There's nothing like looking through the eyes of a child to make the world appear brand spanking new, for their inventive imagination does all the work. Still some parents neglect to see that refreshing point of view; fools so damaged they prefer to see the bad in everything; doing their damnedest to pass that off to their offspring.
Being as her head weighed nearly as much as the body beneath it, stumble-a-long Josie wasn't exactly graceful. Once innocence is lost, it's gone forever. Early in her fourth year Josie's childhood came to an abrupt end. Unlike most children her age Josie had few toys to trash. Try as they did, two killjoy parents couldn't keep their child's imagination from having fun. Accidental or not, George and Matilda didn't take kindly to their prodigy demolishing their prized bric-a-brac.
George simply gave up on having fragile things. Not being particularly bright, Matilda chose to courageously collect her treasures and put them up on glass shelves. Of all the intricate things to collect from the menageries of fragile figurines out there in the universe of curiosities, Mother Matilda just had to have angels: blasting trumpets, strumming harps, reading scrolls, singing to the heavens or merely plucking their plumage; the more intricate the detail, the more beloved the figurine.
Numbering nearly 50, Matilda's finely detailed porcelain figures received the motherly care Josie never did. Naturally, being an inquisitive little girl, Josie couldn't resist laying her filthy little mitts on her mother's cherished cherubs. Who could blame her; after all they were the closest things to dolls in her household.
Those seraph statuettes may have sung angelic hymns dearly to Matilda but they had a slightly different effect on her daughter. Why do angels have wings if not to fly? "Fly home!" commanded one taking charge of setting them free her flock of tiny playmates.
Imagine Josie's immaculate dismay as she gentle tossed her mama's favorite spread-winged figurine into the air, expecting it to flutter about delightfully like a butterfly only to have it crash-land harshly onto its nest, shattering said nest and all the sacred sanctuaries surrounding it.
Nothing quite grabs one's attention like the sound of shattering glass; unless a demolition of porcelain figurines is added to the trash pile crash as well.The ruckus of glass shelves giving way along with porcelain wings brought Matilda rushing in to witness the fall of heaven. It didn't take a Saint to collect angels. Upon coming upon the collectible carnage maniac Matilda cut loose with a barrage of 4-letter words giving the devil her due.
After the bombardment of child-inappropriate blasphemy her mother mercilessly tossed in, "My God! You warped munchkin! What in the hell have you done?! You've lost your dim-witted mind! I warned you never to touch my things! You've got the brains of a twit and the clumsy hands of an oaf; just how diabolically evil can one brat be?!
Ranting and raving like a bull in a china shop of nothing but red-glazed targets, Matilda glared at Josie with flared nostrils and insanely infuriated eyes. As her knees buckled, Josie buckled uncontrollably. Grabbing herself tightly to hold in the pee, momma's tenderized trespasser braced herself for the fierly onslaught.
treating the porcelain wreckage with tender loving care, Matilda salvaged what she could sobbing out, "Someday you'll pay for this, my demon child...mark my words...I guarantee you will pay for this outrage!" Matilda finished off her conniving conniption fit with a cackle that could have made the miniature messengers of God weep had they been able to hear. Cowering in the cobweb-ridden corner of the family room, Josie did all their crying for them.
Mother dearest never heard a single sob that didn't originate from her own mouth. The accolades of Matilda's tongue-lashing consisted of glass shards and decapitated angel heads clanging as a cascading waterfall into the rubbish bin.
So much for using her imagination; Josie's youth became anything except a magical time of wonder and exploration. What it became was unthinkable. It was disenchanting...it was disillusioning...most of all it was disgusting.
The tiny transgressor was confined to her cell of a room for a month. From that day of infamy on, nary a kind word was spoken to Jose by either parent. If only it could have been nary a word.
Above all else silence was golden. When her parents bothered to speak to her, it did far more harm than good. A defensive Josie was labeled many derogatory things in her early years: "good-for-nothing," "air-headed waste of space," and "wish you were never born" to name just a few of the gentler ones.
Not being one of infinite mercy, Matilda couldn't leave punished severely alone. Her mother's twisted mind quickly came up nick-naming Josie "Mommy's mighty migraine."Not wishing to be out alliterated, father George quickly came up with his own, Daddy's dimwitted disappointment." Their limited imaginations ended there. Their cruelty did not.
One little girl lost didn't wish to be found. Instead she simply wished to be gone, period. On her fifth birthday, with eyes squinted shut, Josie wished hard for oblivion to come and swallow her whole, even if she didn't exactly know what oblivion was.
Although miraculously spared from sticks and stones, the names that fell upon her head stung just as bad. Through it all a hardening rock-faced Josie stood alone; doping her best to turn to granite, the only defense she had.
YOU ARE READING
Woman Born, Woman Torn
RomansaIf Josie knew what lurked beyond the light at the end of the tunnel she would have never left the comfort of her mother's womb. If she knew what the first 30 years had in store for her she would have ran through them as fast as her broken heart woul...
