Chronicles of Mystery

The mechanics of a heart

January 26, first entry

I am starting this diary, an account of my experiences but above all of what surrounds them and motivates them. I wanted to report all the progress I would make, in the hope of not getting lost among my discoveries. However, I did not want anyone to find my entire story, so I concealed the various pages of my writings.

I still feel feverish, I don't know where to start. But I have to think like a scientist, a man of science, if I want to hope to tell the events clearly and precisely. However, I am afraid of not getting there as this writing relates to personal things.

If I'm going to focus on the story-worthy parts, I think I should start from my childhood. It's something I need to remember, and maybe it will make more sense to my mind.

My childhood. Pretty vague word. Already saying where it begins is difficult, knowing that my oldest memories on the subject must only date from three years after the beginning of my existence. Taking this into account, I think one could easily say that this story begins incompletely.

My childhood. The most vivid memories I have of it must be of when I was seven to thirteen. I especially remember details, small scattered moments, things sometimes without much interest that my brain has nevertheless decided to keep. I wouldn't be able to tell you about my first day of school or my eighth birthday, those moments have faded away.

But I'm going to stop hanging around and go straight to my goal, without dispersing myself any longer.

We were not very rich, coming from a family that had always been modest, even poor. If my parents had once loved each other when they got married, this was no longer the case, embittered as they were by the miseries of life. By the tiresome daily life, which fades love as well as time. By the need to provide for their children, already too numerous for the state of their finances. However, we were only two, compared to other families, it was very few. I remember a house where the children were twelve in number. It was whispered here and there that this small number of children was due to my mother's difficulty in giving birth.

I remember having seen her cry several times, whispering things to my father in the secrecy of the bedroom.

We were two. Their only two children. My older brother and myself. He was the desired child, the beloved child, whom they had so long wished to have. The one that had happened like a miracle. The special child.

And I... I was the second. The one who had come by chance. The unknown in the equation. The one they didn't know what he was doing there.

As a child, I too often felt the weight of my presence. The looks they would throw at me. The treatments I could receive. When a mischief happened, I was always the one accused, the only one who could be guilty. It couldn't be my brother, of course. He who was so pure, so good, so perfect. He could only have let himself be carried away by me and become an unwitting accomplice in my faults.

My mother sometimes gave me terrible looks and slapped me, forbidding me to get too close to my brother. She didn't want me to spoil her beloved son for her. To tarnish my brother's skills. The heir to the family, the one who would continue the line and bring fortune to our people. Me... I had to stay in the shadows. It was better for everyone. I was just bringing bad things. I was good for nothing. I still remember very clearly the whole evenings I had spent, hiding in a closet, waiting for a sign, I don't know what, something. Something that would prove to me that someone cared about me, that someone worried about me when I was not around.

Nothing ever came.

I watched my mother's gestures of tenderness for my brother, the pride in my father's eyes. I examined them from all angles, to compare them to what I was entitled to. They only gave me contempt, almost disgust. I was invisible to them. Not up to it.