Lolita, My Angel

My dear Lolita...at last, you are safe.

When you were born, your mother and I wept. Not because we didn't want you, oh we never had a thought akin to that. We sobbed for hours, and what might have appeared to have been joy to others was a deep pain in our hearts. For you, my angel.

My Lolita, when you tried to breathe for the ﬁrst time, we knew that there was nothing we could do. We knew that it had already begun, and that there was not one single thing that we could do to prevent it. So we tried to stop your breathing. We didn't want you inhaling the ﬁlth of this world. We knew that you wouldn't understand, but it was for your own good. But you wouldn't stop breathing.

No matter how intensely we smothered you, no matter what we used to try and break those little lungs of yours, you wouldn't allow it. Deﬁant from the ﬁrst, you wouldn't allow us to save you. To free you from this world. You wanted to go on living- to be alive in this despicable place. And we allowed that. What had we done?

You grew, you grew, you grew. Into a lovely little girl. My lovely little girl. My angel. We had to keep you inside for your own good, we had to teach you about the world and how everything was out to get you. And you took that to heart. You knew that this was true.

One time, I remember it fondly, you actually tried to open the blinds. Before the tainted light could hit you, we made sure that they didn't open. It was better in the dark. You had to understand that our happy home was the only safe place. With us. With your thoughts. Your loving parents and your rebellious thoughts.

One day when you were eight years old, you crawled up to me and pulled on my pant leg. You asked me why you weren't allowed to go to school, in that gurgley and high-pitched voice of yours, and I just laughed.

"Because, my angel, the world is a dangerous place. You must stay here and be safe with mommy and daddy forever."

You wouldn't take that as an answer. You went and asked your mother, you little bug, and she had the nerve to come up to me and complain about the life I had given her. She said that she wanted to see the sun again, and I told her that the sun was reserved for those awful things outside. For those...monsters. She told me that she might want to be one of those monsters, and I just looked at her.

"Women," I cried, "always so deﬁant!"

She couldn't take no for an answer. Neither could you. Oh, you two were plotting something. Against me. I knew that you, my little thing, were the essence of what I hated in this world. That you had caused this change in her. That the minute you came along, with your deﬁance, things would change. I hated change.

Your mother didn't love you. She didn't love me, she didn't love herself. She wanted to ruin herself. Just like you did. You two said that you wanted to "live" and to "experience life." Was the outside really so bad, you both asked? Neither of you knew. Neither of you knew what was out there! I had to protect you from yourselves.

I dashed into the garage to ﬁnd something, something I could use to help you. I found an old pair of hedge clippers, rusted and mangled from lack of use. I had to save you two from yourselves. Your mother was still screaming at me, still crying out against what I had done for you both. She didn't understand anymore- you had made sure of that! I plunged those instruments of retribution straight into her eye sockets, and oh, did she scream. But it was a purging scream- the evil was ﬂowing out through it. It was a start.

I opened and shut the giant pair of scissors again and again within her sockets, and as her hands and feet ﬂailed from the purifying pain, as her sockets widened and her nose was cleaved in two, as her eyeballs were scrambled within her skull, I thought that she might ﬁnally be able to see what it was I was trying to tell her.

But she just lay there. Her face was so mangled, so horrendously mutilated- but her body was pristine. Too bad it was only a husk. I thought again of when you were born, about our mission to save you. How we had failed. You were obstinate, you didn't want to be saved. But I knew why. I realized why you had survived the purifying.

Every time, every single time we tried to save you from this world, your mother was the one doing the procedure. She must have been going easy on you. She must have held that pillow a little too loosely, must have held you in the scalding bathtub too short of a time, must have driven those nails just short of your little brain.

But there is no mother now, Lolita. There is only you and I, and soon there will be just I. You weren't strong enough to live in this cruel world, you were too small and trusting to protect yourself. I held my clippers fast, and you stood your ground. You looked me right in the eyes, looked at me with that look you always gave me. Deﬁant to the very last, Lolita. But now you can't give me that look any longer. Now, you're puriﬁed. Just like mommy.

One day, ﬁlthy men from the outside came to take me. They burst through the door and called for me. They had to be puriﬁed as well- I tried to get the hedge clippers, but the men were too strong. They came to take me away, to take me into the light. To take me into the ﬁlth. They said I get one call, and I wanted nothing more than to talk to you...To see the fruits of my struggle...

But Hell hath no number.

And the dead tell no tales.

It's the living we have to worry about.

We can do some horrendous things.