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Killing Me - Miss Ava

As the years passed by, father trusted my upbringing to a nurse while he nursed his wounds with drops of liquor. In the first six years of my existence, he never once spared me a thought, but sometimes he would sneak glances at me when he thought I wasn't looking. Maybe he was curious to see what the monster who stole away his happiness looked like. And a monster, I was. For at the delicate age of 10, I'd grown no more than three feet. I was an alien among my species. My head a giant apple with lazy eyes and a mouth that never missed a chance to quiver. Even stranger, not a strand of hair ever grew on my unearthly body, and my arms and legs, well, they were something to behold; just four sticks stuck to a bony structure.

My nurse, Miss Ava, was a light in my humdrum, dreary existence. She changed my diapers, fed me, and even looked after me during my spells. My spells followed the pattern of a storm. One moment I'd be completely still for a few seconds or minutes, but then my body would jerk, twist, and quiver of it's own volition. It's in those moments, when the voice hidden in the deepest part of my soul found its way through the tunnels and mazes and finally made its way to the surface; out my paper-thin pale lips. But the voice was not my own. Some force unknown to me seized my lips and the traitorous lips complied. So, I screamed and cried out till my throat was hoarse, till I no longer shook and twisted, but was a quivering mess on the bed drenched in my own sweat.

Miss Ava was under the delusion that I was special. For she took it upon herself to teach me to read. No God fearing man should live not knowing the word, so she put it. Everyday she would read to me out of the Holy Bible and make me point to the words she read out loud. She'd given up on teaching me to write claiming it was too tricky a business to start off with. But I had the vaguest suspicion it was mostly because of the thumb on my dominant hand that would've been as useful were it not there. One day, father walked in on one of our sessions, and with a slight slight slur to his words he said, "What's goin' on here"?

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