Words hurt sometimes

Friday, June 5 ‘09

“Could you move?” An officious headmistress-like voice boomed above the moans Spag and Bol were making from their chariot. The tone wasn’t polite, it was an order. It implied,” you are invading my space,” “you have no right to be here,” and “take those vile children away from me.”
Mrs Bennet felt like a two-year-old herself, being told off for smearing yoghurt in her hair or flicking peas at her sister. Only her sister was some 30 miles away in Bristol filming and she couldn’t flick her peas that far.
Mrs Bennet was in the local public library looking for a suitable DVD for a girly night in. Mr Bennet was flying off to Iran that afternoon until late Tuesday evening so she had invited a friend round for company. In ten minutes time Miss Kezia Bennet had an appointment with the doctors, a mere 100 yards away. But knowing they always ran late, Mrs Bennet didn’t want to get there any earlier than she needed to. With two little girls to entertain, for what could be 40 minutes in a confined space with sick people, she needed somewhere to go to kill a bit of time. Instead she was killed by words. Spag and Bol started moaning in the children’s section of the library. Note, the children’s section. The lady who came from the ilk of children shouldn’t be seen or heard, was sitting at the far end at a computer with head phones on.
Mrs Bennet had visited this library since she had been in nappies herself, some four decades ago, and had never been spoken to like this. How powerful words were. In the wrong hands they could so easily wound and pull down. Mrs Bennet felt ashamed sometimes to be part of the media. She’d been in the “press” brigade for 22 years, yet what she endeavoured to do was use words to inspire and encourage. It felt like swimming against a tide. She had been told when leaving school, “we don’t think you’re tough enough to be a journalist.” But she had no intention of being tough. You could write truthful stories without upsetting people. Not everyone thought that way. With the spoken word though, it wasn’t so much what was said, it was the way it was said. And here in the library, the three words fired at Mrs Bennet, hurt. Granted, not as much as her head which was still battling infection and feeling the side effects of antibiotics. But surprisingly it brought tears to Mrs Bennet’s eyes. And she did not cry in public. She walked away before her anger rose any higher and produced words she didn’t normally utter. But Mrs Bennet’s anger didn’t last. She was more in shock. It was the “could-you-move” lady who was angry. Angry at little children for being children and conveniently forgetting she had been one once. Apparently it hadn’t been the first time she’d told a mother off or ordered her away from the space she was working in. But in her experience, Mrs Bennet knew there was always a story behind a story. She wasn’t about to use words to cause any greater wounds. Instead she just wondered what the lady’s story was. Three words may not offer much insight into a soul, but they conveyed a deep-felt annoyance towards little people. Mrs Bennet looked affectionately at Spag and Bol, who were unaware they were victims of such wrath. Annoying as they were sometimes, these fearfully-and-wonderfully-made twins – different as day and night – were an endless source of amazement and wonder. Mrs Bennet learnt more about herself through them than any self-help book could offer. She vowed never to become an irritable old woman. She would grow old disgracefully, but she wouldn’t learn to spit or speak rude words to anyone. She’d eat the red hat covering her purple hair if she ever did.