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10 years ago
Unlike most children of his age, Jamie was a child with a very active and fruitful imagination. He wasn't a child you could just plonk in front of the telly. He could literally spend hours alone and still not have enough time to fulfil his self inspired playtimes. Aged just seven, he was always inquisitive about almost anything and everything around him. Constantly he would dissemble his toys to find out all about their inner workings. And such was the level of his thorough investigations; very few of them would ever survive.
Many a time in the early days, after most of his so called 'experiments', he would have to call on his dad to help put things back together again, but lately, he was progressing smoothly towards the point of a new found self sufficiency. His 'operations', were becoming more and more successful, leaving his father now somewhat redundant in the 'massacre' clearing up business.
It all really started, when he was about five and he would tear the limbs off his sister's dolls. From there he progressed through most of his cars, games, models and the occasional torch or transistor radio. The inner workings of nearly all of his possessions were often a lot more fascinating and desirable to Jamie than the perceived use of the toys he was deliberately breaking apart.
Brimming with an unrivalled level of confidence, he would become quite ritualistic and even animated whilst dissecting his toys. Especially so, if there was an audience at hand to watch him. And such was the level of his enthusiasm for what he was doing, many a time his sister Kylie would sit totally mesmerised, as she watched him in his labours.
Jamie didn't really get on with his sister very well, after all, he thought, she was a girl and therefore very different from him and most other boys for that matter. Girls were never the same as boys, they wore different clothes, and did different things and Jamie just couldn't understand why. It constantly bugged him and he needed to know the answer to this, the largest of life's irregularities. But for the time being, he was still happy to have her just tag along. He was happy to entertain her in his makeshift laboratory, by way of his highly important, life and death operations.
It was on a mid-June afternoon, when Jamie and Kylie were once again playing in full 'operation mode'. Jamie talking his way through his every move as Kylie just lay motionless by his side, her eyes fixed in a permanent gaze. Jamie had his doctor's hat on again that day and as standard procedure always dictated; arms and legs were once again being removed. This patient was well and truly broken before he had even started, and Jamie was convinced that after a thorough examination of his, he could definitely fix it. Next, off came the head. It was hard but the end justified the means. The eyes were pulled from their sockets. And the ears were broken away.
Everything seemed to be in order so far, so Jamie next turned his attention to the body. He had a rough idea of what went on in a body, so he set about looking for a heart. Again, it was a lot harder for Jamie than he first thought it would be. Most of his previous patients had hollow bodies, not this one though, it was stuffed to the hilt with all sorts, but he persevered with it and after a short while, his patient lay fully broken down into its component parts. Fully committed in his actions, Jamie knew that to fix things properly, all he had to do was just break everything down and re-assemble the component parts together again. It worked every other time, and he was more than sure that this time wouldn't be any different.
Mum would be so proud of him and his fixing abilities, he thought to himself, as he began to assemble all the different pieces back together. Things once again, were a little different on this operation, as the bits didn't just simply push back like on his other toys. But his practical learning was sufficient enough for him to know the answer, this time he would have to glue them together. Still, undeterred by this change in standard working procedure, he set to with his father's woodworking adhesive. He began applying liberal coatings of the glue to all of the adjoining surfaces, and pressing the different parts together as neatly as he could. Even now his contagious commentary was still fluent and somewhat animated.
"This bit goes with that bit," and "that piece goes there," he would happily proclaim as he firmly pressed all the pieces together. The glue wasn't drying anywhere near fast enough for his liking, so just like he had watched his dad do from time to time, he further wrapped the joints with duct tape to help them set correctly. Through all of this, Kylie still remained silent, her eyes still firmly fixed on Jamie and seemingly, his every move.
It took Jamie a lot longer to re-assemble today's patient than it normally would, he struggled quite considerably with it. But it wasn't too much longer before everything was back in its proper place and no remaining spare parts were left over. Not much later, amidst a mass of still fluid glue and silver duct tape, his patient now lay in recovery. Jamie was really pleased with his latest operation and with it now finished and being a complete success, he called his parents to come see and offer their approval. Minutes later, the expectant couple had arrived smiling. Anticipating having to make a right big fuss over their son's latest trivial success, neither of them truly expected what they were about to see.
Nearly as soon as she entered the room, Jamie's mother screamed, "Kylie!" as she broke down hysterically.
"What have you done to my daughter?" She yelled at Jamie as she looked down at the taped up, bloody corpse laid out on the table in front of her. "Get away from me!" she shouted to Jamie as she rushed to her daughter's side.
His father following closely behind, quickly took in the whole chaotic scenery around him. Looking first at his wife, then the remains of what used to be his daughter Kylie, he questioningly stared at his boy through water burdened eyes. Tearfully Jamie looked towards his father.
"But I fixed her daddy. She was broke and I mended her for you." He wept.
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