Matilda

first time experimenting with macabre

 The chill was unbearable. She lay on the cold, hard wooden floor. The room – dark and musty – had peeled wallpaper and remnants of something black, wet and dripping. Tree limbs played with their shadows on the moonlit walls. A beam of light perched at the window sill and crept through the tattered curtains. The line of light ran along the wooden planked floor and rested on a girl. She was lifeless and she would stay that way until midnight. It was something about the way the moonlight touched her while she lay there on the roughness of the floor. She was pale and fragile. Her night gown, frilled and tattered blew in the breeze. An eerie whisper from the window sent her shooting up from off the creaking floor. Matilda was awake once more.

 

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star,” she sang in a deep voice quite unlike a ten year old’s.

 

Her body was crooked. Her limbs bent like those of the trees outside the window of that decrepit room in that rundown house. Outside the night owls joined her in song while they hunted the smell of fear. Leaves blew in every direction. There was nothing clear cut in the darkness. There were no roadways, no lights like that of the moon and stars; and, most definitely, there was no sign of anyone. Matilda was alone tonight and this made her happy. She twisted herself allowing her joints to fall into place. The child looked almost normal except for the fact that she carried oddity in her palm. Out of her came a legion of voices.

 

“How I wonder what you are…”

 

Matilda lifted her hands and summoned the wind. The windows burst open inviting it in. She gave out a maniacal laugh which awakened the old house. The walls shook and glasses were shattered; then everything came to life. The empty room was suddenly filled with a burst of colour. There were porcelain dolls, wax crayons and rainbow painted walls. Matilda’s illusion had begun. A gramophone resting on a corner table played a nursery rhyme record. The sound – warped. She sang along to the tune and danced in circles. The record suddenly stopped playing. Then she came to a halt. The life drained away from the room in an instant. A thunderous knock was made at the door.

 

Matilda scrambled into a corner. She sat holding her knees to her chest. She stared at the door with her hollow black eyes and rocked from left to right and back to front. Left, right, back, front, left right, back, front, left, right, back, front, left, right, back… f**k! A man burst through the door. His body was thick and he was tall. The man towered over the child like an ogre. Every non-existent bone in her body shook. She buried her face in her knees and covered her head with her arms. He picked her up by the collar of her nightgown almost as if she were a puppet. He was ready to pull Matilda’s strings.

 

The man effortlessly ripped her already ragged nightgown to shreds. He squeezed the death out of her; and during all of this she did not make a sound. She was naked now and he flung her to the ground. Some of her skin was torn away from scraping against the wooden planks. Black blood leaked from the bruises. Without warning she was snatched up again and pushed against the wall. He held her neck tightly and it snapped. The sound was horrid; broken bones and agony echoed through the house. Matilda’s head fell to the floor. The large man did not flinch. Undeterred by the ghastly sight, he let her body fall. He took his pants off hurriedly and tore off his shirt. He looked twice as big in his nakedness as the muscles bulged even more outside of the constraints of his garments. The wind blew violently outside and made the windows shake. The stiffness began to show now that his pants were off. Then he held Matilda’s body under one arm and picked up her head.

 

Placing it to stand upright he said, “Watch me as I f**k you to your grave.”

 

He thrust his thickness into her. He kept doing it and doing it and doing it and f*****g her and f*****g her and f*****g her. He became furious to the point where he snapped her arms and then her legs until he was f*****g a lone torso. Matilda watched the man kill her again. She lived with it for all of her life. This dog, this tyrant, this ogre of a man would walk into her happy room and make it into what it is now. He would come every night when they were all in bed and he would tell her not to say a word. The record always played that one song. And while it played he would hurt her in so many ways. He did it all the time; and when she was ten years old she finally let herself go.

 

Matilda put up a fight but he was much stronger. He fucked her like he hated her and said terrible things to her. She cried and cried but during her struggle she still didn’t say a word. She allowed him to rip her to shreds. The stains of blood dripping from her torn limbs seeped into the walls and into the floor boards along with the blood that leaked from her the first time he put her through the torture of sex. He realized what he had done after he came inside of what was left of her. He fled and was never seen by anyone again. The way he left her was the way her mother and brothers found her the next day.

 

After she died the house was abandoned but her ghost stayed there alone in that room. She stayed there in her death and woke up every night to relive the ordeal that killed her. She was inside her worst nightmare and could not escape; not unless she allowed her spirit to leave. But there was something that forced her to stay. It might have been the way she felt when the wind penetrated her concave eyes; the feeling she felt when she snapped her limbs into place. Or maybe it was the way her memories brought the room to life; or the way the record scratched her favourite song. It was a combination of things. However, it was mostly the way he looked at her after his ecstasy was over. The fright that was in his eyes made him seem small and weak. And when he ran away, her detached head smiled a crooked smile of pain and pity for her loveless perverted and murderous father.

 

“Twinkle, twinkle little star… how I wonder what you are.”

 

Putting herself together again, she lay on the floor the way she was before. She rocked herself slowly. The wind died down, the windows closed and the curtains finished their dance. Her paleness seemed to glow in the moonlight. Matilda went back to death and awaited another night of an insufferable and demented pain.