Cardie Boy (a teeny weeny story)

[Alfie Wiltshire Phillips]

When he was presented to the parents in the maternity ward, no one really knew what to say. His arms were far too long and dangled away from his body. His skin was ever so soft but his face was marked by stitching and a great deal of it was held together by buttons. You may find this odd but, disregarding the incredibly unusual state of their newborn child, the couple returned home to prepare for their sons future life.He didn't really fit in at pre-school and the other children tended to take advantage of him; swinging his fabricated body above their heads and using him to clear up the odd glue or paint stain. It took some time before his parents realised that the educational establishment was wrong for him. They spent huge amounts of money to afford their son into the best schools, but that only seemed to make things worse. Now, the abuse was not only physical. That, they knew he could handle. But it started turning into a game of the mind. The boy began to struggle seeing his place in the world.Their son became so very withdrawn and they began to worry for his general well-being. They talked to the headmaster at the school about his problems, and quite swiftly it was remarked that the predicament had been solved. Assuming their son was now free of his torment, the couple began to turn a rather blind eye on the situation. You see, they were expecting another child (a girl) and right then that seemd more important and as we all know it's far easier to ignore one problem and labour over the other. At least right there and then, anyway. That sinking feeling the boy felt, that had been so easily dismissed by all that he could trust before, returned."Why am I here?" he asked himself increasingly often. In a way that fails to concern the amazement of life itself and rather the fact of a pointless existence.The boys life stumbled on and the abuse he recieved only renewed and worsened with each week. With no one to turn to, he could no longer rely on a stable society, or a stable life at all. It was on a Tuesday afternoon that the couples son decided that enough was enough. He returned home took a pair of scissors from the kitchen drawer and proceeded upstairs to his bedroom.His parents too busy thinking about the financial complications of having another child.The boy locked his door, slowly closed his blind, crawled beneath his pale bed sheets and took the scissors to his seems. He ran the blades from his chest to his shoulder to his wrists to his neck to his mouth. Snipping off every button with a clean cut from the stainless fingers."What's left of my life?" he whispered to himself. Quite ironic though, how the last thing he thought of was the future and, in the end, the last place he had decided to be.4 hours later, his mother opened the door to the boys bedroom. Calling his name as she did so. The handle turned and as the wooden panel pushed on into the room and the air from inside came rushing up to greet her she came upon the site of her dead child. The woolen knit unravelled until all that was left was a mass of soiled threads.I'm sure you can guess what happened next..It's quite sad really. He only wanted someone to listen. Understand him. But in the end he could barely manage to understand himself.