D10// Jordan Snow

"tell us a story!" "yeh, tell us a story." "what kind of story do you want?" "tell us a story of a girl." "and her love." "and a prince!" "tell us a story about dragons!" "and elves!" "tell us a story, a story about heartbreak." "a story about heartbreak? no that's too sad!" "tell us about a different heartbreak! not about love, but about family." "oh i do love a story about heartbreak, tell us one!" "ok, ok, gather around, gather around and under the light of this fire i will tell you the story of a girl."

once upon a time,

"then what was it?" "yeh! she doesn't seem all that scary to me!" "so what is it?" "what is what?" "what is it that makes her so scary?" "hey! what makes you think she's scary, i think she sounds lovely" "i'm sure she is lovely, but there has to be a reason why she's getting run away from." "you have a point, and there is." "there is?!" "yes, but you'll have to listen, ok?"

the girl ran home after that night and cried away in her room, with a locked door and pen to paper, she wrote. and she wrote away like she never did before, words scrawling across the paper and piercing holes within it. paper was rather expensive where she was, but somehow she always had a stack on her table - that was one of the advantages she always had, someone out there and she never knew who, cared for her. and yet she was never one to take advantage of gifts. each and every page she took she would start at the very top left and write in the smallest text that she could possibly write in, making sure never to skip any space. she knew that all good things must come to an end and that sooner or later there would be no paper on her desk, so now was the time to conserve. she scribbled all along the margins and managed to get two or three lines of writing between each line on the paper. she wrote and wrote and wrote and didn't stop until her fingers were red and blistered.

every night that she came home from the mirror she did so, she wrote or dragons and knights and damsels in distress. damsels who weren't as pretty as others, damsels who stood in front of mirrors and wondered why people ran away from them, and why they were locked up in their towers when there was so much more out there in the world for them. she wrote of love, and hardship, and hardship in love. she wrote of the colour of her walls, bland with a soft beige tint, though you couldn't tell with the thick layer of dust that covered it. she wrote of the smell of food that wafted up to her room every night as they cooked the meals downstairs. and that was everything to her, writing was her life, but more so than writing, was story telling.

the fire would crackle and burn and dance through the air as if there wasn't anything wrong in the world. it pierced through the darkness and provided light, gently lighting up the young faces of her household as they giggled and laughed together, as they loved and cuddled because sometimes a fire wasn't enough to sooth the coldness during the winter months. and they smiled across the camp fire at each other hoping nobody else noticed because it was still a secret crush. and there, she would tell her stories, and they say that those were the only times that she didn't stutter or think over her words in her head. in front of a camp fire she was strong and confident, with expression and smiles, telling her tales of sadness, and happiness without a single stumble. they say that when she was in front of a camp fire - every one wanted to be like her.

but that was never the case once the bucket of water was thrown over the fire and the night was over, because it was those dark times where she never felt so lonely. when she wasn't surrounded by stories she was lost in her own little world that never quite satisfied her, and she never satisfied it. when she wasn't around a camp fire, she was afraid of the monsters that would come out of the shadows, or come out of her. the girl was scared of herself, of the monster she could become when the lights went out, listening to the voices in her head screaming and yelling constantly, get out of here, leave, you're worthless and you're not worth being here. it was a loop, a repetitive loop in her head when the darkness came, every single night they tried to hit her with their words - but she was strong, she was, most of the time she was stronger than the voices inside her head as she tamed them with the fire of her hair, mind, of the dragons in her skull, she was incredible.

that girl was usually happy during the day. the sun was her friend and the voices didn't come out in the sunlight so she was nothing but safe - and still the townspeople liked to give her funny looks, she cared but tried not to. she couldn't breathe fire in real life, that was for sure, she was no dragon in the real world, just a little girl with big feet and no shoes. shoes were not something that she particularly liked, no they were too constricting, she liked too much having the dirt beneath her feet and it seeped in between her toes, and she liked fall time when the leaves would make their crunching sounds and the remaining dew from the morning would cause her to take slower steps and pay attention to the forest around her. she liked walking there, the forest that is, there were so many stories that could be told in the depths of the trees, of witches and hunters, and girl who lived in tree-houses, and boys who lived under the roots. she liked to walk through the town and watch the people, and see how they lived their lives, because they were more interesting than hers. she was happy in the daylight and sad in the night, but at all times she felt lonely, there just wasn't a prince for her - but in her stories she could write one.

as she walked through the town one day, she felt her feet turn directions and soon found herself at the mirror, feet having led her there, her subconscious still wanting answers. she stared at herself for such a long time in that mirror, weeks, months, but it wasn't her looks that made them run away so there was no point - but she knew there was something wrong, there had to be. "is it the monster inside of me?" she asked the mirror. "do they think that i'm just a monster." she stared for a long time and didn't ask another question, this was one that needed to be answered and she hoped the mirror would understand that this was a question she needed to know, was it her monsters that sat not only in her closets but within her that scared the people away?

"it is not your monsters that scare them away." the mirror spoke. "it is your monsters that scare you away." she wondered what it meant, what all of it could possibly mean, how was it that her monsters weren't what scared them all away. she didn't understand, with a storm of frustration, feet stomping against the stone floors, she left the mirror and returned to her papers.

the silence was eerie around the camp-fire, the kids were locked on every word and for the first time, they didn't interject their comments, just stared, there was a sense of recognition amongst them that they hadn't quite caught on to but it was on the tip of their tongues. they almost knew, and she continued.

the girl thought back to her history, could it be where she'd come from that had made the people run and hide from her? was it her story that scared them so much that they wouldn't say hello in the streets, that they would run away in fear. she sat in front of the mirror and thought of her story, because she was sure that was it.

once upon a time, the little girl was born. she was born to two parents, as most people were. they were loving of course, but they were loving in a different way than most, one could say. they loved their little girl so much, that they left her alone most of the time - and that's what she preferred, and not that she knew at the time, being so young, that their raised voices weren't anything but soft melodic sounds, babies didn't quite catch on to things like that, they weren't really the smartest of beings, babies, but they'd learn. the girls parents loved her so much, that they had another little girl a year later, and despite their yelling and despite their bickering, they let that child into the world as soon as the girl could mutter her first ignored words, her calls out to her mother who was too busy trying to fight her husband and feed her other child.

she walked before long, and became self-sufficient as a baby could be, or so they said. never cried, never asked for anything she didn't need to have - which was for the best anyway seeings how there wasn't much to give. it wasn't that they were poor, no, they weren't the poorest of families, but the town in which she lived wasn't rich at all, her family wasn't rich amongst the poor, but neither were they poor, but no matter what way you looked at it, there wasn't a lot of money for the family. at four the little girl could walk and eat solid foods, she could run around and smile, oh boy could she smile with her giant lips, and she cut her hair right off to make it short because it bugged her too much to actually take care of the curly mess. that was the year she had uneven hair, curls being cut at different lengths, it was the year she learned that the yelling wasn't a melodic song, and it was also the year her first brother came into the world.

at six, she'd started school, learned her alphabet and knew how to string words together into coherent sentences - but not necessarily coherent thoughts. children weren't meant to be smart here, so just knowing that m came before q was a miracle in itself, that was the year she learned that she wasn't a princess, nor was she a priority. that was the year she noticed the dark black circles that would often form around her mothers eyes, that was the year that her father always asked her to fetch him his special juice, that was the year that they always had steak and peas lying around, and that was the year another brother came into the world.

once upon a time, that girl became smart, a scholar, way higher intelligence than any other girl and boy in her school. she was able to string together a coherent thought that wasn't about animals, that wasn't about how early she'd gotten up to feed the cattle - they didn't have cattle at her place, nor did she know a single thing about farming, she was too small for it anyhow. she liked to walk on her own, and ignore her family. she liked to try and lock herself in her own room, even though she had to share it with her younger sister, but she didn't mind so much, she didn't mind at all, for her sister was intelligent too, she read books like she did.

at ten, the girl had learnt to do a lot by herself, she'd learned all about tying shoes, and alphabet, and writing stories, she'd learnt about a beginning, middle, and end. she'd learnt what a black eye was and how peas and steak can help take down the swelling. she'd learnt about what alcohol was and how it made people often enraged, and sloppy, she learnt about abuse and that alcohol often led to abuse. at ten, she stopped getting her father his special juice, she would take it out to a barn and smash it against the ground. she also watched that barn go up in flames as mr. sherwin went in for a secret cigarette even though he told his wife that he'd quit. at ten, she learnt that alcohol was extremely flammable and that smashing it against barn floors led to bruises from a sober father who didn't care for his daughter as much as he cared for his moonshine. at ten, she had a little sister and told her mother that this had to be the last one.

at twelve, she learned what it was like to lose a life when her little sister decided to toss their fathers alcohol out once more in mr. sherwins barn and this time he didn't escape his lies. the crying and wailing from ms. sherwin at the funeral when he was lowered into the ground never to be seen again - oh yes, she knew loss. she also knew the look in her fathers glossy eyes was not because he was crying at the loss of a friend, but because his own demons were still at work, and the alcohol couldn't be drained from his system. at twelve, her mother got pregnant again despite what the girl had told her, but she let it be because the smile it put to her mothers life to know that maybe this time she wouldn't mess up this time. at twelve, she cleaned up the bloody mess surrounding her weeping mother as a drunken fight went too far and her father punched her in the stomach. she cleaned up the remnants of what could of been a brother or a sister, as her mother closed her eyes and screamed because she couldn't look at the child she could have had.

at thirteen they ran out of money and she had to start working sheering sheep next to a boy who was too high to even notice that she was there, she wrote her own stories then, and he listened to them, and often he seemed to live them in his own drugged up way. she let him do the work as she told her stories and she put some money on the table, and her father was sober and angry because he had no money for booze but just enough for food, and nothing angered him more. and the melodic screaming, the fighting came on a more frequent basis, screams of pleading came more often and at thirteen her mother had another little girl, and this one she never let go of for fear of losing her. at thirteen she began to write her own stories and tried to put more money on the table.

at fifteen she decided to run away from her father and mother, the people who wouldn't stop fornicating like rabbits - which she had learned had many a children, and she'd learned where babies had come from. at fifteen, she looked at her house and waved goodbye to her siblings who were watching her from the window with wide tear-filled eyes and sad understanding faces, they were not old enough to make their way quite yet - they were not strong enough, but neither was she. she walked through the town and they whispered at the sight of her. at fifteen, she found the orchards and there she made her home telling stories and helping out with whatever she could. she made friends for the first time, good solid friends. at fifteen, she didn't clean up any bloody messes, or collect any special juice. at fifteen she got a lot more siblings, but none by birth, and none she had to feed herself. at fifteen, she was free.

at sixteen, she paid attention the the whispers and looked in the mirror for weeks on end, she asked her questions and tried to figure out what is was that made the people laugh, she had never done anything to them. and she looked in that mirror with curly red hair, that was all equal length these day when she didn't have to cut it herself. and she thought about her monsters, and she thought about her stories, and her fat lips, and her fragile body, she thought about the campfires, and her family. she thought of all the stories she told the children, and after three months of staring at the mirror, it spoke again. "they're afraid of the truths that you tell." the mirror paused, and she looked at herself. "they're afraid of your stories and how accurate they are, they're afraid of your life, and your worth." she started to cry then. "you are worth so much more than you know."

the story finished and the fire seemed the slowly fade down with it, and the children didn't clap nor smile because this wasn't one of the normal stories. it was a story of heartbreak, and as they looked towards the girl who'd told it, they saw the silent tears dripping down her face. it was a story of heartbreak, and the story of her, jordan mary snow. the tears streamed down her face and yet often it was more important to not acknowledge people's tears, and this was one of those times.