A mermaid in the herd

An encounter with reality

Like all little girls, I too lived in a world of mirages, where the little things in life were for me the most beautiful things my eyes had ever seen. I lived in an alternative reality, where colours, sweets and laughter abounded in the crowd.

I will introduce myself to you for a better understanding, my name is Melanie Dariel Frank-Giraldillo. On the surface my ancestry comes from foreigners who flooded this country with their riches, but as time passed, poverty knocked at our door and we were left in the misery of the country.

My story begins long before my birth, when two people decided to join together in a kind of illegal marriage. From them 3 beautiful children were born. However, I invite you to this madness that runs through the memory of my mind.

I was born with only 7 months, longing since before I came into the world to get out of the darkness in which I lived the first 9 months since my conception.

Perhaps I couldn't bear the oneness with my mother's womb and desperately wanted to be separated from her. So I began to show my discomfort by kicking her belly over and over again, until I noticed a rather striking light under my feet. My mother, for her part, decided to expel me like a tumour. The grown-ups mention that I was a beautiful baby, the kind that deserves to be photographed every day of its life.

I had huge cheeks and a very small mouth. I had bulging eyes, like a little owl. Everything in my first 10 seconds of life was really fabulous, until some idiot decided it was funny to smack my ass with his hand a couple of times.

That made me sick with rage, and what better way to show the universe that you're full of rage, than to apply the most obnoxious scream you'll ever hear in your miserable life?

I spent the first days of my life crying. I cried when they fed me, I cried when they touched me, I cried when they left me in my cot without the warmth of their arms. But I also cried when they cuddled me in their warm skin or didn't feed me. I think crying became my muse.

When I began to observe the colours of the world, legend has it that they came from far away to meet this princess with huge cheeks and a tiny mouth.

—Oh, how beautiful is Melanie,— said one of the visitors to my abode.

A tall, wrinkled-skinned woman. She had grey eyes like a devil in disguise. The hypocrisy shone through; she stared at me and rolled her eyes, proving that every flattering word that came out of her mouth as she squeezed my cheeks with those calloused fingers was a total sham.

I didn't want to see that old woman with the gnawed skin again. I cried in rage for my parents to take her away from me, but my siblings used to call her —grandma— and I assumed that I would never not have her presence in my life.

I guess time took its exact course and the months passed. That strong desire to break and touch everything that came my way came into my life. I took my first steps, my mother took me by the hand and invited me to move my legs, one after the other.

Of course, I trusted her completely. She was my mother, the most beautiful woman in the world. The only one who could feed me, bathe me, comfort me. She knew all the reasons for my crying, I simply loved her.

However, that day I was not in the mood to obey her whims and I did not take a single step forward. At that moment something happened, a man, my father, exchanged his hands with my mother's, and now he was the one who had me standing on the ground, wanting to encourage me to take my first steps.

But, I don't think he understood my bad mood either. So I didn't take any steps. At that moment something happened. I knew the greatness of trophies, when he approached me offering me a small round object, with a stick inside. It was wrapped in a red bag.

Deep down, I didn't know what the fuck it was, but I wanted it more than my own life. As soon as I could, I stood up on the floor, as he shamelessly slowly let go of my hands. He quickly crouched down in front of me and began to shout loudly, —Come on Melanie, come to your daddy.—

I felt joy and, most of all, I wanted that fucking red circle. I moved my legs one after the other, a couple of times maybe, and just when I was one step away, he pulled away from me.

I failed every calculation I'd ever made and fell face first to the ground, like the asshole I was. In that instant I knew betrayal and realised that no man can be trusted.

Months turned into years, and here things were beginning to change more than I had ever imagined. My lips were still small and my eyes were still huge, but I no longer had those cheeks on my face that I loved to touch and that, I was sure, had been taken from me by hypocritical and smelly people.

My thoughts were still the same as any child's: games, flowers and lots of colours. I wanted to share my fun days with my older siblings Charlie and Leonie. Yes, I know what you were thinking, my parents didn't have a very active imagination when it came to naming our names.

I was wary of anyone who approached me to ask for them. Smiles were not my thing. The truth is that I imagined that the world would prepare wonders for me, once my breasts sprouted from my body. I would be one of those magazine girls, who have the whole world under their feet.

When I was still a little girl, I realised that the world was not as much fun as it was painted to me in my early years. One morning, my parents decided to brighten my face with sunlight by opening my bedroom window.

A couple of shouts and a command. —Melanie, go take a bath. Today is the day.—

—The day of what?— I wondered at that age when things were never about bad thoughts. I showered, fresh as a daisy.

My mother approached me again, with a box. It was beautiful, lilac, my favourite colour so far. When I saw it I was happy, I thought that finally my mother would give me something to play with and that it wasn't my brothers' things, already used and smelly.

No, it was just a white shirt, with two buttons under the collar. A skirt with huge pleats and white stockings so long they covered my whole leg.

My mother dressed me in that awful outfit, and held my hand.  I saw the world from the bottom up, like any other 1.08 centimetre tall girl. I walked hand in hand with my mother, until she decided to leave me on a bus seat. I will never forget it, yellow, with black stripes and driven by an obese man with a face of more than a thousand bad loves.

I watched as he got off the bus and slowly walked away from me, without even turning around to say goodbye through the window. It was then that I realised that my mother was not a person in whom I should place my trust either, abandoning me without any remorse, in a place with dozens of smelly, badly groomed children.

The man who was driving got up as soon as my mother disappeared into the street. He approached me, put one knee on the floor of the bus and took my small hands.

—You are a very pretty girl. Take this little welcome gift to my bus. —He said, as he transferred a piece of candy from his hands to mine.

Boy, did I judge the man before his time. Now he seemed like the only man I should trust from that moment on. I smiled. I took the candy from his hand and he made a gesture that demanded a kiss from me on his left cheek.

Hey, he was a man who had given me candy, of course he deserved a kiss from me. I pressed my lips together and intoned the future kiss I would deposit on his cheek. The man, flattered, returned the kiss on my cheek. It seemed like a beautiful act at the time.

My spirits rose to joy and I travelled happily on that bus, accompanied by those children of dubious origin.

The journey was somewhat exhausting, as my ears were filled with that roar that is always emitted by those infants who can't stand the heat, the light, the souls in pain that pass through the streets and that you only see through the window of the school bus.

Along with all that, you could hear in the background that unhappy music that the driver played on the horns between the corners of each seat.

I remembered that back then I had no idea where I was going. My mother abandoned me on that bus and didn't even bother to tell me where I was going. For a four-year-old, imagination was her only friend, and mine was something extraordinary.

From that moment on I thought they had given me to another family, or maybe they wanted to get rid of me, sending me somewhere where they couldn't even see me. From then on I hinted at a different life, and the amazing thing about this story is that I took it splendidly.

I would never see my brothers again. In short, I would no longer tolerate that hypocritical look from the woman we used to call —grandmother—.

I looked up and watched through the window as the bus slowed down. I assumed we had reached our destination, but we had not. A girl, taller than me, was standing next to the driver, with curly hair, small eyes and full lips.

She had a dark complexion and was dressed in a different outfit from mine. The girl got on the bus and received the same candy from the obese man. She responded as I had the first time, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

I no longer felt like a special girl. I did it with every girl who got on his bus. Ignoring him, I watched the girl walk, as she reached the back of the bus and looked for an empty seat.

Right next to me there was an empty seat and she decided to use it. As she sat down, she grabbed my hand without my permission.

—Hi, my name is Laleska, what's yours? —she asked me as she caressed my hand against hers.

At that tender age, shyness and I were one. I pulled my hand away and turned back to the window. I didn't answer her question, perhaps I was overcome with mistrust.

She, instead, sought me out for conversation. She told me how old she was, where she lived and that she had five siblings. Something in her voice made me laugh, and I burst out laughing.

Laleska knew how to gain my trust. Although, come to think of it, it wasn't that hard for a girl. As I exchanged my smile with her, a yearning arose to answer her first question.

—My name is Melanie Frank,— I replied, in a very low tone.