When I was born, I did not cry.
My brother said that was because I was very, very good. Only very, very good babies did not cry. Only very, very good toddlers did not cry. Only very, very good children did not cry.
That was how I knew I was not Soulless.
I was far too good to ever be Soulless.
And then, at six years old, I broke my arm and not a tear dribbled from my eye and my parents inclined their heads, looking at me from a new angle. They spoke in my father’s study when the moon was high and believed I slumbered in my bed. Magnus peered in through the crack of the door, listening. My parents asked each other questions: what’s wrong with her?
“Nothing,” Magnus had said when he saw me tiptoeing behind him.
He took me into his bedroom and turned us to his mirror and scrunched up his face, pointing to the anguish he displayed. A mask. He pulled on the emotion as one pulls on a hat.
“See.” He pointed. “Practice in the mirror and eventually it will come natural to you. Wear it at the appropriate times so that it will make people feel more comfortable around you. You must learn how to display emotion. You can’t let others know you don’t feel things, it makes them uneasy.” He fixed a strand of hair to tuck behind my ear. “Now, do you know the word, ‘empathy?’”
It was not that I did not want to cry, it was just that I did not see the point of it.
As it seemed, there were four reasons in which people cried: physical pain, harassment from others, lack of personal fulfilment, and death.
If I scraped my knee, then pain would arise and pain was only a way of your body interpreting what had occurred to you. Soon, medicine would come and so would a bandage and the pain would flee, and the wound would heal. Pain was only temporary. What was the point of crying over temporary things?
Bullying. When the gang of girls at school mocked me, I stared back, blinking. Unjustified opinions were useless and most indubitably from young children. I saw these girls as only human; bags of flesh and bone and blood walking around this earth. They were fragile. If a bus ran them over, they would be squished and disgusting. Why should I care what a squished and disgusting thing was saying about me?
Lack of self-love? Oh no, I’ve never had a problem with that. What a waste of time.
And lastly, death.
After my parents’ midnight conversation, they told six-year-old me that I should see a doctor. Magnus held my hand. He squeezed. The appointment however was never made. Two weeks later, my parents died. A Soulless had crept into their room and stabbed them both.
When they were lowered into the ground, the thought of being orphaned was a terrible thing. At six years old I still needed proper care. But when Magnus told me he would raise me, that easily fixed my dilemma.
There was nothing at all to cry about.
“I’m gonna rip your fingers off one by one.” The woman smacked the bars of my cell for effect. “And I ain’t gonna—”
“I am not,” I said, correcting. “Ain’t is not a word. Well, I suppose it would be a colloquial word.” I rubbed my chin. “So perhaps it is still appropriate for you use it. Oh, I deeply apologise, I interrupted. Please, continue. I am listening.”
“You stuck up—”
“Ah. Sorry. Your time is up. Thank you so much for stopping by. I will take all you have said under consideration. Come back again soon.”
She slugged off and a man took her place.
Now that I was suitably in my private cell, I was unable to leave it as I was considered violent towards other inmates and prosthetic limbs. Though I could not leave, it did not stop me from obtaining a mass of guests. As it seemed, the entire two hundred inhabitants in Ricker did not like me and so they wanted to lecture me on their philosophies regarding our future. Mostly ways in which they were planning to kill, torture, maim or assault me.
Too many hoarded around my cell at once, their voices a mix I could not understand and therefore I did not show fear. To remedy their problem, they decided upon a new system of standing in line in an orderly fashion along the hall. One by one each inmate came to intimidate me in timed intervals.
I obliged, sitting at the end of my bed, legs crossed, back arched and ensured I gave each one my full attention.
It was vitally important people feel heard. Not ‘be’ heard.Feelheard.
“Princess…” the voice of darkness and death resonated down the hall. “Princess...Princess…”
My shoulders pricked up to my ears.
Dig Graves continued to slither his nickname for me down the corridor. Whenever he did, everyone shunted themselves up against the opposite wall and did not dare look in the direction of his cell.
It was easy to ignore him. My guests kept me busy. Many promised me death. Five described the way they would decapitate me, three men masturbated, and a woman told me about God being a lizard.
