Don’t
Eloise works on a math question when she heard staggering footsteps at the front door. Her back straightens, the chill that one particular human had breathed into her struck again, in her core. She fled. She ran up the stairs, slamming her door shut and pushing her drawers and bedside table towards it. Her pink lamp fell and shattered into pieces. Her books and insignificant toys rolled down the top of the drawers. After doing all that she could, she took her friend, a baby blue blanket called ‘BB’ and sat in a corner of her room, burying her head into the blanket, her skinny arms shivering.
She heard what she expected to hear. The man storms up the stairs and pushed through her door. He pauses when he saw the body of the drawer. He pushes harder and the whole set of drawers falls down. His eyes shone with anger. His face is twisted into a menacing smile. He cracked his knuckles and spots the little girl shivering in the corner.
‘Why ‘cha do that for, E?’ he asks, walking closer, savoring every moment when he struck fear into the child. The girl tries to scramble farther, but the solid walls don’t move space for her. She starts crying. A stinging slap was all she felt. The red finger markings shone out on her pale face like a prize to be shown off.
He was about to strike again when she cried out.
‘Don’t! Please, Daddy, don’t…it hurts…’ she whimpered. Her eyes were red from crying and her nose was running. Her father stares at her with a sudden change in his expression. It disappears as quickly as it came. He mimics Eloise’s voice loftily.
‘Ooo, E doesn’t want it anymore…’ he sang, his breath was of alcohol. Eloise shields her face with her hands. Her father pulls her up from the floor, clutching at her pink shirt. The shirt groaned as its seams broke apart where her father clutched. His fingers curled up at her throat. Eloise clawed with her fingernails, kicking her legs. She screamed.
‘Don’t! Don’t! Don’t…’ And then there was silence. Eloise lay lifeless in her father’s hands. Her father’s eyes suddenly turned soft. He placed his daughter down and curled up her golden hair around his fingers, his face crumpled as tears flowed. He mumbled something softly. It came out louder and louder.
‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’M SORRY! E, WAKE UP!’ he screamed, shaking his daughter furiously. Eloise’s head bowed forward, not reacting. He continued screaming. A few people ran in. A woman came in first. She had heard her neighbor screaming while she was about to go to sleep. She convinced her husband and eldest son to come with her. She knew the man was a good man, kind and gentle, but his moods can change in an instant.
‘Oh my God…’ she whispered, tears brimming her eyes. Her eldest son, 19 pulled the wretched man away from the girl’s body. Her husband checked for a pulse. He looked grim. He looked at her and shook his head. The man screamed continuously. Her husband stood up.
‘Call the police.’ he said shortly. He lifted the girl up and placed her in her bed. Somehow, it comforted them. The police arrived shortly, and with the given description of the man’s behavior, the police sent a physiatrist along. Dr Priscilla Rowe was led in to the living room, where the man was weeping uncontrollably. After spending a few minutes listening to the neighbor’s recall of the man’s screaming and the man’s self confession, ‘I killed her…I killed her.’, she shook her head.
‘This is bipolar disorder. If bipolar disorder goes untreated, it will become serious. In this case, it has long gone untreated and these are the consequences.’ she said. The police frowned. He pats her shoulder gently. ‘Does this mean that he can’t be tried for homicide? I mean, he made a confession and all, but his mental being is taking accounted for too, so…’
Dr Priscilla Rowe said, ‘A person with bipolar disorder has their “normal periods”, at that point, they can make full sense of what is going on and what happened when they snapped. They could have easily gone to a doctor and seek medical help. But he didn’t. He knew what he did and he didn’t try to change it.’ The doctor seemed cold and unsympathetic as she said it. ‘People,’ she continued, ‘like him knew what went wrong, and he didn’t try to stop it.’
The listeners nodded. Only the man’s constant wail broke the silence. The police took him away.
The woman, named Maria slid a note into the coffin. Her three sons made one too. The woman’s husband whispered an ‘I love you’ into the ears of Eloise, who lay serenely in the coffin, dressed like a snow princess. Her father walked towards the coffin, accompanied by two men. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit, tears streaming down as he kissed the tips of his note and placed it in her fingers.
“Eloise, you will always be the daughter I never had.”
“Miss you lots Eloise, wish you were here to play with us.”
“Daddy’s sorry E. I never wanted to hurt you. Remember when you asked if we would get in heaven like Mummy? You would. You would dance for God and sing like the angels in the heaven choir. Oh yes, they have a choir, they like to make God happy. You would meet Mummy again and both of you will live happily ever after, like Sleeping beauty, which you are now. I don’t be getting into heaven though, as far as I can see. But I’m trying my best to making God happy with me. I’m changing into a better person; I want to be a better person. I hate being the me I was that day when I hurt you, even though you said don’t. I have a sickness that I can’t control, and I made you suffer from it. Be good E, listen to God and Mummy. Watch me change; watch me change into the man that you would be proud to call Daddy. You’re my little girl, you’re my beautiful Sleeping Beauty.”
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