Grendel - By Sasha

An exercise in writing backwards, posted in the correct order for your reading pleasure.

“Do you like me?” I ask.

“Mommy says nice girls like everyone,” Grendel says with a shrug.

“But do you like me?”

“Why are you acting so weird?”

“I’m not acting weird. You are. You’re always weird. You’re wrong. That’s why you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“You didn’t bring me here to play, did you?”

“No, I didn’t. I brought you here to fix you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You all hate me, but it’s okay. I’m not wrong, you’re wrong. You’re broken,” I tell her. “You’re pretty on the outside but rotten on the inside, that’s what everyone says. I’m going to fix you.” I step closer to her, looking at her with my brown eyes, backing her against the fence.

“I don’t need fixing,” she says, raising her arms. “I don’t hate you. I love you. We all love you.” She’s babbling. Talking nonsense. Telling lies. “I’m not broken. Nobody’s broken. We’ll play with you, I promise. Just come back to the playground with me and I’ll make them all play with you. Suzie and Ben and Davy, we can all be friends.”

I pull out the knife. She stops talking.

“This isn’t about me, it’s about you,” I say. “I’m doing what’s best for you.”

“No, please, stop –”

I spring at her, stronger than I’ve ever felt in my life. For once I’m glad that I’m fatter than her because I can push her to the ground easily, landing on top of her and pinning her legs. She looks up at me, helpless, and I feel like everything I’ve ever done has led up to this moment of sudden clarity. The knife dangles from my hand precariously.

“Don’t hurt me,” she whimpers, tears rolling down her pretty white cheeks. “Please.”

 

“Everything will be better this way, I promise.”

The knife comes down and it’s easy to hurt her. She’s hard to break but I push through and open her up and she lets out a gasp of air and everything is how it’s supposed to be for a second. Then she opens her mouth and screams.

In a moment, the world breaks open into shards of glass, and behind the painted brown trees and green grass I see everything the way it was meant to be, in shades of scarlet and crimson and ruby. I can finally see Grendel as she really is, just a toy that needs to be fixed. I’ve already started and if she would just stop making that hideous noise that hurts my head and fogs my vision it would be so much easier. She writhes and squirms but I’m on top of her and she can’t get away. Her face is like a china doll, like a white china doll with painted red lips and painted blue eyes and a trail of blue tears painted on its pretty white cheeks. She won’t stop screaming and she needs to stop so I put a hand over her mouth and it works for a while but it’s harder to fix her when I can only use one hand. I keep trying, seeing everything clearly through the ruby lenses of this new world as I pick out the parts of her that are wrong and toss them on the blood red grass.

Finally, she stops moving. She’s never looked more beautiful. Ms. Turner and the other moms and dads always said Grendel was a beautiful girl with ivory skin and pale hair. Only old Mrs. Johnson, Davy’s grandma, she always said Grendel needed more color, and I think she’s right. I brush Grendel’s cheeks with my hands and paint them red, spreading the color around until her skin shines a perfect pale pink. I brush her hair back and put a dandelion by her right ear. I stand up and take a deep breath. I know she’s more beautiful because I made her that way.

The air smells, I think, like something I’ve never smelled before. Maybe that’s how they find me. I can see it now – I see the other children running around the playground, chasing each other in futile circles, playing the games that I never understood. Ben reaches out to grab Suzie, but just as they meet he stops, nose in the air, stops and turns and the others follow like a pack of mindless sheep, shuffling across the grass. The first time I want to be alone is the first time they decide to look for me.

That’s how they found me, I’m sure of it. That’s why they’re coming toward me now, Ben in front, leading his dull herd through the grass and past the bushes into the little corner I’ve found. They line up in a circle around me, not too close but close enough to see.

Their eyes are fixed on me, and I don’t know what to do so I stare back at them viciously. If I look away first they will win, so I refuse, I keep staring at them so they know I have won and they have lost. They’ve never looked at me for this long before, staring at my dirty hair, my torn blue dress with little white flowers, my hands – my red hands. Perfect Suzie with her bouncy yellow hair and round red cheeks gasps.

“What happened?” she gasps, pointing at the girl lying by my feet.

“Poor Grendel’s had an accident,” I whisper. “So may you all.”