It was an unsettling feeling. The feeling of being lost, even inside of myself. Who was to know myself better than me? But it felt like I was the one who knew the least.
A person can't just walk up to his or herself on the street and ask a question, expecting an answer. The answer resides deep inside the dark holes in our heads that try every form of antics to keep us from finding them.
Deaths, family problems, society's judgements; these are all a part of these strategies that try to pull human beings away from the answer inside their heads. Were these punishments purposefully placed at each of these particular points in my specific life. Was it all a conspiracy of some higher up organization?
Today, a new machine was invented that places a person inside of his or her own mind. The person may fight through each of these tough situations that has occurred in his or her life, to eventually unlock the answer to their life's existence. Why are we here? Who are we? What is our purpose? Conquering the demons gives to light.
It was I who created this. It was I who without any doubts or hesitation, placed the cool heavy headpiece over my head. It was I who would find the answer to myself today.
All there was was black for awhile, and I wasn't sure if I had died from the electromagnetic waves pulsing into my scalp. I hadn't wanted to test it on anything first. If it succeeded, I would be the first to experience it. And I didn't fear death. If I perished, then the answer would probably be told that way.
But, I was confident I wouldn't die...
A light soon bursts through, giving that quick moment when everything is a blinding white, and where nothing is visible.
I unconsciously cling to myself, and feel my arms wrap around a smaller body than I was use to. I was five again, and the world couldn't have seemed whiter with purity.
It was my creation. I had known what I was getting into and what I would have to face. It felt so sickeningly real though, as if I had never left this time and I was this small innocent child again. Except, this time, I knew what was coming for this small helpless being, and there wasn't one thing I could do about it.
Their words bounced around my head, finding no escape and just repeating over and over. I internally cried for them to stop, but they just wouldn't disappear.
The school was entirely white, and this fact only made me feel more bland. These halls were the same every day, but each day I went through them, they seemed to become darker. You never know what is going on in the person's life you're standing next to at school. We all hide behind masks, and the ones who don't are the ones who have found the answer, or are just too innocent to have been corrupted yet.
--
He rips off the string I wear around my neck. I call it a necklace and I've become accustomed to it, although it's really a tag signifying my medical condition.
"I need that," I tell him, although I was a bit intimidated.
He analyzes it. "Doesn't this mean that you're gonna die soon?" he questions in a generally curious tone. He wasn't intending to be mean, but I was still hit in the chest with these words. I was a child and everyone knew how bad death was.
I take back the tag and look at it closely. It didn't say anything about me dying, and it didn't have an expiration date on it. It just meant something was wrong with me... That something was that bad? I look at him in fright.
Sticking an arm out, he pokes a spot on my own arm and I wince. "Is this from what is wrong with you?" he questions more, and I shake my head.
"No, my dad did that," I correct him. "I ate a cookie that was being saved for my brother."
Eyes stare at me in confusion. "I don't think that's normal..." he tells me, then walks away to move onto something more interesting on the playground I assume.
It happened so often I thought it was normal, for I had never known anything else since I was still a young child. It never happened to my brother, but I didn't question that. I had always known from the start he was liked more than me, that's just how it was.
I went home that night, just thinking over and over again about those words. I guess he had been right.
--
I was an oops baby, one of those that were never planned and never meant to happen. Because of this, there was a large age gap of 10 years between my older brother and I. But he was my only sibling, so we kept each other company.
Although, because of this, he was highly favored by my parents over me. I was 'never suppose to happen,' a major ingredient to my questioning of 'why' I was ever here.
Even with this, I tried to not let it affect me since my brother gave the opposite messages, praising my faults.
Since I was born late in my parents' lives, there was a higher chance for me to have something medically wrong with me. This, I did have. By 9, it seemed like the end of the line for me.
I lay in a hospital bed, held down by fabric straps and staring up at a blank ceiling. Shadows clung to the white walls, giving them an eerie look, and they seemed to foreshadow what my younger self was soon to find out.
The silence was soon broken by pounding feet hurrying in. I knew something had just happened to me, but the medicine was so strong, everything felt numb. A hand was soon thrust in my face, the owner of it holding a distressed expression filled with hate and sadness. It was my mother's face, and I knew that hate was for me, and the sadness for my brother.
Even when I question my existence now, the one thing that sticks out to me is that someone did actually seem to love me. They gave up their life in order to save mine, literally giving me a piece of them for where I was faulted. Was that reason enough for me to continue? These thoughts wouldn't go through the small nine year old's mind though.
My father stands behind my mom. He isn't crying even though he had just found out his loved son had died, it was just an expression of pure hate, and it terrified me. My mother was a flustered mess between anger and sadness, but him, he looked as if he truly wanted me to die. I remember behind those many creases in his face, the nights where those creases grew deeper with every drink consumed and every fist thrown against me.
"I can't believe you would do this!" my mom screams at me. "You killed him!" the desperation was strong in her voice. If she truly felt that way, I just wish she would at least be 100% sincere with it and look me in the eyes, but her gaze wavered away. Her eyes were wide as tears stream down the drained face; a face of horror.
I was too young to be officially separated from my parents, but it seemed I was given up. I was given food, shelter, the necessities, but is that truly the necessities of a human? No. Humans need love and compassion, not heartless gifts.
They were so selfish. I cried to my mom to accept me back, but was given nothing. Didn't they realize that I was already given my payback? I had lost the only one that truly cared for me, and now was lost in an unending maze of confusion of what to do with myself.
--
My life went down from here until I was in a pit of darkness, not seeing any light, no way out. I was blindly reaching for help, but even if I was given it, I wouldn't accept it. How could I know it was real?
I was sitting alone in a room completely coated in darkness. My hand shook as I squeezed my eyes shut and guzzled down the stale liquid. I had become what I had hated.
Even though I had experienced what that man did to me, why did I still become him? Was this really what I was meant to be? I open my eyes again, dropping the bottle and staring at that black wall. How did it go from being so blindingly white, to so drippingly black? Where was the answer? Inside of me... Deeper than I could ever reach.
But now I had reached it. The walls melt away, so I am sitting in the middle of just complete utter blackness. Just myself and the black. My answer lies in this darkness that I had to let go of. I close my eyes slowly and breath deeply, releasing myself from the boundaries that have held me down for far too long.
All I hear is--
