Audio Description

Ella’s Selby Connection

Growing up in Selby, growing up and having to contend with a ‘rat’.

Ella’s Selby Story

 We came to Yorkshire when I was two years old, all the way from London. In the beginning it was just me, my parents, and our two dogs, Booboo and Baxy. That was until about two years later when my brother was born and I started going to school. I made a group of friends, two nice girls in my year. 

Everything was going great, our days were full of sunshine, and we were practically inseparable from the day we met. We were a pretty normal group of friends. That was until we’d argue. It started off small, little arguments here and there, quarrels over toys, over sweets, over school work. It’s normal to fight sometimes. It was normal, until it wasn’t; until we’d argue and they’d hate me and I was kicked into the sawdust. It was normal until there was, at the top of the food chain clawing down at those beneath, the rat.

The rat didn’t like it when I went against her wishes, so when I found someone new she threw a hissy fit. She would bite and scratch, and squeal, and hiss, until I’d crumble under pressure and give in to her again. I tried to stay away and start again with someone new, but the rat would hold onto me as long as she could. She stared from afar, her bright white eyes twitching as she squealed, terror leaving her mouth until I’d lose everything I had worked for. She’d squeal her little song until I’d go running back, just for that same cycle to repeat. I’d never understood how unnatural it was, the things she’d do to us, the times she’d bit and scratched us in ways we didn’t understand. It was awful, betrayal. But the rat was hungry, always hungry for something. Yearning to feed off of our pain and the control it gave her. It was funny really, for years I had told her, “feed off me! Feed off me! Take what you need! I’m here for you, whatever you need, please just take it from me!” but I don’t think I ever wondered if I had enough left for me. 

This went on for years, leeching off each other, leaving each other in pain, a tug of war in our heart strings, pulling me through her hurt. Over time, I recognised the pain she caused me, how she would drag me through her hell so I could race with all her demons, and how she’d squeal and have her way in less than a minute, and at the threat of me leaving, she snapped. The squeals becoming louder, the hissing aggressive, the scratching and the biting frequent. She dragged me down as far as she could, her claws digging deep into my skin, until I was left alone in the hell hole she’d dug for me. She squealed a new narrative, decided who I was, twisting the world to match her burning hell. There was always darkness lurking over me. The rat watching my sadness bleed out of me, puppeteering every move, watching me melt away. I told people. I told them about the things she did.

“You’re being paranoid.”
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“It’s not easy for her.”

No one believed me, no-one believed me when I screamed the way I felt, what she did, who she really was. No one listened, or even cared to. 

Eventually, though, I got away. I’d dug a tunnel through her saw dust, and once again I saw the light. I even managed to rise up. The hole I’d been left with filling in with time, until I could finally feel the sunlight caressing my skin again. I was happy, I was finally happier. Reunited with my good old friend. We’d survived her madness and the terrors she’d forced upon us. We could be happy. Even though the hole I was put in still keeps me hostage, it’s filled itself in so much I could almost escape. It might take some time to leave her smog that intrudes our air, and for our scratches to heal, but so long as we give it the time it takes, we’ll be able to rise above every rat we meet along the way!

Character Sketch and Collage