From Hurt to Healing

Excerpts: From Hurt To Healing, Mona Villarrubia

 One of the suggestions for healing I came across in an abuse survivor’s guide was to write a fairy story and in that way to get in touch with your feelings through symbols. That was when I met Ogre.  I found myself writing a horror story. A gothic, children’s fright story.  It wasn’t until I was in the hospital that I saw what Ogre looked like. …

 OGRE—A FAIRY STORY

            Once upon a time there was a small girl named Urs. `Urs’ was short for Ursula, but Ursula was too pretty a name for her, or so Ogre said. Ogre knew lots of things, especially whether a child was pretty or ugly. He had a particular fondness for pretty children; they tasted the most tender, he said, and he should know—he had eaten hundreds. It followed, therefore, that if Ogre said Urs was ugly he must be right. And so Urs had believed she was ugly for as long as she could remember remembering anything at all.

            Sometimes it seemed to Urs that she had lived a thousand years, but then she would look at her reflection in one of Ogre’s enormous serving spoons and she would look so small. She knew that she was no bigger than a normal human child because on the mornings after a successful hunt she would have to clear away the clothes belonging to the children Ogre had eaten. Ogre always took off their clothes before he ate them. He said it was because the clothes got stuck between his teeth, yet the sneer on his face when he told Urs that made her suspect that there was another more important reason.

            Even though she was the size of a child, she knew that she was not like these other children. She had a terrible secret: she was deformed. You see, recently she had begun growing lumps on her chest, and Ogre had noticed and had started to make fun of her, saying that he had never seen anything like them and how lucky for her that her parents had abandoned her when they did, so they would not have to know her shame. It didn’t help that the clothes Urs found did not seem to be made to accommodate such lumps.  So again she believed Ogre and felt the shame. Her parents were indeed better off without her, she thought.

            The truth of the Matter was that Urs was not ugly at all. Ogre needed her to believe in her ugliness so she would not be tempted to run away. That would not suit Ogre. He had become quite accustomed to the help around the castle. So whenever Urs asked about her family and how she came to be with him, Ogre would tell her this story:

            When she was born, she was so ugly that her parents were ashamed, and so they decided to kill her. They took her to the woods and abandoned her there for the wild animals to devour. No one would ever know she had been born, and no one would know shame at having created her. Luckily for her, Ogre had been going home later that evening, after a successful boar hunt, and had heard her pitiful cries. When he saw how small and ugly she was, he felt sorry for her and decided to take her home and raise her. He knew that she could never be raised in a human family because her ugliness would scare other children. He knew he was the only one who would be willing to take care of her, being so ugly himself his stomach was not easily upset by her looks. Or so his story went.

            Urs always felt deeply sad after hearing this story. She wanted to find her parents and try to make them love her. She thought that if she offered to stay hidden in their home that perhaps they would let her live with them. She longed to be with other people. She had never felt a human touch, and sometimes her body would ache with loneliness. She had dreams, sometimes, of a woman’s voice singing and a kind face with smiling eyes looking lovingly into hers. Then she would wake up with a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach as if she had lost something precious. But her dream was just a fantasy; no‑one had ever loved her, and no‑one would.  She was gross. Deformed. Her family did not want her.  Ogre said she should be thankful that he had found her. He would never throw her out to the wild boar—as long as she did what she was told.

            Ursula’s days were spent fetching and carrying for Ogre, cleaning up his foul‑smelling castle and cooking small animals to satisfy his insatiable appetite, especially on days when the hunt went badly.  It was hard work because Ogre was three times the size of a man, and everything he used was big and heavy.  Yet Urs had grown accustomed to hard work. It was all she knew.  And so the days passed by in unrelenting drudgery.  But the nights were even worse than the days.  Urs hated the nights. Every evening just before night would fall and the castle would descend into menacing darkness, Ogre would call her to him and list his complaints about her work and then explain her duties for the following day.  Then before dismissing her he would warn her not to think about running away.  She was just too ugly to be accepted by any human family, he would remind her, and she would not survive the woods, for the boar would cut her to pieces the first night.  And, just to make his point, he would force her to look at her distorted reflection in a piece of misshapen metal and then laugh to see her cringe. However, that was not the worst of it.

            Before letting her run to her room and escape—as she so dearly wanted to do before the corridors became filled with night—he would give her his last warning.  Lowering his voice and placing his face down close to hers, so close she could smell his rancid breath, he would smile a leering smile and hiss,

“Remember to lock your door, Urssss, because who knows what my night will bring.  I may come home so hungry that in the dark even you might smell tempting. Ha, ha, haaaaagghh.”

            A cold shudder would run through Urs from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes.  She would look in his burning, red eyes and at his drooling lips and slowly back away to the door.  It always felt as if she were moving in slow motion as if her legs were weighted down to the floor. She wanted to run, to run and run.  As soon as her hands felt the door behind her, she would turn and, stretching up on her toes, lift the latch and stagger into the corridor, hoping that he was not behind her.  Running, she would hear Ogre’s voice echoing in the empty stone hallways.  An evil sound, a half‑crazed laugh that would turn into a roar as Ogre worked himself into a hunting frenzy. Reaching her room, her heart pounding in her throat, Urs would quickly reach up and bar her door. Then, while some light still allowed, she would search under her bed and behind her drapes looking for any sign that Ogre had built a secret entrance without her knowledge.  There were many such passages in the castle from which he would spring on unsuspecting guests lured to his home to be his dinner. And so every night she would check.

            Finally, exhausted, she would lie down fully clothed under her meager covers, too tired and too ashamed to undress, even in the dark.  But she would not sleep right away.  She would listen for noises along the hall as Ogre went on his nocturnal hunt.  Would he come tonight?  Would she wake to feel his hands on her and see his burning eyes? After what seemed like hours of fearful anticipation, she would sleep.  Yet even in her dreams Ogre pursued her, and the silence would be pierced by her screams.

          So passed each night.