It was just the kind of day when you feel your spirits sink to its lowest, right down to your toes. I could not help but feeling like a caged bird, one with the broken wing at that. I doubted that I could even fly out to embrace freedom, if I were given the chance. Was that not a tad too pitiful for words?
Whenever I sat down to think about the possibility of living a better and more fulfilling life somewhere out there, these thoughts often jumped at me, like a prowling tiger does to its prey. Unwelcome and uninvited, they would come in a mad rush, turning my days into a series of long, dark, meaningless nights that never seemed to end.
Seeing the world from the windows of this place, everything seemed so bleak and unpromising.Thus, I found myself wondering, would grey skies have been better if I viewed it from another place and another time?
I often pondered on questions such as this. In fact, I thought about them so often that I even had a name for them. I called them my would-it-be-better-if questions.
Would it be better if I were born as another person? Would it be better if I had not survived the ordeal when I was younger?
Glum questions indeed for a young child. But it was just as well, because I was nobody’s child. I had no permanent home, never had one in fact ever since I knew what a home meant. And I never had a family; a father who doted on me, or a mother who loved me more than life itself not to even mention the presence of brothers and sisters, who would root for me should the need arise. The only warmth I have ever felt in short ten years of life was the warmth that came from watching sad movies from the small, colour television in the room. It seemed the only window to the world out there for us kids which one that told us countless of the pain and suffering and enormity of love in other people’s lives.
I never really understood the intensity of emotions when I saw a mother crying for her lost child in those sappy movies that I had chanced to watch thus far. What had it been like for my own mother? Did she cry when she gave me up?
Worse, would she still remember me? I had never dared wander that far in my musings, lest old wounds should bleed once again. It was that obvious, even to the mind of a child. I was an unwanted baby, plain as that. And I had come unbeckoned for, barging into the lives of my parents like a hurricane or a parasite. That was why, I was ended up here, where I was.
I never knew my own life history except for what Nurse told me when she was in a mood for hurting my feelings and putting me down.
She had no compassion for homeless children like me did not matter as much as the words that she said. It had hurt so much the first time I heard it from her that I had run into my room and cried for days on end. It still hurt every time I was reminded of my fate even after I had grown up considerably since the first time, and despite being constantly reminded that big girl don’t cry.
I wonder, why my existence then? I was cursed child.
I was six years old then, I only knew that I was bad. Not only that, I was bad and unwanted. The kind who denied a happy home because she just did not deserve it no matter what she did to redeem herself – that was I.
Everybody here, or so it seemed, had a story to tell. A sad story. A tragic story. A twisted story. A story that nobody knew until in a strange way or another, it came to the surface when that fragile resistance to remain anonymous and unknown broke apart, and out came whatever atrocities that they had suffered and kept in their hearts for far too long.
However,I felt thankful for their presence and warmth.
From the years of experience, I could fathom how the hearts would go aflutter with apprehension and dread as I neared the large mahogany door that led to the hall of the orphanage, how it would be enveloped into a darkness so deep that no light seemed to penetrate it, literally or otherwise.
WINFREY MANOR
For years, it had represented the horror, sadness, loneliness and pain that I had felt with no boundary.
. I knew I should not complain. After all, I was cursed and unwanted child.The whole place could be at tatters, but I would still be happy if I had someone whom I could pour out my heart to when times were low, at least someone who would seem like an image of a mother or a father. Nonetheless that was far from being the case. At least we would feel more like humans, rather than animals that they had chanced to meet on the streets.
Yet, bless their souls. It was hard to explain. I still felt that tug a heartstrings whenever I saw happy families living in beautiful houses on the television. That created a certain longing deep inside of me that was so hard to describe. Sadly, up till today, all those happy visions remained but an unreachable dream, the all-elusive picture of perfection that could only manage to survive at one place, my head.
There were some of us who were lucky enough to be adopted by good foster parents, although chances of that happening were slim to none. We seldom heard of children from the manor being adopted and then forced into prostitution, stealing or other vice activities.Thus, it had filled us with mixed emotions each time we heard that one of us would be adopted.
Yet, it did not stop me from dreaming about the day when I would be part of a nice little family – when I would have a roof over my head to call my own, and when I would finally belong somewhere here and no longer be a nobody’s child. Such was the extent of my misery here in Winfrey Manor.
So I began to fantasize about the days when the things would begin to change for me. I read the book once that said, when you’re down at your lowest, the only way you could go is up.
Question and harmless imaginations began to take place in the realms of my head.
How would it feel to step out beyond the reaches of this orphanage where I had spent all my younger years? How would it feel to go to public school and meet other people who were just like me? How would I feel to go for shopping trips and picnics and family vacations? How would it feel to be somebody’s child at last?
As I crouched down on my knees to pray that night, I had the strangest presentiment that I would soon find out.
My presentiment on that dark, August night had turned out to be just another daydream. Winfrey manor had received a call from a couple who had wanted to adopt a little girl. It seem that they had looked over the files of everyone in the orphanage, and had finally decided to choose me to be their darling daughter.
Me, from the array of good looking, obedient little girls in the orphanage.
It was an occasion that I would never forget. I remembered clearly my emotions when they had broken the news to me. I had been summoned to Matron Brown’s room after having dinner with my friends. When Nurse Amy passed the message that I was to see Matron Brown immediately. I turned in time to see fear in the eyes of my room-mates and my other friends who were sitting close to me. The whole dining room seemed to have fallen into an unnatural silence for a while. A hush, whereby one could almost hear the giant clock at the front of the canteen ticked.
Tick. Tick. Tick, it went. As did my heartbeat. They were all terrified as I was, I could tell.
"Come in,“Matron Brown said in her deep, man-like voice, and I obeyed.
“ A couple has expressed their interest to adopt you,” her voice penetrated into my reflections without warning. The furniture and the paintings instantly fluttered away from the horizon into the back of my head.
What did she say? Had I heard her right?
“You heard me, girl. Don’t think that I have not read into your thoughts about wanting a life out there far from Winfrey Manor. Well, you’ve finally got what you wanted, “ Matron Brown said somewhat tonelessly.
“I….” my voice trailed off
I did not know what to say, or what to feel now that it had come. Was I supposed to jump merrily with joy? Or pretend to feel nothing? Or worry for my fate that I would be taking my first shaky step out of Winfrey Manor, which had been my only home since infant?
I wanted to smile but I felt it was inappropriate.
I feel an ounce of shame for not being grateful enough for what I was offered here in Winfrey Manor. Being a cursed child, I guessed bad-tempered nurses and sardine-packed rooms were all I deserved.
Yet, the deep-seated hunger in me to belong to a family came back in full force. I realised I was only a step away from all my childish dreams and fantasies. I did not trust myself to speak, so Matron Jones keep on talking.
“It’s a big world out there, girl, if I say so myself, Ashley. You have never been out there alone on your own. The Wilson’s are great people. You’ll be safe, with them, you have my word for it. And happy, too. I trust that they will take their responsibilities a step further and provide you will all that you would need and so hungry for. Possessions, space, comfort and love, above all.”
I realised that she was trying very hard to choose the right words to say to me. It made me rather touched that I was deserving of such attention and my eyes misted over for a while.
“Be sure to take care of yourself, girl. Don’t let anybody do to you the things that they should not. Just remember that if anything, if anything goes horribly wrong out there, you can always come back here. You smell or hear or see or taste any sign of trouble, bolt quickly. Come back here, you hear me?.”
“Yes, Matron Brown,” I replied dutifully.
The warmth of her words broke me down. I ran to her and wrapped my skinny arms around her. She was probably the closest anyone could ever come to in place of a mother. I wonder why I never saw that before.
“Thank you, Matron Brown. Thank you very much. For everything. For the things that I never knew you did for me, and for giving me this golden opportunity to begin my life once again,” I finally said through tears.
That evening, at the moment of leaving. I looked up to the second floor, to my room. Mary, Paul, Sara, Jane and Sam were huddled close together with their noses squashed against the windows in trying to get a better look at me
I stifled a laugh and then turned into a cry and mouthed “Goodbye.”
I waved a little wildly, a little too excitedly, and saw that all the other windows were filled with their faces of everyone who had become so familiar to me throughout the years.I waved again, wondering when I would see the again.”Goodbye” I whispered."
In fact, I was like a new born baby. Stepping into a whole new world. It was like a rebirth, a chance to live all over again. Yes, a chance to live all over again and happily, too.
