Bear

In this twisted tale, Lucy is trying to move forward from an abusive past. But will her past let her go, or will she need to bear the weight of it forever?

The footlocker was heavy as I dropped it to the junkyard's mulchy ground, but felt it was more so the recollections than the items themselves that weighed so heavily. I rifled through the papers one last time, just to be sure nothing of importance was left inside.

I couldn't take this stuff with me, not anymore. I was to be sharing a room with three other girls just outside of campus. No one would want to have this junk around, not even me.

I had left my mother's house as quickly as possible. Her years of abuse had made it easy, and I found packing up my things to be rather liberating. Even if it meant with boxes of shit I should have left behind.

I looked down into the locker. A birthday card from when I turned eight, a movie stub, a tattered braided string bracelet. Old jackets and a woven blanket. A pair of sneakers. All little things that once felt like really big things. And then - I felt it before I saw it - my old stuffy. A bear wearing a green cardigan, a torn ribbon around his neck. Embroidered along its edge: Theodore.

His golden fur was now a deep brown. His once padded feet were rough and weathered. His rounded nose - sharp and pointed. A lot of love had worn this bear down. A lot of tears soaked into his coat, and many nights gripping him as close as he could get had matted his fur.

Now I held him at arm's length.

I let out the breath kept deep inside my chest as I let go of Theodore and let him drop back into the footlocker. Like I said, I don't need this stuff. Not anymore.

Just like that, Lucy? A voice came from below causing me to jump backwards, my hands digging into the dirt just to get a grip.

Now my breath was apparent; I gulped it in and out, drowning in the sound of the voice I had just heard.

A fur hand gripped the side of the locker before lifting its head to my sightline. The terror I felt became physical; I held the dirt in the grips on my fingers and held my eyes on the button ones of my childhood teddy bear.

Because while here he was alive and staring into me, it was the voice my mother that left his string sewn mouth.

Oh, come on, Lucy, I told you that you couldn't ever get rid of me. He pulled himself from the container, dragging his right leg, stitches torn years prior. He scrambled behind an old mattress, contents of a trash bag spilling out onto the ground.

I stood up, steadying myself between the shallow holes my hands had dug. I followed the wicked bear, noticing the small footprint it left behind.

Lucy! He called. Or she called. I wasn't sure. You'll never be good enough!

The same words she told me nearly every day.

I lost his trail now. I wavered between the piles of other people's trash: old furniture and car parts, black bags and kitchen appliances. I made a left by a microwave and felt the sharp hit of my mother's left hand across the back of my head, the familiar sting of her old wedding ring drawing a bit of blood. But when I mustered the courage to look, there only stood Theodore, his stuffed arm still raised.

Lucy, my mother's voice dragged my name out just like she used to. You stupid girl. Think you're so smart going to college? Always thinking you're better than me. He smiled now. You'll fail. Then you'll be begging to come back.

He fled now and I found myself following. I wiped the tears from my face so he wouldn't see, but the snot smeared onto the sleeves of my sweatshirt. I found myself desperately trying to wipe it away, remembering the fear of quietly trying to wash my piss-soaked sheets in the dead of night before my mother woke.

I fell to my knees. I could hear her now, echoing my very thoughts.

Clean up your face she taunted as I saw myself hiding in my room.

You're so pathetic she scoffed when I came home from my first date.

You'll never be good enough she laughed as I sent in my college applications.

Every good thing I ever did she construed into a personal offense.

Now I stood. I heard a familiar giggle and rounded the corner to find the bear sitting patiently on an old tire, his good leg kicking playfully. He suddenly looked tattered where he was once terrifying. I felt I could finally see him for what he really was: a worn-down piece of my past. He was someone I once felt I needed very badly, who never truly loved me back. He was just a teddy bear.

So, I dragged him back. Through the dirt and the piles of trash left behind for no one at all. All the while she screamed. But I dragged and dragged and dragged, until I found us back at that wooden footlocker. I opened the door of it, the hinges barely hanging on, and for once I screamed back.

I screamed how I hated her, how I wished I had anywhere else to call home.

I screamed that I'd build a new life, one that she could never touch.

I screamed that I'd forget her, that she'd never again bear any weight on my thoughts.

Then I slammed the locker closed and sat back. And I wanted to open it, I wanted to check to be sure it was done with it.

But I knew because it was ever so loud.

The silence of the footlocker.

Katie Lilljedahl | 2022-06-13