Everyone has a past. And everyone has a story to tell.1
What has happened to me might seem strange, unusual, maybe even unbelievable. But... it is all true.2
I was burned alive.3
This is the story of what happened after.4
***5
From the beginning of time itself (or maybe, just when I was born), I never knew what was a normal family. 6
I didn’t know how it was like to grow up in a home where you have two parents who dote on you, who give you love and care and everything in the world. 7
I didn’t know how one could feel safe and comfortable in their own home because... yeah, well, since the very beginning, the feelings I could call my own were that of fear and pain and fear, and more pain. 8
There was nothing I could do about anything, and everything that that woman who calls herself my mother did to me, I took it in with gritted teeth and clenched fists.9
I never thought about running away, about seeking help because... yeah, I didn’t know that it would be possible for a life to be without such constant elements of terror and pain as mine had. I didn’t know how a normal, safe life feels. I didn’t know.10
But then, what happened that night changed everything.11
It killed me, it brought me back to life, it threw everything I’ve ever known upside-down in my face and... I think I really died.12
She took the kerosene and doused it over my body, and set me on fire. 13
She was my mother, and she set me on fire.14
She set me on fire....15
And I still shudder to think of it now.16
It’s been over ten years; I’m eighteen now; I haven’t seen her for eight years...17
But I’ll remember what happened to me forever.18
***19
I was sitting in my room, staring at the broken dollhouse that used to belong to my sister. 20
She hasn’t been back in a while, and I had sneaked into her room for a quick look around (as usual). I was always mesmerized by that quaint dollhouse placed right in the centre of her room. It was a Victorian-style solid-oak painted beauty, and though the roof was slightly cracked and the wallpaper had turned yellow, I still liked it a lot. Actually, I felt strangely drawn to it. It was as if there was an ethereal presence that was calling out to me. Something that reminded me of the essence of my sister. 21
My sister...22
I jerked my head up in shock. I thought I’d heard something... 23
I blinked and stared at the lace curtains fluttering gently in the breeze coming into the room. There was nothing. The house was entirely silent.24
I laid myself down on the floor and peered in at the miniature lives of the little dolls living in the dollhouse. Inching slowly towards them on my stomach, I pushed my face nearer and nearer to the cosy interior of the house.25
It was my alternate reality, my faux life. A safe and warm world where I could inhabit without the likes of screaming abusive mothers and dead fathers haunting me. 26
I stuck my face right in the entrance of the dollhouse and smiled stupidly in.27
There was a hard rap on my left shoulder blade. 28
I scrambled up, but it was too late... 29
Her vile face, livid with rage, loomed into my view before she unleashed a solid blow to the side of my face.30
I screamed. I thrashed. 31
She slapped me again, harder this time. Then she yanked my hair and dragged me out of my sister’s room. 32
I screamed louder, then I stopped.33
She was swaying uneasily on her feet and her face was beet-red and bloated. That was a sign of trouble. 34
I stood there and shook in the darkness, praying to anyone and anything that was willing to listen.35
I couldn’t see what she was doing. There were some rustling and tinkling sounds and suddenly, a splash of something cold hit me right in the face.36
I gave a great shudder, but I remained silent. I thought she had thrown water at me. Water. That I could deal. After all, she had thrown far worse things at me. 37
She suddenly gave a loud cackle and a small burst of light appeared in my face. 38
I blinked rapidly. “Mommy?”39
There was no response. The light flickered and died out.40
“Mommy?” I whimpered again, feeling ridiculously fearful this time. 41
Another wave of cold liquid hit my diminutive, squirming body.42
“Mommy... Mommy...”43
I was still calling for her even as the first ball of flame hit my face.44
***45
There. That was my story. My past. My shameless, horrifying past that I’m so ashamed of.46
But that wasn’t the end. That was just the beginning. 47
I was found by my uncle two hours later and had suffered approximately 60% burns to my whole body then. And my face? My face was gone. 48
***49
I went into a coma and didn’t wake up till six months later. And in those six months... 50
I know how stupid it must sound to you now.51
How stupid it will sound to anyone, anytime. 52
But it was the truth. The truth of the truth of the epistemic truth. 53
***54
The night I was sent to the hospital, I was stuck in the operating theatre for 24 hours straight (no, I didn’t know this because I’d travelled out of my body; my uncle had told me when I’d woken up).55
I had a dream. Or I thought I had one. 56
I went into the dollhouse and I met my mom. 57
I mean, I was one of the baby dolls... who had a mother. Who had a father, a brother, a sister, an uncle too. Just like me. I mean, just like how I would be, if my father hadn’t died, and my sister hadn’t left home and my brother... well, I don’t know what’d happened to my brother. 58
That first night, I spent a really lovely time with my “family”.59
When I left (I’d to go back to the hospital), I bade them a teary farewell, and promised I’d be back the next night.60
The next night... I tried to go back. I really did. But I couldn’t. I... landed up in another house. It was the wrong house. There was a different family there. Two grandparents, one father, one sister... but I’d a really fun time there too. It was so great—I could almost believe that they were my real family... So I bade them farewell again and...61
The routine repeated itself over and over again, for the next 100 days.62
Then, I think, three-and-a-half months later, was when the doctors realized they couldn’t grow my face back. The rest of my body had healed pretty well, but my face... well, my face... it was still a lump of shapeless ugliness. It wasn’t a face but more like the backside of Frankenstein. 63
My dollhouse routine stopped that very night. 64
I stopped visiting my faux families from all around the world. I stopped having tea and biscuits with welcoming, warm dolls. I stopped having my taste of having perfect, happy families that I could call my own. 65
Because... I’d to go on a search for a face. My face. 66
It was the utmost imperative at that moment, because without a face, I was... no one. Nothing. (But okay, I don’t think it made much of a difference because I didn’t feel I was anything particularly, even before I lost my face.) I was a nobody hanging onto life by a fraying thread at that point, and I didn’t even have my face. 67
Thus, I began on my nightly journeys to... find a new face. 68
***69
It began with a visit to my sister. 70
I didn’t know where she was before I went into my coma, but after I was comatose, I found her at a small neighbouring town. She was doing odd jobs to support herself whilst she continued on with her studies. Art and design, if I don’t remember wrongly. That was her childhood dream anyway.71
I looked at her asleep in her tiny room, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. 72
She was snoring gently and there was a corner of her blanket that she was holding in a death grip. I smiled down at her.73
I didn’t want to take her face—she was my sister, remember? 74
So I left. 75
***76
As you’d expect, my new routine carried on for quite a while. 77
I drifted from place to place, visiting relatives and friends and acquaintances alike... trying to find a suitable face, trying to find a mould like my own... but I couldn’t. There was something in me that didn’t want to take their faces anyway. 78
I wasn’t cruel. I might have grown up without love, but I wasn’t evil. I wasn’t like the dark places that thrived when the light couldn’t reach in... I was okay; I was me. 79
I’m just an alright kid. I still am, I guess. 80
If I couldn’t find a face, I’d just have to spend the rest of my life in that vegetative state. I could go back to visiting my doll families and friends and... have a pretty good life being un-alive. It sounded like a good plan to me. 81
I decided to tell Whoever It Was that I’ve given up on my search, and I was perfectly contented with living the rest of my life in a comatose state. At least, I wouldn’t be beaten up anymore. 82
***83
So that night, I slipped into that halfway state between dreaming and wakeful consciousness and entered that world... 84
And I saw my mother. 85
It was the first time I’ve seen her since that night. 86
I peered down at her, taking in her sunken, sullen face and noting her twitching eyelids. She was sleeping, but she wasn’t sleeping too well. 87
There was a light breeze drifting in through the tiny bars of her jail cell. 88
I sat back on my haunches and watched her sleep. One second, two second... Tick tock, the clock goes. 89
I swallowed, and shut my eyes tight. 90
A really horrible thought had flashed into my mind. 91
I tried to push it out of my head. 92
The stubborn thought popped right back in.93
I opened my eyes—94
And screamed. And screamed. And screamed.95
No one could hear me (I wasn’t there, remember?).96
I screamed some more. 97
Oh, the horror. 98
My dead father was staring me right in the face. 99
***100
Make it go away!101
Take it take it take it I’ll take it!!!102
I blinked and thrashed and twisted and yelped and... 103
“Okay... okay... little girl, you’ll be okay now...” 104
My eyes flew wide open. There was a white masked face peering down at me. I opened my mouth to scream—105
“Hey hey... it’s okay... I’m your doctor.”106
My brain told my mouth to shut up. So I did.107
I blinked. I twitched my nose. I moved my jaw.108
Oh holy hell—I’d a face!!109
“You’ve a face now...” White Mask reached out one long, gloved finger and traced the contour of my cheekbone gently. “Brilliant work done. Brilliant reconstructive work.” The side of his face twitched and I knew he was smiling. He leaned back and bellowed to someone. “Hey, come take a look—the little missy has woken up!” 110
***111
And that was it. Doesn’t it sound just amazing?112
No? You’re confused? You don’t know what happened to my mother? Well... I haven’t seen her for the last eight years... because last I heard, they’d carted her off to the psychiatric ward after... she had tried to tear out her own face.113
***114
She was insane, you see. Clinically insane. Legally insane. 115
She couldn’t be charged for all the crimes she had committed against me. She couldn’t be held responsible for what she had done. In the eyes of the law, she was innocent. 116
But justice has a way of finding you. Justice has long arms that sweep the world in search of the guilty, waiting to embrace them in its retributive, punitive grip... 117
She was my mother. And she burned me. She burned my face away.118
She had to give my face back to me. 119
I am nothing without my face.120
I touch one fingertip to the centre of my forehead, and trace the smooth, unbroken skin down to the bridge of my nose, to the top of my lip, to the edge of my chin. 121
I am my face.122
My face is me.123
She gave me life, but she took it away.124
She gave me my face, but she destroyed it. 125
It’s only right that she returned it to me someday.126
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