Dear Diary,12-24-1918
It was cold; very cold… It was the middle of December so it was obviously cold. There was no fire in my bedroom. There was barely anything in my bedroom. There was the bed that creaked and threatened to fall to pieces whenever I sat on it, the wardrobe without doors and the bedside table with a candle on it. I sat on the floor. It was also cold, but it was more comfortable than the itchy woolen blankets on the bed where the lice lived.
I knew what was coming. And there was nothing I could do to about it. My father… he didn't accept me. The way an animal may reject their offspring at birth, and refuse to take care of them. It was natural. I understood him. Who would want me anyway? I wasn't pretty. I wasn't tall and I didn't have the perfect hourglass shape that was required for all women either. I didn't have the excuse of blonde hair or blue eyes either.
I was exactly four feet and ten inches, with long raven black hair parted in the centre. I was skinny, to the extremes. I wasn't soft and slender. My skin was pale and my bones stuck out in most places. I suppose I could be beautiful, if was taller and more mature looking. But small people were never beautiful, they were cute. My face was an upside-down egg shape, with a pointy chin. My eyes were inhumanely silver and they reflected light. People were scared of me.
I didn't really understand the point to life anymore. You live and then you die. That's it. There is nothing else to it. There is nothing in between life and death. There is no way to cheat death. You don't go to heaven. You don't go to hell. You aren't reborn again. You don't live the same life again. You simply die. It's not the next chapter of life. There is nothing in death. No peace and no war. There is nothing.
I stood up and walked out the door to find Cynthia, sitting and crying on the top step of the staircase. I smiled weakly and sat down beside her. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. She cried into my chest and held tightly onto my shirt.
"What is the matter, chérie?" I whispered into her ear.
"They are going to lock you away, Mary… toujours et à jamais!" she cried harder. Tears were soaking into my old grey dress… my only dress.
"Mama doesn't want you to go… but Papa called on the asylum… there is a carriage coming tonight to take you away!" her grip on my dress got tighter.
Cynthia was going to be far more beautiful than I. Her hair was very soft and curly. She was slender, but her body was still one of a child's, seeming she was only ten years old. She had sapphire blue eyes, as deep as the oceans. Her skin was pale, with a hint of rose in her cheeks.
My stomach cramped at the though of being in the asylum. I had heard of it. It was dark there. They cut off all your hair and they would give you shock treatment to cure you. I didn't want to be trapped in the dark. But that was all my future contained at the minute. I shivered at the thought.
I had seen the carriage coming. I had seen myself screaming, trying to get out of there hands. I had seen myself failing. I would be carted of and thrown in the dark for the rest of my life.
Only because I could see things… things that other people would never be able to see. I could see the future. But the future changes, on the decisions people make. My future had been decided. The future was an unfair fact of life.
"I'll come back, Cynthia," I said to her in a small voice.
"Avez-vous le promets?" she asked me, her large, deep sapphire blue eyes staring into mine.
"I promise, chérie."