Are the doors unlocked?

[Part 7] 7/29/2021: 4:45 am

I stopped writing for a moment, those words weren't getting out of my head, I wasn't focused enough, I couldn't keep writing. I was writing at the same time I was thinking about those words...

''I'm sorry ma'am; we will have to do some tests. There are chances he won't survive, but have faith and stay waiting''. I didn't know that man, who he was, I don't remember his face, it was blurred and the tears of that woman were covering my vision. ''Who that woman was?'' I said to myself, with kind of a nostalgic voice, as if I were linking the pieces of the puzzle together.

I started to concentrate; I must remember that face, which started to sound familiar. I've seen it before, and this memory must be somewhere deep in my mind.

I remembered it, putting a lot of effort.

One afternoon I was passing near a hospital, I was about 4 years old, life was chill, no worries, no strange sights or sounds had happened to me at that time.

I was riding my bicycle. It was a sunny day, the parks were full of people, and it was without a doubt a wonderful day, which suddenly became strange, because of that look, which seemed to say: ''I know who you are, but you don't know who I am''.

The hospital, which I did not remember ever having visited, was having normal activity, except for a group of people led by a couple, who were no more than 30 years old. That group of people was striking. ''What's going on here?'', I said to myself, as I slowed down my bicycle pedaling to see such a spectacle.

The moment I got off my bike, leaving it on the other side of the sidewalk so it did not disturb any of the passers-by, I saw a number of posters that caught my attention.

''MISSING BOY. DATE OF DISAPPEARANCE 02/17/1974'', the posters said, with an image printed on them, which resembled the figure of a child.

I looked at the image closely. It was the image of a baby, and it appeared to have been taken hours after his birth, with its mother holding it in his arms, cuddling the helpless child. He had brown hair, just like me, and his eyes were shaped like hooded eyes, just like me. ''Strange'', I thought, ''it's similar to my facial figure, but it couldn't possibly be me'', to which I began to feel butterflies in my stomach.

I saw the mother's face, the red eyes she had. I could perceive, with my innocent 4 year old figure, that this mother had been suffering an endless nightmare since the date shown on each of the posters.

I looked into her eyes, not out of morbid curiosity, but out of curiosity to gather more information about what might be happening. In a moment, we made eye contact. Our gazes met, as when she shed her tears on me that February 2, 1974.

She looked at my appearance, looked back at her sign and back at me, tears began to flow from her eyes. She had somehow recognized me as her lost son.

A high pitched scream, which almost shook the asphalt where she was standing, was heard.

Here, some people, who may be reading this, god willing, might say: ''You are stupid; it's obvious it was your mother, how you could not notice?''. I was 4 years old, my ears were dazed due to the screams of protest, and I had never lived in a situation like this. I had, who I thought were my father and mother, at home, and I was there, an innocent child who had never seen that image of desperation. An innocent child whose childhood was being ruined.

I saw how people started to approach me, with joy and desperation. I, afraid that something would happen to me, remembered my father's words: ''Never talk to strangers'', he always repeated it to me, no matter how many times I've heard it. That damned phrase deprived me of being today in a normal home, with normal people and living a life, at this moment, like that of any normal father.