Control

A Dark Memoir

Imagine if every one of your tears created a storm

Every smile becoming a ray of sunlight

The essence of your anger summons a deadly hurricane

Your passion the most powerful defense yet the heart of destruction

At your fingertips

The world at your feet.

Complete.

Control.

A Dark Memoir

     Thirteen and naive; she never saw it coming.

     She sauntered along innocently in battered Converse, a thick jacket and denim jeans that were ripped and worn from the constant climbing of various walls, trees, fences as well as anything else she could find to clamber up. Unruly ebony hair was pulled into a tight ponytail for convenience and they always told her that only her soft blue eyes brought colour to her milk bottle complexion that never tanned.

     Sloshing through the mud puddles, the ground glistened from the sheet of rain and the black streets were dark as she ventured on carelessly. She relished in the freedom to kick her feet through the water, spraying it into the air. Clicking her tongue, she glanced down at her watch to see the hands of the clock displaying two minutes past eight. A little late, as usual—back then she was never on time. It was normal for her dad to expect her back a few minutes out than the agreed time. He never worried too much.

     If she had only left earlier...

     Every day she left the park at the same time. Every day she took the same journey back through the same shabby streets. It was predictable—perfect for someone like him.

     That night he waited in the shadows.

     A fat, soiled and grotesque excuse of a man crouched behind a filthy green plastic bin. Middle-aged Trevor Barton wiped the trail of his blocked nose on his sleeve and snorted loudly. He had lost his job, was gravely in debt and his wife was filing for a divorce. Desperate and disturbed, he had happened to spot the young girl through his grimy window on her way home one night a few months beforehand.

     She had been his guilty pleasure ever since.

     He actually mistook his disgusting obsession for love.

     Raking his sweaty obese fingers through his hair, he smoothed down and stuck the balding strands to his greasy forehead in a pathetic attempt to groom himself—he was like a lingering vulture trying to clean his dingy feathers with a foul beak. Any moment now she would cross the road and head through Church street.

     Right into his path. He heard her small footsteps tapping along the concrete and waited until she passed the bin. Any moment now.

     The first thing she saw was his monstrous claws lunge for her.

     His arms clamped tight across her small frame, his weight and strength overpowering her almost instantly.

     An ear splitting scream of the innocence torn from a helpless young girl sounded and echoed through the streets.

     Yet the reality struck.

     Nobody heard and nobody was coming to save her.

     Her vulnerability, devastation and the core of her very tainted soul fuelled the rage inside her until it burst through the surface.

     Pure force. A gale so strong that it stabbed through his gut and threw him across the alleyway into the piled skip at the other side, impaling the revolting creature on the steel girder jutting out of the rubbish. He wailed in agony as it sliced deep through his innards until he was lying flat amongst the garbage and his own blood. But no sympathy was felt from the girl. His torture was not enough for the pain she felt. She lay crumpled on the sodden floor, staring as the rain pounded heavier, filling the skip to the brim until he was submerged in water. The fluid flooded his lungs until he could breathe no more, the light in his panicked eyes diminishing with every second that went by.

     The police could not fathom how it had happened. They summarised her story was just made up from the mind of a damaged girl. 'A result of post traumatic stress,' they said. Even her loving father could never understand but she never held it against him.

     Since that night she was an outsider to her own childhood.

     Frances Hayward was a freak.

     At school they bullied her but she could do nothing—once, she had gotten too angry and a storm crackled across the yard, flinging the children away from her with a gust of wind, leaving them with minor injuries.

     She could not feel—it was too dangerous.

     She had to be detached.

     She had to be a blank canvas.

     She had to be emotionless.

     She had to stay in control.