[SPEAKER_03]: Outrageous creation's media presents, it in anecdotes, and out of the tales, created by GM Stepniewski.
[SPEAKER_03]: Other tales, like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I listen to the jabber of my mother as she goes back and forth with a seamstress, knowing the squabble will eventually end, but a what cost.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm growing, the tops of my shoes visible under the ham of my dress.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is easy to tune out to gaze at the frosted windows of the store at the cobbled streets around me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The rest of the world moves quietly along down the streets, not paying any heed to what is going on inside this musty, rundown store.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one ever comes in here, except for those who belonged to the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one my mother refuses to part with, despite everything that had happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: The seamstress pulls it too tight, eyes not on the notches, lining the thin strip of fabric, but instead focused on my mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something about payment, haggling, I do not care.
[SPEAKER_00]: that is never going to happen, of course, not until I am covered, nape of my neck to the souls of my shoes.
[SPEAKER_00]: [♪ music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background
[SPEAKER_00]: Our father's hands, the leaders of our church, made sure we were not left starving, but it would not matter much if they did.
[SPEAKER_00]: The rest of his body cared little for us, and so there was even less hope for a husband for me, not that I dreamt of marriage or life with a man at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our numbers had been dwindling for a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: It seemed like every day more and more of our siblings fell away, and raptured by the words
[SPEAKER_00]: They seemed lighter, they're clothing different, more suited for the weather and personal preference.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mother told me it was easier the way we lived.
[SPEAKER_00]: One dress, no options, more room in our minds for our father's hands to shape and guide and mold us in his image.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as I grew, her words became harder just while though, I didn't want that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted the normalcy that others lived so easily, deep inside where even my father's eyes could not see, I craved it desperately, but with my mother, nothing would change.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the more I grew, the harder it got to keep those feelings inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually we finish.
[SPEAKER_00]: The jingle of coins hits the counter, harmonizing with the bell on the door as I'm escorted back outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: I try to keep my head down, keep my wandering eyes contained, but the longing inside of me reaches a fever pitch.
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps my dress was too tight to cinched around my stomach for the words rattling around my body to stay inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: I make the mistake of saying something.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sentence that I utter matters little, what does matter is the defiance that attaches itself to the meaning, how my simple request of no longer attending services with her means that I hate her, despise her very existence, that every step she has taken in raising me was wrong and turned me into something nasty, unrecognizable, something not her daughter.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am surprised it took her this long to realize.
[SPEAKER_00]: The words barely leave my mouth, but the reaction is immediate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her hand grabs hold of and squeezes my arm as she drags me home, stumbling over the hem of my dress the whole way.
[SPEAKER_00]: The divots she presses into the flesh of my arm ache by the time the front door slimes closed, but they do not release until we are much further inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: She pushes me into the middle room, the small one that I call my own.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hear the sickening walk sound in the door as she traps me in, the pinging of the key as she curls it far down the hallway.
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite my screaming, the rage of my fists against the splintering wood of the door, she would not let me out.
[SPEAKER_00]: She seized the anchor having brewed the whole way home and finally finding its way to crawl out of her mouth.
[SPEAKER_05]: A child does not disobey her parent.
[SPEAKER_05]: You do not disobey me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do not disobey.
[SPEAKER_00]: I plead seeking to calm her fury and talk about this rationally.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I allow her grace, agree with her words, perhaps she will hear me out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I simply ask a request, and might not allow to make a request.
[SPEAKER_00]: The weight of her shallow breathing tells me my plan to negotiate is not working.
[SPEAKER_05]: a request, is that what we call blasphemy now?
[SPEAKER_05]: Trees in against his very hands?
[SPEAKER_01]: You surely cannot expect me to stay to exist in this house where this dress creates a rock in the ground for the rest of my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can feel myself growing both desperate and numb the fury she spits attempting to extinguish whatever flame of defiance that flickered within me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are allowed to let me go.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am asking you to begging mother, please.
[SPEAKER_05]: I shaped you.
[SPEAKER_05]: From the moment you took root in my womb, I built you, created you, and this is what I receive in return.
[SPEAKER_05]: You would choose to discard him to discard me as if it all meant nothing.
[SPEAKER_05]: As if the blood I have shed, the blood I do shed no longer exists.
[SPEAKER_05]: I am capable of making my own decisions.
[SPEAKER_00]: I refuse to drop it, to give in, roll over, and bear my twisting stomach in submission.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will not let my lack of bite be interpreted as defeat.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am of age, being my mother does not give you final say over my actions.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me choose for myself what I want, what I believe, how dare you, how dare you speak to me like that.
[SPEAKER_05]: You have no idea what I have done for us, what I have done for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her voice slips under the door like oil, crawling up my skin, and staining it black.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you stay?
[SPEAKER_00]: The voice falling from my lips sounds foreign to me, something not my own.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not know why I am asking what is possessing me to do so.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fingers are broken.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is not real.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know of the traveler.
[SPEAKER_01]: Know that you have heard him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't you listen?
[SPEAKER_05]: that thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's so called wisdom that it's spread like poison, seeped into the weak and pulled them from his righteous grasp.
[SPEAKER_05]: I saved you from that.
[SPEAKER_05]: I will not let my hard work go to waste.
[SPEAKER_00]: She brings her fist to the door, rattling it and sitting shockwave through my body.
[SPEAKER_00]: The walls of the room stalk around me, cutting closer and closer to where my feet rest against the barewood floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I pull my knees further to my chest, feeling the sting of splinters in my souls, I will have to dig out tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Though I wish to be far from her, from her words, from her house, I curl closer to the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a sick comfort, like gripping a knife as blood pours from my palm, keeping me grounded as my head starts to spin.
[SPEAKER_00]: She speaks more bitter and angry and scared, but it doesn't register.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't think, can't open my eyes anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't quail the earthquake rippling under my skin.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cry loud wailing tears that never seem to dry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even as I hear her move from where she sat parallel to me, I do not deter.
[SPEAKER_00]: As the whispers of exhaustion creep up my spine and slither into my brain, pulling my eyes shut and weakening my neck, they slide down my face as a burning reminder
[SPEAKER_00]: all that I cannot do right, all the hope of escaping, leaving as they stain the thick wall of the dress I am bound into.
[SPEAKER_00]: My stomach churns as sleep claims my unwilling body.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the early morning, once the stiff ache of my bones is enough to rouse me from my fitful slumber, I pull myself up and try the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: It opens, and I make my way to the kitchen the smell of oatmeal growing stronger as I do my best to disguise the limp of my trembling limbs.
[SPEAKER_00]: To stand, cold like the howl of wind in the dead of winter, as if I hadn't heard her fall apart against my door only hours prior, as if she hadn't heard me do the very same
[SPEAKER_00]: Her head does not move in my direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: In any direction, she is stoic as her hands methodically stir the bubbling in front of her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eyes glazed, posture rigid.
[SPEAKER_00]: I used my spoon to push around the contents of the bowl she places in front of me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I watch as the sugar dissolves with the heat, the patterns in the seam as the air in the house sucks the warmth out of yet another thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I eat none of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The growing knot in my stomach is not from hunger.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you ought to go see his hand today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her voice breaks the silence violently.
[SPEAKER_00]: A jagged cut that I feel in my chest before it settles back to what it once was.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no arguing of there, not with that tone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't respond.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just place the ball on the basin, go to pull on my stockings under the layers of wool and fabric that do nothing but increase people's time spent staring.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cannot argue.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can only obey.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's made that very clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: The thought curdles in my mind that building that room, that man, his hand, his hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: I allow myself a shiver than head out the door.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you so much for watching!
[SPEAKER_00]: I know I must speak.
[SPEAKER_00]: My vocal cords feel rusted over, sore from the sobs that ripped through them like lightning.
[SPEAKER_00]: The bench digs into my skin to all of the layers of my dress, but at least it's still on my body.
[SPEAKER_01]: I come to lay my sins in his hands.
[SPEAKER_04]: Tell me my child, what is it that makes you?
[SPEAKER_00]: His voice curls through the partition.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll ask and smoke that makes it hard for me to breathe.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if this is where I meant to be in my home, my family, the... this church.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if this is who I am.
[SPEAKER_04]: This way of thinking will see you slip from his fingers.
[SPEAKER_04]: You are smart, too much for your own good.
[SPEAKER_04]: It only leads to wondering, then to wondering, you must stay in his grasp.
[SPEAKER_01]: Perhaps if I knew what else was out there, learned what more there is to this town or even elsewhere, I would see the folly of my ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to discover that on my own.
[SPEAKER_04]: No.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know the doctrines, do you not?
[SPEAKER_04]: You know what happens to those who leave his grasp.
[SPEAKER_04]: I cannot, and good conscience, give you grace to commit such a sin.
[SPEAKER_01]: Others have left.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have seen them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they have not been struck down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have not been raised or killed or anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have heard whispering.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a man who came who spoke.
[SPEAKER_00]: Enough!
[SPEAKER_00]: His voice cuts through the partition as if it was nothing but a slip of paper between us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I flinch though he lands no physical blow.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know nothing of which you speak.
[SPEAKER_04]: We are meant to withstand trials and hardships.
[SPEAKER_04]: You are to be content to know your place in this life he has given us.
[SPEAKER_04]: Not to be led astray by the first appealing thing that happens to invest our streets.
[SPEAKER_01]: But is it so wrong to wish for more?
[SPEAKER_04]: I fear you are fallen farther than I thought.
[SPEAKER_04]: You must be shown again what it is to trust in the path his hand has carved.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know what comes next.
[SPEAKER_00]: I crawl in on myself in the seat, like my arms could protect me as if they ever did.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hear the confessional door slide open, heavy footsteps round in the corner and fear crashes through me like thunder.
[SPEAKER_00]: Light spills into my side of the booth, colored blue and green and blood red through the filter of the stained glass.
[SPEAKER_00]: My eyes cannot find his as he rips me to my feet, and closed around the same spot my mother left bruises.
[SPEAKER_00]: The feeling in my stomach does not deter.
[SPEAKER_00]: The pads of his fingers grip the fabric of my wool and dress as he whispers of my purity of how holy every inch of my skin must be for my future husband so I can kneel to him in proper servitude.
[SPEAKER_00]: How I should prepare my daughters and teach my sons in his word so they can serve just as I have.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just as I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: How good it is that his hand does not stain.
[SPEAKER_00]: I close my eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: The darkness is a comfort, a place of solace for my line where his hand cannot reach.
[SPEAKER_00]: Though my body is plagued, I refuse to let my mind be tainted.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wonder if this is punishment from my father that this is what becomes a woman who are not in his good creases.
[SPEAKER_00]: If there was some inexplicable sin I committed before I was conscious that forced me to walk down these dark places.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel the laces of my corset loosen, the pet in my stomach churns as a freed.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first time I cried out, promised to be holy, to let only prayer fall for my lips if only it would stop.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the beginning, he called it forgiveness, that is touched that burned holes in my body as would strip me of my wrongdoings.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it only stripped me of my clothing, my decency, my dignity, my
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool air kisses my shoulder in apology.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has been a long time since I have accepted it.
[SPEAKER_00]: As the rest of my dress falls, his movements still.
[SPEAKER_00]: I barely heat it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still closed, sight still dark.
[SPEAKER_00]: The knots in my stomach rise painfully.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wait for his next movements, knowing them like the next steps and a well-rehearsed dance.
[SPEAKER_00]: But instead, a scream echoes piercing through me.
[SPEAKER_00]: As my eyes adjust to the dusty colored lights streaming to the stained windows, I recognize the stench of bile and blood in my gaze falls to my naked form.
[SPEAKER_00]: Small arvades whisk their way out from holes carved in my torso, pouring out down my front and onto the polished steps leaving up to the pulpit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gasping for breath is if my lungs were bottomless.
[SPEAKER_00]: They spill for me, dozens, writhing against the dark stained steps.
[SPEAKER_00]: My hand finds the gaping wound uselessly, trying to hold them in, to keep something anything from pouring out.
[SPEAKER_00]: His hand recoils away, falling back against the pulpit.
[SPEAKER_00]: The heavy wood splinters as it slams into the ground, and I watch petrified, awaiting some form of divine wrath to strike me where I lay, and retribution for harming his hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: But nothing rips to the building.
[SPEAKER_00]: No lightning scorches my bleeding body as I stare at the stained glass, willing it to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: Smite me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it, send me to where your gaze does not reach.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is quiet except for the slick wriggling of the bugs born from my body.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel lighter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps my father heard my prayers all this time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or perhaps he heard none of them at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: This has been another tale.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hidden anecdotes and other tales is presented by outrageous creation's media.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was created by GM Stupfsky.
[SPEAKER_03]: This episode was written directed and narrated by Ava Burntess.
[SPEAKER_03]: Edited by the creator, with additional voices provided by Will Johnson and Morgan Redger.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was produced by Reed Robertson, Morgan Redger, and Corey Rokes.
[SPEAKER_03]: This episode's art was provided by Ava Bruntis.
[SPEAKER_03]: For a more detailed credit list, see the description below, or check out the team's work at OutRagesCreationsMedia.com.