It's Not Me, It's It
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Alice was five years old in dance class when It first started talking to her. Pink dress stretched over its lumpy body, hollow eyes staring: an ugly version of her in her ballet outfit. It whispered that she shouldn’t do her performance that weekend; she would embarrass herself in front of everyone. Alice tried to protest, saying that it would be fine, but It started shouting at her and wouldn’t stop.
‘Mum. I need to quit ballet.’
‘Why?’
It hunched in the shadows in the corner of the room, long toenails poking into the lino. Alice thought about telling on It. But It shook its head slowly, threatening.
‘I just don’t want to dance anymore.’
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Alice grew used to It’s company, whispering to her, stale breath making her retch. It told her to be especially careful to make sure that bad things didn’t happen to her and the people around her. So Alice was extra careful. Everywhere she went, It would always be lurking. It followed her around, grabbing her wrist with its icy fingers when she was invited to go to a sleepover because it warned her that bad things might happen there, that her parents might be gone when she comes back. She became scared to leave the house in case it was telling the truth. She begged It to let her go but, no matter what, It wouldn’t stop.
When her mum did manage to drag her outside eventually, she offered to buy Alice ice cream, and Alice burst into tears because It told her that she would get food poisoning if she ate it. Alice wanted to have the ice cream and a nice day with her mum so badly, but she couldn’t make It be quiet. Alice’s mum looked at her as if she was crazy.
‘Alice, I don’t understand. This is getting silly now.’
Alice wanted to scream that it wasn’t her fault, it was It, but her mum wouldn’t believe her. She couldn’t see It.
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It got more threatening. Everytime Alice went to eat It would grip her throat and she couldn’t swallow. It would tell her how disgusting the food looked until she felt sick and couldn’t face eating, and she started to get thinner. She became exhausted from staying up every night doing school work because It told her that she was going to fail. Alice became unrecognisable. People were asking her what was wrong, but when she tried to tell them what was happening, It shoved its bony hand over her mouth to muffle her voice, silencing her cries for help.
When Alice tried to sleep It sat on her chest with its full weight and she couldn’t breathe, her heart would race until she would scream. Still, no amount of pleading or reasoning could make it get off. Tears would spring from her eyes but It was unmovable, like a mountain.
Alice felt exhausted, and she didn’t know how much longer she could put up with Its threats.
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Alice met Lucy in school, and to her surprise, Lucy had a creature too. Lucy’s looked different to hers, It trailed behind her, distracting from her work. Lucy told Alice that it made her miss school some days because it would perch on the end of the bed and mutter that Lucy was not good enough to do anything, that no one liked her, that she had no future. Sometimes, It would even hurt her, tell her that she would be better off dead.
She said ‘it makes me feel so horrid some days I feel like there’s no point doing anything.’
Alice understood.
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Lucy said that she had told her parents about the creature and they believed her. She told Alice that her It was quieter after telling and her parents were trying to help her get rid of the creature. Alice couldn’t believe it. As they were talking, Alice looked over at the creatures standing together. They stamped their feet and waved their fists, but it was as though they were behind a glass screen, unable to interrupt when Alice and Lucy were talking about them.
The girls began to spend more and more time together, relishing the time with the creatures behind the screen. Alice felt less alone knowing that someone else had a creature that no one else could see, that said mean things. She felt relieved that her and Lucy could face them together, forever.
Laura Brampton is an MA Gender, Media and Culture student who writes in her spare time and specialised in Creative Writing in her undergraduate degree. She likes to write about uniquely female experiences and the relationships formed between women that can help them in overcoming their obstacles.