Glitch.

Hidden Regrets.

A Glitch in the Matrix.

Do we live in a simulated reality? Scientists can neither prove it nor disprove it.

But what happens if a bug gets into the program?

Fictional stories based on real accounts...

Hidden Regrets

STORY 5

Lisa Taylor was the belle of her high school. Attractive, popular, and a very athletic 'A' grade student. But she had a secret that she preferred not to share with anyone else. Her mother.

Lisa's mother suffered from a brain injury which she had received when a drunk driver smashed into her car leaving her in a coma for nearly six months, When she had come out of her coma Lisa's mother was not the same. The doctors say that her brain had reverted back to that of about a three-year-old. Lisa's father had now become both father and mother to both his daughter and his wife.

“Mama! Don't do that, get away from there you'll break it!”

“Mama! Behave yourself you'll get hurt!”

“Mama! Please! Not at the table!”

“Mama! Did you do this?”

This had become the routine in Lisa's life from the time she arrived home to the time that she left nowadays. She missed those days when her mother was a much healthier woman. How she had held her when Lisa was feeling down, she always had good words of advice to give to her when she needed it. How they swam together and played tennis against each other. Plenty of the things that mothers and daughters indulged themselves with. She had once admired her mother's sense of dress style and the way that she carried herself. She and Papa were always proud to be seen with her. But these memories were quickly fading and being replaced by the new Mama now in their midst romping around in her pajamas. Lisa's father worked long hours to pay for their upkeep as well as the medical bills since the drunk driver died in the accident and couldn't be made liable. Lisa was always glad by the time the day nurse that her father had hired, showed up to babysit her mother so that she could go to school.

“And don't let her wander around out the front Monica, I don't want people staring at her,” Lisa called, before closing the front door behind her.

What she really meant was that she didn't want anyone to see her...ever, if she could help it. Lisa still carried a big soft spot for her mother though. One day on her way home from school she had remembered that it was her mother's birthday. Since she had forgotten to wish her mother a Happy Birthday before she had left for the day, Lisa decided to buy her something at one of the stores that she and her friends passed on the way home.

“What ya gonna buy for your mum's birthday?” one of her friends inquired.

“Perfume? A ring? A silk scarf?” another asked enthusiastically.

“I was thinking of buying her a doll,” Lisa answered, absent-minded as she looked over the doll in the shop window.

“A doll!?” the others chimed.

By then it was too late to take back what had just dropped out of her mouth.

So she lied. “She collects them.”

“Oh okay.” one of the other girls replied.

“She collects rag dolls?”

“Yep, rag dolls.”

Lisa's mother was overjoyed with her new doll and also with Lisa for buying it for her.

“Tank coo Lisa, Tank coo.” her mother repeated over and over as she inspected her new doll.

Lisa smiled and told her to give it a name.

“Dolly!”

Lisa laughed and thought, “that's as good a name as any”.

Lisa spent the evening playing with her mother and her new doll.

“Time for bed now Mama.” Lisa later informed her.

“Aw, but I having fun with Dolly.”

Mama's eyes lit up when Lisa told her, “You can take Dolly to bed with you.”

It didn't take Lisa long to learn that she could use Dolly as a tool to control her mother's behavior.

“You had better do as your told Mama or I will put Dolly away and you won't be able to play with her.”

“Okay Lisa, I be good. I promise.”

This always softened Lisa's heart that she didn't make her punishments last too long.

Until one day Lisa was at school wondering why the other students were making a big fuss over something happening outside their window across the foyer beside the headmaster's office? Everyone was laughing and mocking what was going on outside. Lisa went over to look out the window for herself. Her face went scarlet red with horror as she saw the headmaster and a female teacher trying to wrestle her mother who was trying to fight back into his office. Monica had dressed her in a neon pink tracksuit for the day, now she stood out like a road beacon among the subdued grey and green colors of the school uniforms starting to gather around to watch this thing play out.

Lisa wanted to cry as the students around her started making up jokes and laughing about the scene outside. Very soon one yelled, “Here comes her nurse from the loony bin!” As Monica came around the corner carrying the distinctive rag doll that Lisa and three of her friends had recognized.

“Hey that doll looks familiar?” one mentioned, as she side glanced a look at Lisa.

“Most likely a generic brand? Probably hundreds like them around?” another answered while still staring at the scene unfolding outside.

“The lady at the place where we bought the one that looked like that, said that they were all one-offs that she had made herself?” the first one answered.

“Dunno? Maybe she lied to get a better price?” the second one replied.

“Maybe.”

“Lisa Taylor could you come to the headmaster's office please?” the speaker on the classroom wall crackled out.

“Ooh, Lisa” the boys of her class chimed in.

Lisa was asked to accompany her mother and day nurse home to help to settle her mother down. Lisa was given the rest of the day off.

The walk to the car taking her mother by the arm with Monica on the other was the longest walk Lisa had taken in her life. She could see half the school pressed up against the windows watching and taunting them.

“Why did this have to happen during lunchtime when everyone was free to stare as long as they liked?” Lisa thought to herself.

From head to toe, Lisa felt the flush of embarrassment with each step. She tried not to look at the windows but tried to hurry her mother along as fast as she could move her.

But then the impossible happened. Her mother wet herself. Lisa just wanted to die. The liquid had run down her mother's legs and was now leaving wet trails and footprints on the dry concrete. In her frustration, Lisa admonished her, “Mama!”

This made the two or three students that they walked past, look at each other with a chuckle.

By the time that they had gotten her mother bundled into Monica's car, Lisa was too embarrassed to speak and sat in shame all the way home as Monica tried to explain that she had gotten the doll mixed up in the washing and that Mama went crazy trying to find it. It was when Monica was in her bedroom searching under the bed that Monica thinks that her mother left the house to find Lisa to tell on her for losing Dolly.

By the time Monica had finished cleaning Mama up Lisa was pacing around in the lounge room fuming with anger. She looked at the ragdoll clutched to her mother's breast as she entered the room and snatched it from her.

“Give me this. You don't deserve it!” and then threw it into a cupboard and locked it.

“You're not getting it back. Ever!”

Lisa's mother dropped to the ground and started to cry and plead to her daughter for forgiveness.

“ Please Lisa I sorry. Monica lose Dolly. I very sad. Please, Lisa?”

“No! And this time I mean it.”

“Please Lisa?”

“No, I said.”

During the commotion, Lisa hadn't heard her father pull in as the lounge door swung open.

“Lisa! What the hell are you doing to your mother!?”

“She came to school and embarrassed the heck out of me. She even wet herself in front of everyone!”

By this time her father had knelt down to comfort the woman crying in his arms.

“I'll never be able to show my face around there or anywhere again. Thanks to her! I hate her! She ruined my life.”

Papa looked up at his angry daughter who had tears running down her own cheeks herself and said, "Your mother is not to blame for what happened today. That drunken bastard who slammed into her is.”

Lisa knew he was right as she stormed out slamming the lounge door behind her, but she found it hard to let loose of the hate that she now held for her mother.

Because Lisa refused to show her face at school anymore her father allowed her to be homeschooled with Monica's help. Lisa's grades weren't as good as they used to be, even Lisa herself had changed, her bubbly personality had become hard and vindictive especially towards her mother whom she only dealt with when she had to. Dolly remained locked away and forgotten. Her mother had stopped asking for her cherished doll and gave Lisa looks of sadness or fear whenever Lisa entered the room. This just fueled Lisa's dislike for her mother because of the guilty feeling that those looks brought up in her. So Lisa just tried to ignore them and her. Due to the lack of time that Lisa now spent with her mother she hadn't noticed the decline in her health. How her mother never spoke much anymore, seemed lethargic all the time, and kept forgetting the simplest things like dressing into something before walking around the house. Lisa would just roll her eyes and yell out, “Monica!”

Until one day her father came home with tear-filled eyes and informed Lisa that her mother's health was failing and wouldn't have much longer to live due to a latent condition caused by the accident. She was being kept at the hospital under supervision. This news hit Lisa like a bolt of lightning she dropped onto the sofa and couldn't hold back the tears. She didn't know how to feel? She loved her mother but hated things about her. A small part of her even felt that it may even be a relief for both her and her mother if she did leave this world? Considering the state that she was now in. But a big part of her still loved her mother dearly. She knew that now. But is it too late to show her? To ask forgiveness for how she had treated her? Lisa wanted to go and see her mother as soon as it was possible.

Her mother was under heavy sedation when they had arrived at the hospital. Barely able to open her eyes, a small smile crossed her mother's lips as Lisa entered the room.

“Lisa”

Lisa couldn't help herself as she rushed over to hug her mother lying in the bed barely awake.

“Mama, oh Mama I'm soo sorry for the way that I treated you,” she whispered.

“Lisa, I lov....”

Lisa sat up “Look who I brought Mama. It's Dolly. You remember Dolly don't you?”

Her mother's eyes had closed she lay there still.

“Mama? MAMA! No please not yet?”

“Nurse. Can you come please?” her father called.

Lisa hugged the doll to her chest tears streaming down her cheeks as she was ushered out of the room so that the doctors could work on her mother. One of the doctors and a nurse eventually came out of the room and gave them the sad news. Lisa spent the night hating herself as she hugged a tear-soaked Dolly to her face.

When the day of the funeral came around the whole house was searched and stripped looking for the ragdoll that Lisa had only just put down onto the kitchen table. But neither her nor her father could find it?

“It's gotta be around here somewhere? Nobody has taken it out of the house because no one has left the house since I put it right down here?”

“I saw you put it there but I promise you that I didn't touch it? I had other things to be concerned about.” her father answered.

“Looked in the washing machine? That's where it was found the other time?” her father suggested.

“Yes, and it's empty.”

“I looked under the table under the couch and even places that I didn't even go to today?”

“I have to find it, she loved that doll.”

“I know Lisa. She loved that doll because you gave it to her. She loved you through it.”

Lisa could feel the tears welling in her eyes she didn't want to let her mother down yet again?

“Come on Lisa we haven't much time before the funeral starts if Dolly shows up afterward then we will leave her on your mother's gravesite when we go to visit, so let's go.”

Lisa had no choice but to do as her father had instructed.

Mama looked her old beautiful self as she lay there looking calm and serene in her open casket. Papa held an arm around Lisa who used a tissue to mop the tears on her cheeks and eyes. Lisa nudged her father whose eyes opened wider when they both recognized the top of Dolly's head peaking out from under the crossed hands of her mother which were just showing from underneath the white fabric covering her torso. Lisa looked at her father who smiled and whispered, “She came back for her. She loved you that much.”

Ever lost something just to have it turn up in the most unexplained places? This is what happened to Lisa Taylor when a glitch in the matrix caused her to lose something very special to her mother only to have it find its way miraculously back in the right place at the right time...A piece of her heart.

Next story here.

The Naked Truth. Story 6

Previous story here.

The Deadline. Story 4