"If you truly wish to be with me, know this..." He whispers into the darkness while holding me, "I will control you, command you and tell you what to do." I remember how my eyes burst wide open and I tried to pull free. I completely freaked out. Who...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
You could think that my first memory had me traumatized or something. But I barely remember it; it is black and white with shaky edges. I am not even sure if it happened at all, but it for sure feels... So real.
I remember we moved out of the home our dad had built for us. We moved to a row house, one level row house; not those pretty ones you can think of from the United Kingdom oh no. This was one level, brick and dark as hell. I learned later, years later in fact, that dad had driven his firm into bankruptcy and had put the house as a backup for the loan. My godfather bought the house and he still lives in it as far as I know. We're not in speaking terms so have no up to date information on that.
So we moved to this small rowhouse apartment and I have 2 memories from it, both about my siblings.
First, I remember my youngest sister falling from a chair and hitting her head quite hard onto the floor. She was a sad looking child, she had these adorable droopy cheeks and she always had this serious, overthinking look on her face. Every time she cried her cheeks drooped even more and her eyes got bloodshot from the first sniffle. I love her and it was very scary to see her fall and bang her head, it was for the shortest moment in slow motion.
Second one is rather bloody actually. It was spring and to note that the winters here tend to be cold, snowy and icy. I remember how we rushed from the car to the front door. Mum and Dad stayed behind and next thing I know is my 2 year younger sister falls over, face first into the ice. Face down, it makes this horrific bonk noise. Silence falls for a second, mum rushes to her and the next thing I know is we are back in the car and I am trying to keep her hands off from the wound. Mum shouting, "Do not let her touch it!" and I try my best to hold her down, letting her scream from pain and shock into my ear as dad rushes us to the health center. She got a bunch of stitches right under her right eye, on the cheekbone. She still got the scar on the spot. I remember staring at her in the car, holding her down and bleeding all over her jacket and my hands. This particular memory is full of screaming, shouting and crying. It is very vivid and I can still smell the blood when I think of it. There was so much blood.
I am not sure why, but then things go rather dark for a while. No particular memories or events that I remember. We moved again, to another rowhouse. It was right next to the school I was about to start at. There's some faint memories of us playing in the kindergarten or singing a happy birthday song when someone had a birthday there. I don't remember having a friend or two, I was not a part of a group or a clique. Then again, can you have cliques at that age?
We start first grade when we are 7 years old. In a small village like ours we had one classroom and we had around 30 students in one room. My class was majority of boys, we only had a handful of girls. We had a boy who also repeated the first year because he had gotten into an accident with a truck or something and his other leg had been damaged severely. It affected his walking and he was a big boy, he was tall but round as well. And he had a crush on me. This boy had a habit of putting all sorts of gifts into my desk during recess. I found trinkets and all types of beautiful, girlish things. And I felt embarrassed of them all. I am one who blushes immensely and I am very well aware when it happens. And it happened a whole lot, all the bloody time in fact. I got a habit of getting the next class books ready before recess so I wouldn't have to open my desk and let everyone see that I had received yet another unwanted token of... Love?
I told that boy, quite rudely, to stop giving me the trinkets and shoved them down into his lap quite dramatically right before a class one day. I had been teased for how I was going to get married with the boy and how I was blushing. I couldn't take it anymore, no one was standing up for me and no one was going to so I had to do it myself. And I did. Rudely? Oh yes. But was it effective? Exceptionally so. He never stopped liking me however, he just stopped being so pushy about it. Which I could bear and did not get teased or bullied over constantly on daily basis.
I was somewhat paranoid about missing out on school. Mum had put an alarm clock ringing on the time I was supposed to leave home, but as soon as I heard the school bell ringing I rushed in. An hour too early to a class that was not meant to be mine. Our teacher had split our class in 2, blueberries and strawberries the groups were called. One half started an hour earlier than the other half. And I was meant to come in an hour later due living right next to the school, however I always followed the school bell that rang us in. Even with that alarm clock ringing for me. And mum assured me, it will ring when the time is right.
So what I started in the mornings was to visit our neighbor and go have a play time with the girls over there. Mum put a halt on it rather quickly. I am just assuming my early morning visits were not very thoughtful.
I was also sent to the after school classes 'cause I struggled to learn time, reading and writing. Well you know, just the basics of learning I suppose. I don't remember how many of us there were but I remember a boy who called our teacher mum was there. She was not his mum, but a normal mistake to happen for our age in first grade I was told. She was a very motherly figure to us all for the first 2 years of elementary school.
