Unwound

Unwound

Unwound

By

Yolanda Olson

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Unwound

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My life began with an idea and a stitch.

The brainchild of a deranged genius who sought to make only

perfection, not because she herself was perfect, but because she

knew she could achieve it. That one thought that ran constantly

through her mind was so simple and so deluded that it would only

make sense to someone like her.

At times I wondered what had made London into the monster

that she was. What had been done to her to drive her to such

madness? Whatever it was that she had endured must’ve been

something so hideous and traumatic, that creating us was her only

escape. I wondered how she had endured all these years; how her

anguish and pain had not yet driven her to take her own life.

Maybe by creating us as she did she would let the pain from deep

inside of her boil to the surface and take shape.

I feel a sharp whirring inside of me. This is something that

only happens when I become determined which is what I assume

to be my adrenaline surging. I never like the way that it feels

because I’m sometimes afraid that my insides will dislodge and

I’ll collapse into a junk heap.

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Truth be told, that’s what we all are; nothing more than junk

heaps.

I was the only one who survived in partial tact. She never

finished any of us because she would grow bored or run out of

material for her perfect dolls. She once told me she never finished me because she knew I would leave her once I was complete.

What she didn’t know was that I would leave her even as

unfinished as she left me. The tell-tale sign of my incompletion

was hidden behind a patch that a young boy had given me in a

random act of kindness. A pirate he called me after he placed it

on my head. I didn’t fault him for his words because of his

innocence but if only he know that I had escaped a real pirate. A

harvester of the most grotesque “parts” one could ever hope to

construct anything out of.

But she was still my mother and as long as she kept me

enslaved in her home, I loved her unconditionally. Even when she

found the boy and used him as material in one of her newer

designs which she had mockingly sent me pictures of.

Hidden by a sycamore tree close to the edge of her home, I

close my eyes as I wrap my fingers tightly around the iron fence

she had herself erected in one of her manic fits which she had

managed to build in the span of one night. My jaw tightens as my

breathing slows; I can hear the whirring inside of me. The

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constant reminder that I’m not real. Suddenly I’m back in the

room where she kept me prisoner. In the room where I was

subjected to many torments, and as I stand there reliving those

moments I am reminded why I’m standing here.

The book, I think to myself grimly. The truth behind who and

what I was and what had caused me to run so frantically from this

hell is what also caused me to come back. Opening my eyes, I

raise them to the window on the fourth floor that is still partially shut off to the world with wooden planks wishing I had never

found it. The ramblings and drawings of a genius destined to

make life out of death.

My grip tightens. The wounds of what we find out about

ourselves are as beautiful and deadly as an alpenrose. At first

glance it can seem so innocent, so delicate, so fragile looking, but upon deeper inspection such a horrifying truth hidden deep within.

The depths of things we cannot understand are greater than we

know.

I was not built to feel any emotion except pain, but I’ve come

back with new emotions. I’ve watched others; studied their faces

and their actions. Now I come back to my mother with anger and

hatred. My eyes now lower to the grand double doors at the main

entrance of the sprawling estate before me.

Inside is the reason I am here.

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Inside is the creator who tortured me mercilessly.

Inside is my mother; the one who gave me the gift of life

would be the one to whom I would grant the gift of death.

I’m here to challenge a monster, to end her life. My body

begins to tremble slightly, but it’s not because I’m afraid of her.

It’s because to destroy a monster, I myself, must become a

monster. I’ve mentally prepared for this moment since the day I

first opened my eyes. I knew I was an abomination which was

confirmed by the words in her book. I look down at the slight

scarring of stitches that surround my fingers and know that I

cannot become any more monstrous than I already am. Only one

thought shakes any fear of becoming like her from my mind.

Your only peace will come with her death.

I take a deep breath to steady myself.

Knowing that it’s time, I move away from the shelter and

seclusion of the sycamore and pull myself over the gate. It

doesn’t take me long to navigate the grounds hidden in the

shadows of the trees she had planted in such careless fashion.

Two trees that I passed where planted almost on top of each other

so they wound together and made one giant, mangled mess. They

were useful to me though as I stood behind them for a moment to

catch my breath.

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Get to the door, I command myself. I put a hand to the double

tree and with everything left inside of me I push off it and run as fast as these legs would carry me. With the fatigue washing over

me, which was so frequent these past few weeks, I shove the

doors open and run down the long hallway until I reach the stairs

that lead down to her dungeon as I liked to call it.

Slowly, I open that door and stand at the top of the dimly lit,

stone staircase. In the distance I can hear a chair slowly creaking back and forth. Willing myself to stop hesitating, I make my way

quickly down the winding steps reaching the double wooden

doors that she always had so tightly closed, finding them cracked

open.

I see her. She’s in a large chair with her legs pulled up to her

chest, her arms wrapped around them. She’s talking to herself

softly.

I step inside the doors and pull them tightly close behind me.

No one would be leaving this room until the other was dead.

Looking around, I find a long metal pole and use it to pry the door shut.

*Cr

*C e

r ak,

e

cr

c e

r ak*

e

It was almost as if she didn’t realize or care to acknowledge

that I had entered into her private, hellish workstation. I remove 7

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the hooded jacket that I’m wearing and toss it aside revealing

what the last year of being away from this hell has done to me.

My skin has started to wither and fall off of me. The stitches

where she seamed my neck to my shoulders are now more

prominent and my face is gaunt. I was no longer the young

looking man I was when I left. I didn’t have much definition left

to me and I was running out of time.

“I knew you’d come back,” she finally says in a singsong

voice.

The creaking stops.

She slowly swivels the chair to face me and stares at me with

vacant eyes.

Now she’s humming.

Humming the song that would signal the sign that her

madness was going to burst into full bloom at any given moment.

“Don’t worry, this won’t hurt very much,” she says as she

rises from her chair with a seam ripper in her hand.

I steel myself as she comes charging at me, screaming in a

horrifying rage, the moment that I had wanted so badly was

finally at hand.

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One

One year ago

London Blackhouse.

My mother.

The one who made me.

Nourished me.

Loved me.

Hated me.

Kept me locked away from the world in a room full of torture

and horror where my only friends were my own reflection

designed to torture me. Why? Mother never finished me which

was the obvious cruelty the mirrors inflicted on me day by day. I

couldn’t fault her for it though because I wasn’t the only thing she had that needed attending to. Most days she just would lock me in

my room; my only friends being the mirrors.

The mirrors.

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I hated them all.

I couldn’t take them anymore and how she loved to taunt me

with the mirrors. My reflection always stared back at me,

screaming at me that I was a fool just for looking.

But I still loved her.

Despite all her faults, she was a good mother. No, she is a

good mother.

I can’t fault her for being a genius.

I can’t fault her for caring enough to make so many children.

I can’t fault her for… for any of it.

I know she loves me.

She has too.

As I look around my room I know I can’t stay here anymore. I

don’t want to leave her, but I can’t stay. Not with the way she’s

been lately; not with all the torture and anger. Not how she sits in her room at nights, humming to herself. The sounds of the wheels

and drills spinning. The sounds of cloth tearing and being sewn

back together. I knew better though. What she referred to as cloth was something completely different and horrible.

I didn’t let myself think about that. I shoved the terrible truth

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from my mind and got to my feet. The pain that shot through me

from that simple gesture was horrendous. Not because of any

reason other than the broken shards of glass, nails, sewing pins,

and other little torturous items she had weaved together in some

netting and laid out along the floor like it was some kind of

precious, valuable carpeting.

Gritting my teeth, I walked barefoot quickly to the other side

of the room. Even though I knew I wouldn’t and couldn’t bleed,

she made sure that I would be able to feel pain. I remembered the

night I asked her why.

“Good boys don’t need to bleed. Blood does not make you

who you are. Pain however, is a necessity to survive in life. If you don’t feel pain you can never excel and become great. Trust me. I

know this more than anyone,” she had said, in a sing song voice,

grinning maliciously. Before I could ask any more questions, she

had then used her screwdriver to start digging up her fingernails, pulling them straight from their beds and exposing the flesh

beneath them. As they poured blood, she laughed hysterically and

then screamed at me to leave her in peace.

Mother always had work to do.

So far I was the only one of her “experiments” that had

survived. I had hoped that it would make her treat me better, but I don’t think she knew how to love or maybe this was her form of

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love.

I pondered this as I walked quickly to the closet that she had

chained and then decided to dismiss this. Trying to understand her would probably only prove to make me as mad as she was.

I reached into the pocket of the old tattered pants she had

given me to sleep in, made of a similar material that almost

matched my skin tone completely, and pulled out one of her

beloved tools. As I held it up to inspect it, it shimmered in the

moonlight that was pouring through the wooden board she had

crookedly hammered onto the windows. She never wanted me to

see the outside world for what it was worth, because she only

wanted me to know what she taught me. She said I would be

corrupted if I knew what happened outside of the window and she

couldn’t take that chance. Still. There would be nights where I

would press my face against the planks and try to catch a glimpse

of the world beyond my room.

Feeling a smile starting to creep across my weathered lips, I

closed my eyes for a moment and thought of the one night that I

caught a small glimpse of life go by. It was something small that

seemed to go in and out of view so quickly. The colors on it

where brilliant and beautiful and I watched it in awe whenever it

came into my line of sight. That night I had crossed the carpeting to the wall on the far left side of the room and sat down on the