Your Frown Is My Umbrella

‘Rain rain, go away…’

The single weary ray of sunlight that was shining through her bedroom window seemed to dim with every angry step she took towards it.

‘Come again some other day…’

She practically threw herself to the ground; her tiny fingers clutching madly at the floorboards as she tried to find the one that would pop out of place and reveal what she needed. When her right index finger came across a familiar grove, she immediately flexed her fingers and yanked up the board with her fingernails.

‘Me and my friends want to play…’

The wooden slab was tossed to the side; making way for her eager little hands that dove desperately into the opening the instant the board was removed. She peered past her straggly veil of black hair as she rummaged through the makeshift treasure chest, scanning the dark hole with wide, grey eyes.

‘So rain rain, go away…’

There was Mrs. Harsenic, Mr. Paulson, The Mailman, Sally the Bully, Gert the Jerk… ah ha! Her pale fingers finally grasped the haphazardly-made doll that was meant to represent Daddy.

It was light and flimsy in her grip, and she nearly crushed it in her fist when the familiar burning in her chest began to spread.

The monster was trying to get out again. She could feel it clawing at her throat and kicking in her stomach.

Panicking, little Reign stretched over to the windowsill and plucked a needle out of the rotting wooden frame. Tears blurred her vision, but she merely blinked them away and bit down on her quivering lower lip to stop from crying out. She crouched on her knees and frowned at the Daddy doll that was lying limp in her left hand; staring up at her with ink blotted eyes and smiling up at her with those sinister blood red lips.

With a quick gasp, she stuck the needle into the chest of the doll, biting down harder on her lip when the pin plunged through the fabric and into the palm of her hand like she wanted it to. Ever since screaming into her pillow stopped working (and got her in trouble for making noise), this was her only option.

Daddy said you can’t go to school today. Daddy said you have to stay home and visit with his friends.

She pulled back, and then shoved the pin through the doll again, trying to focus on the prickling pain instead of the monster that kept telling her to scream.

His friends are coming for lunch, and Daddy wants you to say hello. And then they’ll want to take turns and say hello back to you, but they won’t say it with words.

Reign loosened her clamped jaw just long enough to slip her tongue between her teeth. She bit down, blinking wildly as she stabbed the needle through the doll and into her hand again and again and again.

“Stop it!” she wanted to tell the monster. “I don’t want to be mad! I don’t want to scream! I won’t!”

The monster didn’t care what Reign wanted. All it wanted to do was make her throw a tantrum so she’d get in trouble. If she did let the monster take control of her, Daddy would come in. When he saw she was being bad, the anger monster would surely leave Reign and take control of Daddy instead, leaving her empty, sad, and alone.

His friends are coming soon, and they will laugh and laugh and laugh. You’ll ask Daddy to make them stop, but he will just laugh at you. He’ll just laugh at you like everyone else always does.

By now she was humming in that strangled, disjointed manner of someone who is trying unsuccessfully to block out the painful world around them.

Rain rain, go away, go away, GO AWAY! she screamed inside her head.

Her left hand was stinging and burning like she had been rubbing it against the pavement that made up the playground at school.

Only now, her hand wasn’t hurting because Sally the bully had pushed her down, or because Gert had tripped her and stomped on her fingers. No, her hand hurt because she was poking it with a needle and trying to hurt the anger monster out of her.

Daddy is mean to you. They’re all mean to you, Freak. Nobody likes you, everybody hates you. Guess you’ll go eat worms.

The doll had fallen from her hand, and she was blindly jabbing the needle into her naked bloody palm.

Then, at last, the pain overruled the monster’s voice. The heat that had been boiling in her chest like a furnace was melting away, leaving her with nothing but the sadness she knew so well. A long sigh blew past her puffy lips, and she dropped the needle to the floor so she could grasp her wounded hand.

Reign brushed the remaining tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her tattered grey shirt, and blinked numbly at the bloody red dots that seemed to dance in her palm. She slouched forward and knocked the Daddy doll back into the hole in the floor with a sweep of the back of her wounded hand. The back of the doll was stained with fresh red smears, as well as splotches that had aged to an ugly burgundy color that reminded her of the wallpaper in Daddy’s room.

Her knees ached as she reached over to grab the wooden floorboard. She placed the wooden slab over the hole, hiding the dolls in the dark and leaving them to wait. Yes, leaving them to wait for their lookalikes to hurt her again.

With a solemn sigh, little Reign leaned against the wall and cradled her wounded hand against her chest. She pulled in her legs and sat huddled beneath the window of her bedroom, watching as the remaining sunlight was sucked back outside. The room was left enveloped in shadows, leaving no corner brightened and no senses heightened.

In the distance she could hear the subtle rumble of thunder. Immediately after that sound met her ears, it was swiftly followed by the soft pitter patter of raindrops against the pane of glass.

She pulled herself up and kneeled before the window, resting both hands on the wooden frame and watching as the dark storm clouds began to gather in the already dark skies of Gotham. Reign couldn’t help but feel a twinge of curiosity at the lack of sunlight. It was only nearing noon, yet it looked like it was already late in the evening.

She imagined the sun choking and suffocating behind the storm; screaming in silence and trying to push its way through the steely grey prison of clouds that had seemingly solidified into impenetrable walls of smoke.

“Like me,” she mumbled softly, tilting her head up at the sky.

Her nose was runny, causing her to sniffle as she ignored the throbbing pain in her left palm. These wounds would heal to scabs soon enough, and then they would be nothing more than an addition to the dozens of dented scars that had accumulated over the years.

It wasn’t like Daddy would get mad if he saw she had hurt her hand again. Nobody cared to ask what happened, and if they did ask, she would either lie or not tell them anything at all.
A loud bang erupted from somewhere behind her, and at the exact same time she heard a booming thunderclap so powerful that it rattled the panes of glass in her window.

“Rainy!” Daddy’s voice boomed behind her, causing her to wheel around so fast she nearly fell over.

He stomped through her now open doorway and reached her tiny frame in a matter of seconds.

“I told you to come!” he shouted in her face as he grabbed hold of her shoulders and shook her like the etch-a-sketch she had found behind the dumpster the week before.

“You ignored me again!” he glowered, seething and red faced as the devil himself.

His breath smelt hot and sour and made her throat burn when she breathed in. She looked up at him and muffled the miserable yelp that was plucking desperately at her vocal cords.

Strands of his long dark hair were sticking to the ridges of his sweaty forehead like spider legs, and his eyes looked darker than the storm sewer in the street outside their house.
When she didn’t respond, he cracked his jaw and smiled menacingly.

“Just like your mother,” he grumbled mockingly. “Just a big baby, always cryin’ whinin’ and beggin’.”

Little Reign kept her lips sealed shut, knowing that if she was stupid enough to say so much as ‘please’, the consequences would worsen.

“Come on,” he demanded, grabbing hold of one of her pigtails. “The guys are gonna be here soon.”

"But I don’t want to," she wanted to say. "Please don’t make me, Daddy!"

Her feet scuffled reluctantly behind his hobbling form as he led her out of the room by her hair like it was some sort of leash. She heard the front door swing open, and the sound of the doorknob hitting the wall in the kitchen was followed by a drunken, “Y’ellow? Anybody home?”

The dark hallway seemed traitorously short to her now. It was like the house was remodeling itself in order to make sure she got to his friends as soon as possible.

Nothing was ever on her side.

She turned her head back and stared longingly at her bedroom doorway. She gazed at the window and felt her eyes growing teary as the sky shot her a winking flash of lightening.
The thunder cackled through the air, and Reign closed her eyes in dread.

She felt her feet moving on the floor beneath her, and heard the slurred greetings the men were exchanging.

But what she didn’t feel was the anger. No, not yet. Numbness was what her nine year old body required now, and it wasn’t until this day was through that the anger monster would return to taunt her with wicked ideas of fury and revenge.

She heard the men talking, and she let her head fall forward as her subconscious began to chant the only thing that seemed to bring her anything close to comfort.

‘Rain rain, go away…’