#estheraria

They say they feel the pain of it. When looking into an artist’s rendering of an instance. Splayed out on a canvas. They separate themselves, the onlookers, they fill themselves with an other’s suffering driving out the suffocation of their own.

The illustrator. Has managed to harness his own chariot race. He takes the reins of pain, of a heart wrung dry, flaking suffering in specks down onto an artist’s safe. The box where he locks away the onlookers, his emotions, trapped in the grip of a canvas.

He steps back, eyes the canvas with tension. The weight of his own passion, without onlookers outside the two pain- filled eyes of the artist’s. Yet these serve as the strictest judge of his suffering.

Ulises was relentless. He was powerful. No one dared to stand against him. Say what you will about children, but from what I’ve seen they’re not much different from adults. Yes, their worlds might be a bit smaller, but they are still worlds. Their emotions are still emotions. Cruelty is cruelty. And fear is fear. And Ulises dished out both with extra helpings from childhood on. And so Mia was cut off from the start.

Fast forward ten years. I was nearing the end of my high school career and Mia...  well, she wasn’t the same helpless little girl anymore. Life had hardened her. And she didn’t hesitate to let it show. Her hat was so tall it skimmed the doorframes of every classroom she walked in. And Mia bore it with a kind of pride. Her eyes flashed like glowing steel as she made her way down the hall. She was known by every name you can imagine. And she lived up to those names with a vengeance. Everyone at Avera High knew the stories of Mia’s weekend exploits. You name it, Mia had done it. At least, that’s what everyone believed. Me included. It only took one glance of Mia, gliding down the hall, eyes judging, mouth smirking, to know without a doubt what kind of life she was living.

I do remember though… this one day.

In the middle of my senior year. I had left class to go use the bathroom. I walked in, and as I reached the first stall I heard a horrible noise. I can still close my eyes sometimes in an empty room and hear it. There was a gurgle, and then retching. The sound of something sloshing into the toilet. Great racking breaths. And then a sob. A sob so full of pain it turned my stomach over just listening to it. I was frozen by it. The sob. It tore at me. Then, as I was standing by the stall, frozen, I heard the toilet flush. The door smashed open. And then Mia’s diamond eyes were drilling mine. Full of such hatred, such anger, such… pain.

“I…”

My mouth didn’t work. Without a word she moved past me. “Mia, I –”

But she was gone.

I turned back and looked around the bathroom. Frantically searching the dank walls, the chipped tiles, the dirty mirrors, everywhere, expecting there to be a change. Some testament to the event that had just taken place. Some evidence to justify the rapid beating of my heart. But there was nothing. No proof besides her sob’s echo in my ears. Did it really happen, that sob? Could a diamond, a cold-hard stone, really have made such a desperate sound? Even now… I’m not certain.

I never told anyone about The Bathroom. And Mia and I continued never speaking. Never looking. Never existing to the other. I graduated. Went to college. Met my husband. Started a family. And forgot her. At least, that’s what I told myself. But sometimes, at night, that sob would echo through my dreams. And I would wake, stomach churning, heart pumping, in a cold sweat.  I never told my husband what it was that scared me so badly. I just let him put his arms around me, comfort me, love me, until I slept again.

Until, that is, the night that changed everything.

to be continued

But this story isn’t just about the hats. It’s about a girl I knew. A girl whose life was more affected by the hats than anyone. Her name is Mia. And she wore the tallest top hat in Avera.

Let me just start out with this. I knew Mia but, no, we weren’t friends. Mia – well – Mia didn’t have many friends. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that Mia didn’t have any friends. No one would have admitted it out loud, but Mia wasn’t someone many parents wanted their kids to be friends with.

I remember the first time I saw Mia. It was the first day of school my second grade year. She was just starting kindergarten. Her hat wasn’t so tall then, not by adult standards. But it was enough that she sat in the back with the other taller hat kids. It was strange, I remember thinking, she didn’t act like most of the other Tall Hatters: teasing and bullying the other kids, interrupting the teacher in class, nothing like that. She was quiet, she kept to herself. I remember though, thinking how much she reminded me of a diamond. Mia was beautiful always, even then. All the girls in high school hated her for it, hated because the boys loved it. But back in elementary school, I saw her and thought “diamond.” Overlarge gray eyes stared out from behind a curtain of white blonde hair. Eyes that were full of ice. Eyes that could cut through you like you were nothing. Because, as I learned later, those are the real attributes of diamonds. They’re nice to look at and all, but they’re stone cold and—when used correctly—they can cut anything into pieces.

There was a school bully during those years. Ulises Diaz. The kind of kid who used the same hands to bring a gift to his teacher as to tear out kids’ hair on the playground. The same mouth to simper sweetly during class as to dish out violent insults in the hallways. The same smile to shine on the lunch lady in order to get him an extra snack in the lunch line as to bestow on a student, cornered and alone, before he began his torment. And from the minute Mia stepped foot onto Avera Elementary soil, Ulises took a special interest in her. In short, Ulises took Mia’s life and shattered it from the bottom up. To say her life was a nightmare would be too gentle. With nightmares, escape comes with the sunrise. But for Mia… for Mia there was never an escape. Ulises began his war when he boarded the bus in the morning and gathered all the other riders around to laugh at Mia’s worn out clothing and holey shoes, continued through lunch when he stole from her whatever pitiful amounts of food she’d brought for the day, and ended with a scathing insult that rang through the halls along with the final bell.

He was relentless. He was powerful. No one dared to stand against him. Say what you will about children, but from what I’ve seen they’re not much different from adults. Yes, their worlds might be a bit smaller, but they are still worlds. Their emotions are still emotions. Cruelty is cruelty. And fear is fear. And Ulises dished out both with extra helpings from childhood on. And so Mia was cut off from the start.

to be continued

There’s this town. I guess, the only way to describe it is as being somewhere far, far away. It’s small. The kind of town that isn’t marked by a road sign or anything if you’re traveling. The kind of town most people just, pass by. But—as it normally goes—to the people living within its borders, this little town is the world.

In it, there are houses filled with families, streets lined with stores, a post office, a fire station, a library, the Mayor’s office, a school. The people there go to work, pay their bills, laugh with friends, and go home to sleep in their beds every night. A nice normal little town…

Of course. There is one thing that isn’t quite so normal. In this town, every single person, big or small, young or old, boy or girl, wears a top hat. All day. Every day.

Now. Let me get one thing straight. The story I’m about to tell you, it isn’t some fairy tale. Every detail of it is true. I should know. I was there. Avera was my world. My name’s Ruth, for what it’s worth, and I have a story of how these hats dictated the lives of the people of Avera. Because you see, what we wear, they’re not just hats. They’re your life on display for everyone to see. The hat is a symbol of every wrong thing you’ve done in your life. The taller your hat, the more mistakes you’ve made. And every single person knows it. I mean, it’s not really something you’d point out to someone’s face. More something that’s discussed behind their back. The hats influenced your life. In many ways the hats were your life. A summary of it anyways. A summary of all of your wrongs, your mistakes and, really, that’s how most people evaluate their lives anyways, right?

But this story isn’t just about the hats. It’s about a girl I knew. A girl whose life was more affected by the hats than anyone. Her name is Mia. And she wore the tallest top hat in Avera.

to be continued