Some people mourn in black but I prefer white. Why? Black absorbs all the colors from the spectrum, how could something filled with colors be used for mourning? Black should be used to celebrate. I use white because it reflects all the colors. It has no color, hence has no life. That is how I have lived my life for the past years; I have lived it in a colorless world with no emotions. Life throws different things at you… but sometimes these things can get so overwhelming that you no more want to have emotions and you no more want to have colors. Emotions and colors are all just a way to invite sadness to yourself. With everything good, comes everything bad, which also is accompanied by hurt and sadness. I am tired of being a part of the negative so I gave up the positive. One can’t be too selfish to be asking for the good but not the bad. Hence, I embraced nothingness; numbness brings you no hurt and liberates you. I have been liberated for years now.
Everyone is born and everyone goes through the same stages of life- infancy, toddlerhood, childhood, teenage and then adulthood. I was born and I too went through infancy and toddlerhood, but something took away the other stages from me. I was robbed out of my childhood and teenage years for no fault of my own. Some of us just lead life in a different way than others but when I tried to tell people around me what had happened, no one paid any heed. I was five years old back then, hardly out of my toddlerhood and into childhood when I was made to realize the truth about this world. It has been twenty years since then but I still remember every detail vividly. Many people say that the reason I remember the detail is because it was in my imagination and I have led myself to believe that it was reality. I have been to shrinks and what do they tell me? They tell me I have an over active imagination… I wish they could explain my nightmares and tell me why I dream about that night every single day of my life?
Everyone told mommy how beautiful I was ever since I can remember. I was often told that I was a beautiful child, not cute but beautiful. I can’t tell how I look now because I haven’t seen my reflection for years now. Years change your appearance a lot. I remember having hazel eyes and red lips. I had always been a plump child and as long as I can remember, I hated it. People everywhere were running to pinch my cheeks and compliment me on my curls. Mommy made me dress in frilly pink and red clothes. They were always filled with color, bright colors, colors that make my head reel now. But that’s what I remember of myself before it happened. I was a happy child, maybe I was bestowed with too much happiness. Everything needs to be in the right proportion- if someone ever gets more than their share of happiness, the world has a way of evening it out. My parents always seemed to be happy, though my mom had tendencies of locking herself in the room for a whole day sometimes. Daddy and I never had any problems with that. We were happy going out by ourselves when mom got her spells. That’s what daddy called it- her spells.
Daddy was the nicest man in the world. Yes he was- he is no more. I sometimes lay down when I have nothing to do and wonder how he looked. I can’t recall, he had hazel eyes but t hats all I remember. I try to feel sad that I can’t remember him but I can’t be sad. Mommy on the other hand, scared me. I saw her once on the floor shaking like she was being electrocuted. They say that’s called seizures but try explaining that to a 3 year old! Ever since, I was scared of mommy. Sometimes when she was stirring something, I would remember the moment I saw her on the floor and I would run away. I once remember hiding under the bed. Mommy was trying to take me out of there but I was scared. I was scared that she would start shaking again and that she would turn into something else. Mommy started crying when I would not come out. “My own daughter is scared of me†she cried and cried and I came out of there when I could not stand it anymore. I went and sat on her lap and cried with her. I didn’t know why I was crying, I just felt sad that mommy would cry so much.
Sometimes mommy would talk to the air. I saw her but did not say anything; I thought all mommies talked to the air. She would smile and act like she was talking to her friend. It was amazing at times to watch her do that. It was like watching TV, only I would be staring at mommy. When I think about mommy… I think about the color gray. Don’t ask me why, that’s just how I see her. I have to sigh when I think of mommy.
We had just celebrated my fifth birthday, and it had been wonderful. We had gone to a place that let us ride ponies and I got wonderful presents. I got my own doll house, a lot of dolls, some more of the frilly dresses that I now loathe and other small things. Mommy didn’t like the crowd, she never did. Daddy said she could not differentiate between the people and her friends. Only she could see her invisible friends, so that made her very confused. Days after my birthday, mommy was always in her room with her spells. It had been a week already. I really didn’t mind mommy being away because I had the beautiful dolls to play with. I was a happy girl!
It was a week after my birthday that mommy finally came out of her room. She looked at me and smiled, she looked so relaxed and I was happy to see her come out. Happiness felt good, a warm feeling in your tummy that spread throughout your body. I miss happiness!
That night when I was sleeping in my room I heard daddy screaming. He was shouting at mommy to stop, but I could not understand what was happening. I ran towards their room but I could not find them there. It was dark, I was scared of darkness. My heart was beating fast and I was so scared that I could feel butterflies in my stomach. I felt like someone would come out of the darkness and pull me into it. I didn’t know if I should look around for them, so I went back to the room. Daddy was screaming louder now. I tried to cover my head with the blanket, but the screaming did not stop. I put the pillow on my head… the screaming would still not stop. I shut my eyes tight, thought about my dollie but the screaming did not go away. I finally had to open my eyes and run down the stairs. I ran towards the screams and ended up in the kitchen.
I stopped dead at the door. I could not move though I tried to. I could not stop staring at daddy. I did not look at mommy once, so I don’t know how she looked or if she was smiling while hurting daddy. I don’t know if mommy was talking to one of her invisible friends or if she felt any pain while daddy was dying. All I saw was daddy covered in blood and his expression. I can now understand how he was feeling that night. He looked scared and hurt, hurt that the love of his life was doing this to him. He had cuts all over him and he was staring at mommy, it looked like he could not believe what she was doing to him… and then he saw me. He looked scared when he saw me. I felt like he was trying to say something, and I was trying to understand but before I could understand anything, mommy shoved the knife into daddy, and he closed his eyes. I waited for him to open them but he never did. I knew that he was dying… I had never seen a dead person, but at the age of 5, I knew my daddy was dead. I felt something cold inside me. It felt like someone had put their hand on my heart and was squeezing it as hard as they could. I was suffocating, I felt like the room was closing in on me. And when I felt like I was about to lose consciousness, mommy turned around and looked at me.
She had a smile on her face and she had a distant look on her eyes. She was covered with blood. I have tried to erase that face from my memory for a long time now. At first it hurt me… now I just find it a bit annoying. That face of hers with a slight smile and blood dripping from the side of her face and hands. Daddy’s blood. Mommy then came to me and took me in her arms, carried me to the sofa. “No one will hurt you now,†she whispered in my ear “Sammy told me how he was hurting you, and now he is dead…†Those were the last words I heard before I lost consciousness.
When I woke up, I was in a room with white walls and lots of sunshine. The room was white... fit for mourning. The sunshine hurt my eyes. My body was weak, but my memory was strong. I recalled every moment… and the more I remembered the more I hurt. I started shouting and crying, trying to get away from the bed where I lay. It was not long before some people in white came in and held on to me… they injected something in my arm. I can’t remember how many times this happened. All I recall is people coming in and telling me that my parents died in an accident, I tried to explain that I saw what happened but they would not listen to me.
And one day while I was laying in my bed, a man who I had never seen before came in. He looked at me and smiled. “I’m Sammy,†he said. He was mommy’s friend! I screamed and screamed until I fell asleep with the help of an injection. But Sammy did not stop coming. He came on regular visits… he visited me almost every day and slowly I got used to him. He said he did not know what happened to mommy. But he believed me. Acceptance felt good back then. He believed when I told him what happened. Sammy brought friends with him. He brought Trista, his niece who was around my age… and then he brought other nameless people. Soon I had friends. And soon I felt numb. I enjoyed their company but felt nothing towards them. I knew that I could not let myself get hurt like that again.
I was transferred to a “mental sanatorium†when I was six, though I had no idea what that meant. The doctors explained that schizophrenia had a genetic tendency. I had no idea what that meant either. I was put in a quiet room to myself. That has been my home ever since. And they let me dress in white. They let me stay in my room without coming out. In fact, they prefer if I stay in my room. But who am I to complain, I like staying here. Sammy visits me here all the time. Sometimes he comes in the middle of the night when I have nightmares, he comes and talks to me in the middle of the night, and then he vanishes. Trista helped me overcome loneliness when I felt lonely as a child. That was a bad feeling- a feeling that clutched at your heart and made it cold like ice. I miss loneliness too.
Trista is still 7. She has been seven since the time I saw her. Sammy still doesn’t have any gray hair, but I don’t mind them being the same. The shrinks say they don’t exist. Who are they to tell me that the only permanent and real part of my life does not exist? Would you believe anyone if they came and told you that water did not exist? Water that you see, feel and taste every single day of your life. Or what if they told you that your mother was a part of your “over-active imagination?†Shrinks- they think they know it all. Oh, there is someone knocking at the door… I don’t like opening the door for people. Sammy never knocks, nor does Trista, they just glide in through the closed door. I would want to do that some time. The last time I tried, I hit the door so hard that my head split open. I need to convince them to teach me how to do that. I need to go back to my life now. Its black outside… its night time. The world clebrates in black each night while I mourn alone.
