Image: Furgur@Deviant Art

A Girl Called Gift

When she was born, after years of trying, her parents considered her a gift from God and so attached the name Gift to her.

Years later when I met her she was in the isolation ward of the Mental Hospital. She was there because she was dangerous to others and had to be kept well out of reach of anyone.

Gift was a beautiful girl, possessing flashing black eyes and a smile like no other. Her appearance was part of the problem, she would lure you in with her ‘charm’ and before you knew it chaos was happening around you with Gift at the centre enjoying every second.

Gift was deemed a character with a dark soul. It was no one’s fault, her parents had been assured, some people were just touched with evil and there was not much to do about it but keep the rest of society safe from them.

For Gift it happened in school. Seemingly up until she hit puberty she was a normal child, sweet and innocent, doing the things any girl would do. She loved playing with dolls, she was helpful to her parents, she made friends and played sport.

But once in high school there was a marked difference in her. She became argumentative, she stole things from her classmates, she stopped playing sport, she started reading books about the dark arts.

Her parents noticed all this at first and thought it was a growing phase she was going through. But things began to disappear, like money, food and worst of all the family cat.

Gift learned to feign innocence, to use her eyes to convince any accuser she could not have possibly committed anything they were accusing her of.

Then she started to manipulate her class mates, girls were found out of bounds with no explanation, Gift was caught smoking in the toilets, she became a regular visitor to the Principal’s office as she made a habit of disrespecting her teachers and causing mayhem in most classes she attended.

Her parents in disgrace and embarrassment moved her to different schools to no avail.

They sent her to counsellors who were convinced that Gift was fine. She left each counsellor she visited with a report more glowing than the previous one.

Soon people began to understand Gift’s power to manipulate and control anyone she came in contact with, and eventually she was incarcerated in the mental hospital. For everyone’s good!

When I met her she was in a room with a large glass wall through which I could communicate with her. No one was permitted to get within touching distance of her. All her needs were met through the glass and through a small outlet next to the door.

Seeing me, her eyes flashed and a smile came across her face as I realised from the word go she was setting in motion a plan to manipulate me.

There was no doubt she had the appearance of a girl, innocent and incapable of letting butter in her mouth.

She was charming and co-operative, but that was how everyone found her.

An hour later I stood at her room outlet, laden with chocolate, chips and bottles of drink. The nurse on duty looked amusingly at me.

“She got you eh?” he said watching me stuff my shopping through the outlet.

“Pardon?” I replied as I woke from my dream.

Looking through the glass I saw Gift collecting her winnings, then she looked at me, winked, and threw me a kiss.

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2018/01/28/sunday-writing-prompt-239-its-all-in-the-title/