The Archive: Short Stories and Poems

The girl’s fingers fumbled with the knot of fabric behind her head. It was tighter than any of the other knots she had dealt with. Her parents used to help her whenever she came home from school with a new knot, but they started getting too busy to put a little time aside to help her when she needed it. Eventually, her parents ended up tightening up the knot in the gag when they thought they were loosening it.

She didn’t get why people gagged her. She was only expressing her thoughts and sharing her ideas like people always told her to do. She always raised her hand and answered when the teacher called on her, but a gag would be placed on her if she answering incorrectly. Sometimes the gag was tied on her if she was the only one answering the questions correctly when no one else volunteered. Even when she stood up for herself or for someone else, they tried to silence her and most often, they succeeded.

Most of the time, it was her classmates who tied her up, muffling her so that when she did need help, she was unable to ask for it. She never saw them treat any of the other children the same way they treated her. They laughed and pointed at her or they whispered little things behind their hands as they stared her down when she was standing alone and defenseless. Every time she could feel their cruel little words and their nasty snickers prickling her chest, the gag came back over her mouth and tightly tied itself around her head. Each and every time, the knot would be more complicated . The longer it stayed on, the tighter it got.

The worst was when one of her friends took part in gagging her. It would happen so suddenly. They would be playing like they normally did, all laughs and smiles. Then someone else would say something and her friends would leave her or turn against her and mock her like the other children. It feeling it brought was similar to someone pouring a small amount of sand down her throat before gagging her. Slowly, recess and free time weren’t as fun anymore. She was even afraid to say anything on her mind around her friends in-case they would tie knot tighter than any of the others.

The girl’s fingers were numb from failing to loosen the knot. Her throat burned from her tears of frustration and the lack of breath she couldn’t breath through her nose alone. She had tried crying out from where she was on the floor, but the cloth damp from her saliva captured her voice all too well.

She had done her best to be kind and friendly and try to fit in, but it had never done her any good. People would do something to silence her every time. She never could get the gag untied all the way when she was little. Now in her adolescent years, things only got harder as people grew harsher. She couldn’t remember the last time the gag had come fully off nor the last time she got it loose enough to breath freely and comfortably. She had been partially suffocating for so long, she became used to the struggle. She still starved for freedom to breath, but she just couldn’t grant it.

Giving up, the girl let herself fall to the floor. She let herself cry as much as she wanted, because she knew no one would hear her muffled sobs or pleas for help. No one had heard from her for a long time.The gag and her silence had become too much a part of her that no one even thought that anything was different. She doubted she would ever be able to change that, because it’s difficult to untie a knot you can’t see. It’s even harder when no one even knows it’s there.