Chapter Text
Once-ler-pon a Time
Chapter One: I’m Your Problem Child
THUD, THUD, THUD! Once-ler was violently startled awake by his mother’s aggressive knocking on his bedroom door.
“Ugh, FIVE MORE MINUTES, PLEASE?” he shouted as he covered his face with his pillow.
“Oncie, it’s already nine in the morning, get yerself out of bed and go help yer father in the field!”, his mother Isabella demanded, with somehow even more frustration in her voice than normal.
The young man dramatically groaned with misery as he slowly sat up straight in bed. With heavy yet to focus eyes, he peered around his tiny bedroom. Well, if you could even call it a bedroom. Once-ler’s room was technically just a big closet that conveniently had a tiny window. It really didn’t fit much, just his twin-sized mattress with a couple feet on the left side to spare, where he kept his books, drawings and a basket of his folded clothes. He used to share a room with his brothers Brett and Chet but the constant harassment from them made him yearn for his own space. The problem was his family lived in an incredibly old, and incredibly small house that they never had enough money to move out of, so the only escape was the closet. Not only was the house old and small but it was cold and lifeless, all shades of dull gray and dirty brown that did absolutely nothing to nourish a creative mind and sensitive soul like Once-ler’s.
He stood up on his mattress and stretched his slim and lanky body until his hands brushed the ceiling, everything was sore and aching from the rough day before. He cringed as he dreaded the day ahead of him; yet another exhausting, wretched day of picking and planting potatoes out in the cold, blustery weather. Another day of body aches and pains as his creative spirit spun around with artistic and inventive ideas that would never get the chance to leave his mind. Once-ler wondered how many good ideas had faded away and been forgotten out on that field, the thought depressed him.
He gave his fluffy, chocolatey brown cat Reese a loving pat on the head before leaving. An obnoxious, sneaky crack noise came from the door as he awkwardly stepped out of his bedroom-closet, he had to step on his bed to get out. The exceedingly tall boy also had to be careful as to not bang his head on the closet doorway.
The old wooden floor creaked with every step he took on the way to the kitchen. His mother was preparing breakfast for the family as Brett, Chet, and their father Robert sat at the table. Once-ler squished himself into his seat, the kitchen was so small just like the rest of the house that even with a tiny table they couldn’t all comfortably fit.
“Bahaha, you look so horrible! Bag check for Oncie’s eyes! Have you slept at all this week? You look like death!” hollered Chet as he chunked his placemate at Once-ler’s face from across the table. “Gross, cover that up! It’s scaring me!” Brett started obnoxiously cackling along with his twin brother Chet who started yelling “BURRRN”.
Once-ler felt himself flush with embarrassment. He rolled up the napkin and threw it back at Chet’s head and then childishly stuck his tongue out at him as he flipped him off. He tried thinking of a good comeback but wasn’t awake enough. His siblings treated him like trash for as long as he could remember but his mother never did anything about it (maybe join in), and his dad occasionally half-heartedly told them to stop. Once when they were little, Brett found a spider in their bedroom and put it on Once-ler’s face right before he woke up that morning, he woke up screaming and crying and all his mother did was laugh. “It was just a joke Oncie”. With nobody to defend him, Once-ler fended for himself with burns, aggressive comebacks and empty threats.
“Why are you so tired anyways?” asked his father, the only one who sometimes cared nowadays.
The truth was Once-ler was up late reading books about engineering and art and many great inventors, it was fascinating and inspiring. He dreamed with all his heart that one day he’d be a famous artist or inventor of sorts. Not only would he finally follow his dreams and passion and make a name for himself, but he’d also help other people and finally make his family proud, and finally make them some money to get them and himself out of this hellhole. But he didn’t feel like being mocked more so he just said “oh umm, just couldn’t sleep I guess, haha”.
“Total bull, Oncie!” squawked his mother as she loaded their breakfast bowls, “you complain everyday about how you’re soooo tired, I think ya were up late drawing dem silly doodles again”. She brought their breakfast bowls to the table. Just plain boiled potatoes from the farm once again, it’s all they could afford at this point in time.
“Naw, Isabella, our son has a gift” Robert began, “I call those so-called “silly doodles” art”, he roughly patted his son on the back.
Isabella rolled her eyes, “don’t be wasting your time with that so-called “art” if yer gonna be tired the next day, I need ya in tip-top shape and out working in those fields, that is if ya wanna eat, your art won’t pay the bills”.
Robert was the only one who ever showed any support in Once-ler’s gifts and talents, but even he had an odd way of showing it. When Once-ler was in school his dad made him join every single art, baking, cooking and or music contest possible. If he didn’t win Robert would become incredibly disappointed in him and say disencouraging and depressing things like “what’s the point of it if you’re not the best? Ya gotta be the best if you want to amount to anything! You should have tried harder, I didn’t raise a failure, don’t be a failure Oncie”, even second place was not good enough. And then his mother would say something like “I told you he was no good, he’ll never amount to anything”.
She said that nobody in their family ever amounted to anything, that they were just a family of nobodies with the last name “Once-ler”. To Isabella her eldest son would always be the biggest nobody, therefore he was The Once-ler. And apparently Once-ler was such a nobody in his mother’s eyes, that from the moment he was born he was not even special enough to be given his proper own name so she named him Once-ler Once-ler, Oncie for a pet name.
The family sat around the crowned table eating the world’s plainest meal. There wasn’t even any table salt to save it. Once-ler couldn’t help but notice his bowl had the least amount of food and his mother’s the most. Not that he really cared, he was so sick of boiled potatoes. He craved sugar so badly, the last sweet thing he ate was a small bowl of margarine and sugar because all the food they had left in the house at the time were simple pantry staples and he didn’t even remember when that was anymore. It wasn’t that bad actually, it kind of tasted like frosting. He’d eat it again but the family hadn’t been grocery shopping in forever. He really wanted to bake again too but knew that was wishful thinking.
After the family had finished their sad breakfast, the children and their dad got to work out on the field. Isabella stayed inside to do “housework”, she didn’t actually do an awful lot to help out these days, especially now that Once-ler worked so much. The truth was she leeched on their money. Once-ler’s job that day was to pick the potatoes ready for selling. The work at the potato farm was tedious and boring.
The only thing Once-ler liked about it was his mule Melvin. Melvin pulled around the wagon Once-ler put the potatoes in to be carried. Once-ler had always felt a deep connection with animals, he was afraid to admit it but Melvin was his best friend, and it was very clear he was Melvin’s favourite human. He tried talking to Melvin like he was a person sometimes, and he often sang for him. Once-ler was passionate about music but was only allowed to play his guitar and sing out in the barn so his family “didn’t have to hear him”, but Melvin would always happily listen as his favourite person sang and yodeled his heart out as he plucked some strings. He didn’t seem to mind that he “wasn’t very good” by his family’s standards.
The weather was extra blustery that day and Once-ler was quickly chilled to the bone so he put on his hand-me-down scarf from his mother. It was pink and fluffy but Once-ler never minded “girly things”, in fact he adored lots of traditionally “feminine” things and he found the scarf to be the coziest piece of clothing he owned. Brett and Chet teased him for it of course, like everything else about him.
A few hours had passed.“Pa, I’m bored of this! Can I go in?” shouted Chet.
“Sure sonny, you can too Brett” replied Robert.
“Dad, why is it that mom is so much easier on them? They only worked for 3 and a half hours yesterday, I had to work for almost 10”. Once-ler could hear his own exhaustion in his voice and hoped his dad would too and show sympathy, or at the very least pity.
“Well, they’re younger than you, you’re an adult now sonny” said Robert as he planted a new potato.
“But I’ve been working this hard since before I was an adult, Brett and Chet are older than I was when I started working this many hours” Once-ler complained. Robert simply shrugged. “If it makes ya feel better, I work 7 hours most days”. That didn’t make him feel better, it made him feel way worse. His own father had been working less than him. Robert never really answered his question about why he was treated the way he was either, which felt like salt in the same old lingering wounds.
Once-ler knew he was the least favourite child, the “problem child”, he just didn’t know why. He knew he didn’t fit in. His family was all around harsh and hard and Once-ler could be tough and hot-headed too but deep down at his core, he was soft and sensitive. He wasn’t just more sensitive to pain but beauty and joyful things. He once cried as a small child because he picked a flower that a butterfly then landed on and he found it so beautiful he cried. He felt deeply in a family of people who tried to keep their feelings shallow, an idealistic dreamer in a family of pessimistic realistics. He had a dorky and weird sense of humor. He didn’t even talk the same, he never developed the same country accent as them for whatever reason. So maybe that’s why he was the least favourite. He wondered though “even if I don’t fit in, I still deserve their love, right?”. He thought “maybe I have to earn it”. He not only worked absurdly hard for them, but had also learned the toxic art of suppressing his feelings and true self.
Things weren’t always this bad, when he was a very young child his mother was easier on him, she seemed to love him some of the time, but as he got older she became harder on him. By the time he was nine his mother could be straight up cruel to him and the loving son and mother moments between them became fewer and further between and then disappeared. Maybe she was angry because the family didn’t have as much money anymore, maybe it was the stress of Brett and Chet as they got older. Once-ler didn’t know, he just knew he missed when his mother could sometimes be soft and loving, now she was full time stone cold. Sometimes he thought about giving up on them all and running away but he thought that maybe there was saving his past mother. The mother who made him pancakes when he was a little boy, kissed his cheeks, ruffled his hair, pushed him on the swing and read him books as he fell asleep, the thought that that mother was still in there, kept him pushing through hell. As much as he tried not to, he couldn’t help but yearn for her long gone affection.
Eventually nine hours had passed, Once-ler came into the house with his father. His back ached so horribly he couldn’t stand up straight anymore. His long skinny legs were shaking, his head was pounding as the fatigue took over his whole body.
“You did good son, maybe tomorrow you will harvest even more potatoes”, said Robert. He had a harsh undertone as if he was disappointed in Once-ler’s work.
Isabella walked into the living room, “oh heavens, it is absolutely friggin in here, Oncie, will you go get yer mama some firewood?”. She nodded her head towards the fireplace.
“Oh! Of course mom”, there was no firewood left so Once-ler went outside to get some from the side of the house where it was stored, but when he got there he realized it was gone. He swore under his breath.
“Mom, there umm… there isn’t any firewood” he muttered as he opened the front door with weakened and trembling hands.
“Oh, well ya know what that means, just go to the forest and cut down a tree for yer mama” said Isabella in a voice so sweet and dainty.
“Mom, I’d love to help but I feel like I’m ready to collapse, my back is killing me, I can barely move without pain, maybe I could in the morning?”, his words came out in quiet pleads. Isabella’s smile faded.
“Excuse me, do you want yer family to freeze to death? Don’t be so selfish and lazy, go out there and get ya mama and pa some firewood!” she snapped. Once-ler was so exhausted he couldn’t easily bottle up feelings anymore and couldn’t help but flinch at her strident tone.
Once-ler absolutely hated asking his mother for anything for that reason - she often freaked out at him - so he almost only ever hinted at what he wanted (sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious) instead of asking, even then Isabella might still snap. He became conditioned to never feel worthy of anything, he hated asking anybody for anything, only ever hinting for things if he felt he truly and desperately needed it. He apologized to his mother, put his jacket and scarf back on, went back outside into the cold and grabbed his ax from the side of the house to get some firewood.
Once-ler sluggishly dragged his feet to the forest next to their crops. For years now it was always his job to go cut down a tree when the family needed firewood. The first time he cut a tree down it was kind of scary and nerve-wracking but he was certainly very used to it now. However the ax felt like a hundred pounds at that moment in his overworked arms, but he still managed to get the tree down, just with a few more hits than usual. He felt a strange, almost comforting melancholy as he watched it fall to the ground with a loud thud. He felt like he was going to fall to the ground too.
Lethargically the young man pulled the fairly small and light tree home, it took everything out of him. He cut off some firewood and brought it in. He gave his mother the wood, ate another plain boiled potato, and was finally able to collapse onto his bed where his cat Reese curled up to him. He was so exhausted he couldn’t possibly read or draw as much as his heart wished to, and he couldn’t help but oh so quietly cry as he fell asleep, praying that the next day wouldn’t be another rough day of ridicule, mockery and laborious work.