Sophie's Retribution

Sophie Mason looked around warily, finding herself standing in the center of a deserted operating room. The bright lights overhead illuminated the shiny metal operating tools and metal table—the table she had just been lying on as the anesthesiologist had her count backwards from ten. She had only made it to seven when her world went dark.

Now she was alone, and everything in the room looked to be untouched, still prepped, sterilized for an operation. Had her worst fear come true? Had she died during her spinal surgery?

“Hello?” she called out and heard her voice echo.

Standing motionless, she waited on a reply that never came in the eerily silent room. Sophie looked around for a door only to find that there was none where there had been before. Something was terribly off and she began to panic, running around the room frantically, pounding on the walls and screaming for help. But her screams were of no avail and she quickly tired from flailing and beating her fists on the ceramic tiled walls. Exhausted, she slid down the wall to the floor and a slight breeze began to flow through the room. Within seconds, it picked up until it blew so hard, she had to shelter her face with one hand, the other hand clinging to her hospital gown to keep it from ripping off her body.

Quickly, the wind began to shift and instead of blowing at her, it centralized around her, until she stood inside some sort of cylindrical whirlwind. She peered through her fingers to try and make sense of what was happening when white objects began to appear and twirl in the air around her. Her mouth hung open in shock as she began to recognize what they were.

Bones—both pieces and whole parts—were spiraling in the winds around her, more and more until the whirlwind was full of them, where it then lifted from around Sophie and settled in front of her. She watched as the funnel broke apart, the bones beginning to piece themselves together, until they formed a human skeleton.

When the wind died down to just a breeze again, it left the skeleton hovering in the air in front of Sophie. If that wasn’t creepy enough, she watched in horror as muscle, ligaments, and skin began to grow and form over parts of the skeleton. With nowhere to go, Sophie stood frozen in fear with what looked like a rotting corpse before her.

“Don’t be afraid,” it said in a gentle female voice, holding out partially skinned arms and hands, a gesture for Sophie to remain calm.

“Wha-hut are you?” Sophie stuttered; her eyes wide in disbelief. “I mean…how is this possible? Did I die? Are you here to take me somewhere?”

 The corpse skeleton answered gently. “No girl. I am here to give you a gift.”

The voice of the terrifying corpse-like lady had some kind of accent, maybe French if Sophie had to guess, but was soft and sweet. Tender. Like a mother’s voice. But it was hard to get over the fact that the voice was coming from something so frightening. Something that she had always associated with Halloween or death.

“What kind of gift?” Sophie finally asked.

“Let’s just say…when I was alive…I went through the same kind of torture, hell if you will, that you endure my dear.”

“What do you mean?” Sophie asked. “Did you have scoliosis too?”

“No. No, I did not have the same affliction that you have. In my life, I suffered from a rare skin disease.”

Even though Sophie felt the partially skinned skeleton to be grotesque, she swore she was able to see sadness in the way she held herself and in her skull-like face.

“I’m very sorry,” Sophie began, then wrinkled her eyebrows in confusion. “So then, what do you mean?”

“Tell me, girl. If there were one thing you could change, something about yourself that could be different, what would it be?”

Sophie answered quickly. “To not have scoliosis.”

“I see,” the corpse nodded. “That would have been my first answer as well. Unfortunately, I cannot help you in the physical sense. Let me rephrase the question. If you could acquire something new about yourself, something within yourself, what would your answer be?”

Sophie looked down at the floor and thought for a moment. But it didn’t take long for her to know what she wanted. She looked into the woman’s hollow eye sockets.

“I’d make everyone that has ever made fun of me pay for what they’ve said about me. The snickering, the whispering, and the rude comments in the halls at school. Like ‘the hunchback girl of New Mills High School’ because of my curved back, or the ‘the robot chic’ because of the way I move with the body braces I’ve had to wear since the age of four, or the way they’ve made fun of my malformed arm and hand. I’m sixteen now and having surgery to help fix my spine. I should be excited, even thankful. But I know their harsh jokes will never end. The kids at school can be so cruel. Especially this one kid,” Sophie said in disgust.

The skeletal corpse woman nodded again. “And that is the exact torture I was talking about my dear. I suffered much cruelty over my skin disease as well. From a child until my death.”

Sophie tried to picture what the woman must have looked like when she was alive. Her accented voice was angelic and made her sound like she had been beautiful.

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Sophie said, then shook her head. “But I don’t understand. How can you give me a gift?”

“Your doctor explained to you that you would be receiving a bone graft from a donor to help fuse your spine. Is that correct?

Sophie nodded her head yes. “An allogenic bone graft, I think he called it.

“Well the donor that you will be receiving from is yours truly. And you see, my family was blessed with a gift. A special gift passed down from one generation to the next. And since you will be receiving a piece of me during your operation, you will receive the gift as well.”

“But what kind of gift?” Sophie asked, still perplexed.

“The gift to make people feel the things you have felt Sophie. The shame and the sadness of being made fun of day after day. The feeling of being alone in the world. You can make your oppressors feel the exact emotions you have felt all of your life, make them understand how it affects people.”

“Is this for real?” Sophie asked. “Do gifts like that really exist?”

“It does in my family,” the corpse said proudly, skin hanging from the arm she crossed over her where her heart should be. “My ancestors are Haitian. I am Haitian American,” the floating corpse said proudly. “It is not uncommon in my people.”

So that was where her accent was from, Sophie thought.

The wind rapidly picked up again and the beautiful voice of the corpse began to sound muffled. “I have to go,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the howling wind. “Whenever someone makes fun of you, when they hurt you with their words, whispers, and mockeries, you just need to utter these words. Pinisyon mwen.”

“Pinis what? What does that mean?” Sophie asked.

“Pinisyon mwen. It means my retribution—”

Before the skeletal corpse could explain more, the skin began to shred away from her skeleton body and her voice became deeper, desperate and impatient. “Say it after me Sophie. We’re running out of time. Pinisyon mwen.”

“Pinisyon mwen,” Sophie repeated.

The wind began to churn and lash at the corpse of a woman, stripping away the rest of her skin. Sophie covered her face with her hands as the remnants of the woman started to come apart with the wind’s vengeance, piece by piece.

Then the wind turned its focus on Sophie. She tried to hold on by grabbing on to a table full of surgery tools, but the harsh winds sucked her into its vortex, whipping her around in its rotating winds, making her sick to her stomach. It happened very quickly, then Sophie’s world became dark and still.

“Sophie are you in any pain? Do you feel sick?” a distant voice asked.

Sophie moaned, could hear herself making the sound as she slowly opened her eyes.

“Sophie, how do you feel?” another voice asked.

Her eyes were sensitive to the bright lights as she opened her eyes. When her vision adjusted, she saw nurses hovering around her, checking her vitals.

“I made it through the surgery?” Sophie asked with a hoarse voice.

“You sure did,” the closest nurse answered, smiling. “Like a champ.”

Sophie smiled back, although the pain and nausea was growing more intense the more alert she became. Her thoughts were of the horrifying corpse with the beautiful voice, in the wind, with the gift. It had all been a dream. She had been told she might have weird dreams or wake up saying crazy things from the anesthesia.

“This will make you feel better,” a nurse with a syringe said, as she pushed medicines through Sophie’s IV line. Sophie could feel the medicine rushing through her veins. It felt cold and numb and wonderful. Her pain and nausea seemed to disappear as she dozed off thinking about how awesome it would have been to actually have the gift of the corpse lady.

Four weeks later, after being bedridden and suffering long nights of pain and misery, the doctor okayed Sophie to return to school. Her recovery from the spinal surgery would be six to twelve months. But with yet another brace, of course, to keep her spine in a straight position as it healed, she could begin to transition back into normal life.

“It’s going to be just like before,” Sophie murmured, walking toward the entrance of her high school. She stopped short of the school’s front door and looked up at the sign. New Mills High School. “Same shit, different day.”

She was used to the stares and whispers. There was occasionally a ‘How are you doing’ from some of the nicer kids, but she didn’t really make any close friends, keeping to herself as much as possible. She had fallen prey to too many pranks of fake friendships that set her up for being the center of a joke. She was used to being alone, used to the comments people made. It didn’t bother her much anymore. Except for one.

Keith Porter. The boy that always had to say something. Out loud to boot. He used Sophie’s twisted body to make his friends laugh, to be a big shot. And worst of all, his locker was just four down from hers. As hard as Sophie tried, it was inevitable to not see him between classes. She had a few classes with him, but at the locker, in the halls, was where he taunted and harassed her the most.

She was almost to her locker on her first day back, when Sophie stopped and took a deep breath. Keith and his friends were gathered around his locker. He would definitely see Sophie as she approached hers. She made sure not to make eye contact with him, with any of them, in hopes of a miracle that they wouldn’t notice her. But no miracle came.

“Hey Hunchback!” he yelled. “I see they didn’t fix your arm.” He laughed, making his arm distorted, mocking hers. “And what’s up with your new brace? Looks like your tits are growing off your back instead of your chest.”

His friends joined in, some doing the arm thing, some imitating breasts growing off their backs. They were so loud. Everyone up and down the halls could hear them, causing more people to stare, more people to laugh, making Sophie the center of attention. Tears welled up in her eyes. Tears of anger. She hated Keith so much. No. She loathed him.

She had been hiding behind her locker door but turned to Keith and glared at him.  Keith caught her gaze and smiled proudly at her.

Filled with rage, Sophie began to think bad thoughts about Keith.

If only the corpse’s gift were true, Sophie thought. Keith wouldn’t enjoy something like being in a car wreck that would make him a ‘cripple’ now would he? She hated the word cripple, but it was what he called her.

What were the words? Sophie tried to remember. Pini…something…men?

“I got it,” Sophie began, “pinisyon mwen.”

Still glaring at Keith, she didn’t realize she had said it out loud.

“What?” Keith asked. “Is the ‘cripple’ talking in tongues now?”

Sophie slammed her locker shut and headed to class. Keith and his friends kept up with their insults until she turned a corner. The rest of the day was long and agonizing. It felt good to be home when the school day was over. Sophie’s thoughts were about asking her parents to be home schooled.

That evening, lying on her bed without her brace, she searched the internet on different home schools. After looking at a few different ones, she signed into Facebook. She did this often, searching girl’s profiles from school, wishing she could look like them, move like them. Scrolling through her timeline, she saw a post about a bad car wreck in the area. No names were mentioned yet about who it was, just that it was a very bad. Bad enough to call Life Flight.

Sophie decided to get a shower and check for updates afterward. When she went back to the post again, it was confirmed that it was Keith Porter. She couldn’t believe it. Surely it wasn’t possible that the words of the corpse had really worked.

The next day at school, Keith’s wreck was all anyone talked about. His friends said that his legs had been pinned in the car and Keith may never walk again.

That would make Keith handicapped, Sophie thought. Like me. Pinisyon mwen. My retribution. She had thought it and uttered the words aloud. Did she make Keith’s wreck happen?

At lunchtime Sophie stood in the lunch line behind three girls who everyone deemed ‘the popular ones.’ Sophie smiled at them when they turned toward her.

They looked at Sophie like she had the plague and started whispering and giggling to one other. Sophie heard one say, “Wonder if that thing will flatten out her boobs?”

“Sophie…head of the itty-bitty titty committee,” another one chimed in.

Sophie filled with rage again. Her lips began to quiver, and tears ran down her face. If the words did work, no one would deserve it more than these girls. I hope they lose all the stupid hair on their heads, she thought.

“Pinisyon mwen. Pinisyon mwen. Pinisyon mwen.”

There. Three times for three nasty girls, Sophie thought as she smiled. And it did make her feel better. She left the lunch line, deciding she was no longer hungry.

By seventh period study hall, Sophie was daydreaming of being able to drive and cut classes, when study hall was interrupted by the school nurse saying she needed Josie Collins to come to her office. When Josie came back, it didn’t take long for the whispering to make it to the back of the class where Sophie could hear. Josie had to have her hair checked from hanging around the same three girls that had made fun of Sophie at lunch. Apparently, all three girls had contracted lice and pretty bad cases of it too. Sophie heard one girl say they may have to buzz all the hair from their heads to get rid it. By eighth period the ‘popular girls’ were the talk of the school and no one wanted to touch them or anything they had touched.

Sophie smiled at the news. Now she was pretty sure the gift the corpse gave her was real. She got permission to go to the library where she would do some searching.

The next week, Sophie walked the halls like she never had before. People were too busy talking about Keith Porter, the boy who would be forever be in a wheelchair, and about how the three most popular girls in school were now as bald as Mr. Clean. Sophie wanted to feel bad for them, but years of being terrorized by them had hardened her heart.

Sophie went to her locker to switch books for class. It was the first day in quite some time that she didn’t try and hide from Keith, from anybody. From down the hall, she saw Keith at his locker, by himself, sitting in his wheelchair with his back to her. She wondered where his friends were now.

He turned at the sound of Sophie opening her locker door. She could feel him watching her, so she looked over at him. He was staring at her with tears in his eyes.

“Doesn’t feel good to be like me does it?” Sophie asked.

Keith dropped his head into his hands and began to sob.

Sophie turned and walked away. She smiled, happy with her new gift. A gift that she was pretty sure was some form of voodoo from her research.

Did Keith deserve what had happened to him? Maybe. Maybe not. But she had no clue at the time, that thinking it and saying the words would make it true.

As for the popular girls, she didn’t feel bad at all.

She might be bent and broken physically, but something new inside Sophie woke up the day she woke up from her surgery.  And she felt better than she ever had before.