Faceless Instincts

The History of the Past

I peeked inside the trunk, there were pictures, cards, trophies, merits and certificates, I sat down on the floor and picked out a photo album. Nikolai sat down beside me and took out the certificates.

"These are so old," I said as I flipped through pictures. Little Dorian holding his mother's dress hem. Dorian is being licked by a puppy. A little older Dorian holding an axe while his brother cut the logs. "There is no. picture of his father," I said.

Nikolai stared at the picture for a long time and then nodded, "hmm..."

"Are you okay?"

He looked at me as if coming back to reality, "huh? Yes I am good." he said as he flipped through cards and certificates, "look."

He passed me a certificate, "Mount. Eve high school" I looked up at him, "do we have this in our town?"

He nodded, "we did but now it's closed."

"Great"

"I know it's frustrating, also I don't think it's helping," he said placing a hand on my shoulder.

I looked at the stuff dispersed around us, "you might think so."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, this might seem of no significance but if you look closely you will see how Dorian grew restrained from everything, see."

I showed him some photos, these were some pictures taken from a handy camera, marked Dorian at the back, "see the time and date stamp at the corner, you see how the pictures he took grew dark?"

Nikolai looked at me, "see in his early years the pictures are full of life, while as we progress through years, it's all either shadows, winter tree and here, simply the staircase."

Nikolai looked closely, "you are right."

"Also, here," I passed him the album, "see, the pictures of his family are growing distant as well, they seem happy at first, then after the death of his mother, it's just him and his brother, and around the end of his teenage his brother is out of the picture too, though in some pictures he is their t's unfocused."

"But how does it help you"

"It does, it might be a possibility that Dorian started to create a pain much more real and intense in his head than what he was experiencing"

"I am not following" he looked at me blankly

"Understand it this way, emotions and their consequential actions are manifestations of past experiences. Our brains create an illusion of liking as well as disliking towards something based on an event in our past, sometimes the event can be so minor that you don't even remember it."

"So how does this conclude with Dorian?"

"I already showed you how Dorian started feeling distant, isolated and even abandoned by his big brother, right?" I looked at him and saw him close his eyes and nod, "this might have caused him pain. So much so that it might have become unbearable for him, now his brain started to project emotions of self-loathing, where this emotion of being abandoned was minimised, but along the way the consequence of such conflict made him harm himself, therefore creating pain, that felt more real and original than what he was feeling but not actually experiencing anymore."

"So, you are trying to say that whatever is the reason for Dorian's psychological issues it's related to his past?"

"Exactly"

"So how are you going to find out what it was?"

"I'll have to find Dorian and ask him"

"But you got nothing that could lead you to him"