

"I don't care! You disobeyed your mother's wishes, not to ever come here alone. You did not respect your parents, that is why I am cross. Also, the fact I nearly lost my only son because he has no idea of the safety."Lawrencesighed deeply and put a hand to his head. "Just... come on, let's just go. Don't ever come here again, are we clear?" Amory nodded sharply and his father grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away.

                                                                                 ****

Back at school, even though the doll was gone, the love letters kept coming.

Aw, why did you do that? That took me ages! I spent a long picking out all the materials, that was one of my best ones... Anyway, just because it's gone, doesn't mean I'll stop it! I love you, and I want you to know that. I'm just sorry... so, so sorry you chose to do that...

He sighed in disgust. Why? He didn't need this stress in his life. And why was this girl so cryptic in her language? Marilyn didn't look up from her book as she attempted to multi-task, packing her bag and reading Bleak House at the same time.

"Another?" she asked. Amory nodded.

"It's getting rather tiresome." he complained and lifted his back-pack onto his shoulders.

"Uh-huh," Marilyn gave a non-committal grunt as she caught her German phrasebook, just before it fell to the floor in a flurry of pages. "They look creepy. Can I have a read?" he handed her the crumpled pink page, and she gave it a glance as she put her book down for a second. Then she stifled a laugh, her brown eyes flicking up at him as she read the letter.

"That's sad. Like, actually really sad." she said and handed him the page back. She wiped her hands on her skirt and collected her things. “You poor, sad little boy.”

"Pardon?" Amory asked, confused.

"Don't act so innocent," she laughed, rolling her eyes. "They're in your handwriting."