The Impostors

The young girl weeps silently after being torn apart by the cruelty of her environment. With her back against the cold and barren wall, she quietly escapes to a place of nothingness. “Kill me and start ova,” she calls to the heavens begging for another chance at life. “No one cares anyway.”

Made to be different and special to only a few, the young girl’s heart is broken beyond repair. “They say I‟m hopeless,” she continues to cry. The surrounding air is pungent from the still damp basement furniture. “They say I’m hopeless,” she repeats quieter this time.

Careful not to alarm the “impostors” her fragile body rocks back and forth, harboring every inch of her disappointment. The tears speak for the mounds of anger and frustration she harvests. “One day…” she assures, believing that she‟s be better off falsifying her interpretation of reality.

The phone rings. She listens as footsteps from one of the impostors glides across the floor.

“Hello,” a woman‟s voice answers as if everything was okay. “Yes, we’ve found her. She was hiding in the bushes.”

The girl wishes that she can somehow reach out to the person on the other end of the phone and clarify that she wasn’t hiding; she was preparing for her escape.

After the woman hangs up the phone, the young girl focuses on the squeaky floorboard as the sound gets closer to the basement door.

“Bring your fat ass up here.” The woman calls not seconds before she finishes opening the basement door.

Motionless, the girl closes her eyes and imagines invading Alice in Wonderland‟s secret hideout.

The sound of turkey meat hitting the ground frightens the young girl.

“Eat that since you want to stay down there.” The woman yells again. Creaking sounds from the other side of the room move toward the basement door also. The steps aren’t so smooth. The male impostor holds a cane and isn’t as mean.

Finally it’s his turn to speak. “Come upstairs baby.” He says. If the girl didn’t know any better she would’ve believed that he actually knew who she was. But the fact that her father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s last year made it very difficult. And the fact that he allowed the care-giver talk to his daughter any ol’ kinda way only reassured her suspicions.

“Go sit down,” the angry woman demanded as she pushed the older man to the side. “Your dinner is coming old man.”

With blurred vision and a drenched face, the young girl silently prays to her mother.

“Mom, if you can hear me, hold me.” Just as gentle as she spoke the words, she felt a light breeze pass by her. It was a sign that her mother was near and all would be well. And even though the young girl remained in the basement, safe from the impostors, she felt comfort and love that she hadn’t felt in a long time.

For those brief moments, the world she escaped to was much better than the one she knew nothing about.