My Iron Tail

Four: Helpless Child

"Memory itself is an internal rumour; and when to this hearsay within the mind we add the falsified echoes that reach us from others, we have but a shifting and unseizable basis to build upon. The picture we frame of the past changes continually and grows every day less similar to the original experience which it purports to describe." SANTANAYA, George

♫Helpless Child♫

By: Swans

From: Soundtracks For The Blind (1996)

...

— So... how is Fratley doing? – he asked. By he, I mean the Doctor. Doctor Tot, or just Doc, or Tot. Some say Thoth, but that doesn't make any difference. A genius, they say, and I agree. He was so kind to deliver me that book containing his and other's researches about memory, and how does they work, or so does it seem. So far, I read the first half of the book. Not that the book is heavy, but I'm not akin to literature. Not all burmecians share of a taste for words in a paper, like Tot does.

...They all ask the same as usual. Besides me, there is a Fratley, and always had been. Mostly the people from this entire continent knew or know about me because of what seemed to be an endless search for the one who taught me many things, about me and myself. Some might say I was selfish, and they are neither right or either wrong. Fratley had his own goal, to protect his people from an upcoming disaster, but all that I wished to prevent was my own disaster, the collapse of my structure, the rottening of my flesh. Worse than allowing myself to believe only on my own desire, believing my strenght alone would suffice over the strenght of Fratley and the desire of his destined for all his people, which I had denied for so long, unlike the closure of his and the unnexplainable achings felt by me, and maybe his, but like now, he never reacted, or did, by fleding from my arms, or what I used to tell myself and believe as well...

— He is fine – I answered, then I progressed to tell him more – he eats well, no more fats, no more is he skinny, doesn't drink too much, sleeps before eight and thirty, share of same bed as me, wakes up between six and thirty and seven o' clock, practices regular exercises in the morning, brushes his teeth, has found a hobby on reading certain books, also water the plants between lunch and dinner on afternoons, baths day in day out, washes the back of his ears, never fell on the toilet, combs the flaxen hair, wears the same outfit, interacts with other people, is careful to others, likes children, is no longer afraid of the dark, is patient, usually on a good mood, often stable, laughs when a joke is told to his, brushes with a smile given by or to his, still cries after watching a good theater, sometimes doesn't, either because he didn't understood, or didn't paid attention, still kisses with saliva, still hugs me with same warmth... – and everywhere I go, I am followed by his, like a child is tied in to his mother's arm...

...From the window, I could see Fratley in a glimpse, playing with some kids on the streets. He is jumping rope, and so he tumbles like an harlequin. None of his knees went hurt, or any arm, it was just a tumble. 'Just a slight tumble, don't worry about me. I am a Knight as much as you do'; I used to say it so to his during the times I was training to become a Dragoon Knight, far skilled as Fratley, or so I thought I could come out of the shell sooner than anyone else, but Fratley was already a moth flying around, sometimes obscuring of my own vision with those eyes. 'A child only educated on a school is an ill-bred child'; father was alright. Same thought had been gone within me when I crossed the boundaries to reach the Dragoon Jugend, another name chosen for a kind of 'school'. These streets, no matter where I go, are the place where the true meaning of education can be found. Instead of teachers, anyone can punch your face, and pull you into a puddle of mud, or water if you are lucky enough as Fratley, though, no matter the size of the wound, you'll still get injured, and alike the weight of a feather and an iron ball, the pain remains the same. It's just the air that decreases the iminent fall, you see...