She was practically blind when she was born. Her small eyes were set too close to each other. They made her look like a piglet. They called her Mabel. Mabel Anne Brave. Her mother died while giving birth, and her father never forgave her for that. Perhaps it would help to explain those occasional bruises on her arms.
Her teachers never worried, because they knew she was clumsy and had poor eyesight, and was always a bit out of place. She walked to and from school every day, with a giant green backpack and giant blond hair and her giant glasses. They got thicker with each new yearly prescription. If only her father didn't make her turn out the lights at ten every evening on the dot. He hoped it would make her sleep instead of bury herself in books, but it did the opposite. She read by the low light of the streetlamps that came in through her window. Those books were her life. Her friends lived in them, as did her dreams. She locked herself in her room, escaping to the lands of storybooks when her father was stumbling toward her with a heavy fist and sour breath.
Mabel did not do well in school. The teachers assumed she was not very bright, mostly based on her odd appearance. In truth, she was rather smart. Mabel had a wide vocabulary and a large creative base from her constant immersion in books. She didn't bother to interact much with her peers. They made fun of how she looked and how she tripped over things a lot and how she had to walk to school. Never to her face, though. Always in the side-to-side manner, the kind that circles around a person like a snake but never reaches them; but in the rare case that it does, it poisons their every thought and action. Mabel realized that the kids didn't like her, and avoided them. Mabel's school years passed like this up through high school. She did not have good grades, so college was not an option for her (or so she made herself believe). Once she saved enough money, she bought a tiny house for herself in a crowded neighborhood. Mabel began taking in stray cats. The ones who were out in the rain all night, the sad ones with little food to eat. She loved them more than anything. Her cats were her life. She once 'accidentally' adopted a lost cat instead of a stray. It was with good intentions. Mabel wanted to make sure the cats were being taken care of kindly.
One afternoon as Mabel was walking home from her temporary job as a receptionist, she saw a young boy in her front yard. He had his right hand wrapped around her oldest cat's tail. He was laughing and tugging. The cat yowled and hissed. Mabel stopped walking, and a look of horror developed on her face. She looked over to the house where the boy resided, and noticed his mother watching him with the smile of motherhood. Mabel's mind rushed back to her childhood, her father's drunken 'stories' from his own childhood. Her insides twisted and writhed in her chest and stomach, coming to a boil. She began to run toward the boy.
"Get away from him," she yelled.
The boy looked up, somewhat confused. The mother's jaw dropped open. Mabel continued to charge toward the boy. He started getting up and backing away from the cat.
"Come here, Donnie," the mother cautiously called to her son.
The boy started running back toward his mother on the porch. When he reached her, she whispered something involving Mabel and local mental health facility to both herself and her son. They rushed into the house and closed the door, locking it.
Mabel approached her old cat, and embraced him. She began to cry, remembering her father. The crooked cat crept out of her arms and slipped away over the fence. The aging woman kneeled on her dead lawn, crying, and feeling more alone than ever.
