A Muffled Existence

I’m not going to begin at her birth, because that’s not really where it all began. It begins here, three years later, in a relatively large room filled with noisy three-year-olds and flustered teachers. In a room with sandpits and bookcases dotted about the place and dolls and cars scattered on the floor. The hyperactive children who abandoned them run around, chasing each other, whereas the more creative children sit with their crayons at a table in the corner.

It’s a merry little scene isn’t it? Full of love and laughter and innocence.

Not for everyone.

For the little girl painting at the easel, this is her own personal hell. Well, it isn’t yet, but this is where it all begins. Today. In a few minutes, in fact. This colourful room of pre-school joy is when little Emily Scott’s bliss little life ends. She doesn’t die, no, but there will be several moments over the coming years where she’ll wish she had. She traced it all back to this moment and spent many long hours hoping that one day she could travel back in time and stop this kid.

The kid in question is the one who, for whatever reason, has just decided she wants to talk to Emily and is now beginning to skip towards her. Of course, Emily doesn’t blame the child for what happens next, for she had no idea how much of an effect her current actions were going to have on Emily’s life. Really, how could she? All she’s going to do, after all, is speak to her. Everybody speaks to each other. It’s no big deal.

Emily doesn’t know this.

The child reaches her destination, stopping a mere foot from where Emily is standing with her paintbrush poised over the blue paint in the pallet. The paintbrush stops moving the moment sound comes out of the other girl’s mouth. Emily’s little body has frozen. She doesn’t even turn to see who has spoken. She doesn’t make a sound. Her little heart starts racing. She feels like she’s about to bring her breakfast up. She wants to cry. But most of all she wants this child, whoever she is, to go away, to leave her alone.

Realising she isn’t going to get a response, the other child leaves. Emily is relieved. Her paintbrush reaches the blue paint. Her heart rate slows. Her breakfast stays in her stomach. The tears in her eyes dry up. But most of all, she’s alone. Much better. What did that girl want anyway? Emily realises she has no idea; she can’t even remember what the girl said. She finds it strange that somebody spoke to her at all. Why did she do that? Talking to people makes you feel like crying, so why did the other girl talk to her?

Emily turns round, and for the first time in her life, she looks at the rest of the children: building things at the sandpits; being read to at the bookcases; chasing each other; colouring with their crayons. She notices she’s the only one by herself.

This is the moment when she gets a strange feeling. Not a good one; a bad one. In later years she’ll come to know it as loneliness, but right now Emily doesn’t have a word for it. All she knows is that it’s making her want to play with the other kids. This really is a strange feeling. Why does she want to talk to other children when it makes her feel icky? Emily’s confused.

She watches a particular group of children. They’re on the floor in front of one of the teachers. The teacher is sitting on a chair and is holding a bear. Some of the girls have dolls and the boys are playing with cars, or tools or doctor’s kits. They’re playing what the kids call “Mums and Dads”. Emily doesn’t know what it’s called, but the children look like they’re having fun and they don’t look like they feel icky. She decides she’s going to join them.

Her feet don’t move. Her little heart starts racing. She feels like she’s about to bring her breakfast up. She wants to cry. Just thinking about walking over to them brings the icky feeling back. So she decides she isn’t going to join them after all. Her muscles relax. Her heart rate slows. Her breakfast stays in her stomach.

But she still wants to cry.

This time, she doesn’t want to cry because she’s scared, but because she’s sad. She can’t make the sadness go away like she can make the scaredness go away so she can’t stop the silent tears from sliding down her face. She isn’t even quite sure why she’s sad, why she’s crying, and that doesn’t help her be able to make herself stop. What she does know, though, is that she doesn’t want anyone to see her cry, because then people will speak to her and she’ll only cry more, and anyway, they’ll only ask her what’s wrong and she doesn’t even know. So she turns back round to her painting and leans her head forward so her blonde hair covers her face.

She needs to cry alone.