Critters

Three weeks this time. It had been three whole weeks since she'd seen the black, ominous figure hanging out just over her shoulder.  She lay in bed and couldn't resist the urge to scratch her head. She had scratched so much in the past, sometimes leading into a scratching frenzy that would again cause open oozing, infected wounds. This was a never ending circle. She had been scratching so much there would be red, bloody splotches on her pillowcase in the morning. Her head itched so bad, she told her mother, but she was so caught up in her own thing that she was often ignored and brushed aside.

She felt the little critters biting into her scalp for their dinner. She hated the cement like glue they used to leave their egg sac hanging on each one of her strands of hair. There were days she would look down on her shirt and see one of the nasty critters, that fell from her head. She would brush it away in embarrassment before someone else would see it. If someone would see it, she would be sent home from school...only to stay in the house all day; all day in the house where it lived and waited for her to return.

The endless cycle, treatment after treatment burning the open sores and causing the worst burning and pain she had ever felt. The times her mother would do something, she resorted to nasty homemade remedies like mayonnaise and vinegar and some smelly oil. Whatever she used it never worked. Within the week she would be back to itching.

The weekends she found relief was better. At least when she went to her dad's house he would treat her hair and doctor her open wounds. But then the weekend solace would be over and she was once again back, back in the nasty pits of all the lice infested house she lived in. Children services claimed this is not child abuse, it is not child neglect, it is just a mere nuisance!

Again, she saw the black, ominous figure as she snaked her hand up to scratch her head.