L'Appel du Vide (Nocebo Effect P3)

mother Kenneth

I've been utterly excited about this trip to France, about showing my new friends every landscape and every monument that I've witnessed every day as a child, but I'm also a bit apprehensive about returning to my home, especially because I haven't seen my family since I became the amnesic host of continuous obsessions.

Notwithstanding, I am still in my bedroom in Kenny's house, packing my suitcase for the trip back to memory lane that might as well jog my memory or else be rendered ineffective and dull, and I'm fully suited to fly towards the first country in which I resided, where everything was better than placebo pills and suicide and being forgotten by my own mind.

My suitcase jars against its sides with a click, signaling that I am all prepared to return to my home in Bordeaux with my newest friends, leaving my first friend since I was stripped of my memory and was forced by desperation to live with him, but it's been a treat nonetheless, because there are no prior complications to nudge a barrier between us.

It seems that now I am terrified of my past, because if my old friends all hated me for what I did in it, then it should be incredibly monstrous. How can I forgive myself when I don't even accept others people's apologies? I have shoved my companions into so many situations that no one can ask of their friends, but they somehow survived, and I shouldn't be dictating that if they can survive that then they can survive anything else, but I sure as hell might applaud them for their efforts, at least.

And then there's the present. Now most people would assume that the present is an amazing concept, for you can shape your whole life in the moments placed before you. However, the present is always moving. You are never in the present for very long, because each second is splitting into millions upon billions of other times in an infinite string, so are we ever really in the present at all? It's remarkably confusing, and the present isn't a gift as kindergarten teachers proclaim that it is. The present is something you're scared of because you don't know if things get better or not from here, don't know if you should just swallow a cyanide pill and get on with it. I don't trust the present.

I am afraid of my future, too, what it holds for me. Will Brendon have abandoned me like I abandoned him, even if it's a fair trade? Will Kara hate me after coming to her senses that I was a terrible person and probably remain to be a terrible person? Will Kenny be fired from the only job that has supported him bountifully until we're living on the streets where he found my mutilated body? I don't know, and I hate not knowing, and I hate that my instability in my moral character has led me to the point where not knowing is like stumbling blindfolded into the street.

On the contrary, Kara and Brendon and I have scheduled a trip to France that I surmise will be absolutely lovely, and there's nothing I can see in that future that would be harrowing, so I need not focus on the perpetual plagues of simply existing, and I drag my suitcase downstairs to part with Kenny at the door.

"Stay safe. The airports can be dangerous. Call me if you need anything." Though Kenny's countenance is soaked in worry, his sentences are concise and straight to the point, which most likely signs that he's even more worried than I had first thought.

In an attempt to calm his anxiety of my departure, I mesh his stiff figure in a sturdy embrace for longer than is necessary to say goodbye, but it's just my way of clarifying that I'm so grateful for his presence in my life and everything that he's done for me, and leaving doesn't mean that I'm sick of seeing him.

Kenny draws Brendon near him, and Brendon complies reluctantly, being unsure of what Kenny needs him for but respecting my guardian enough to trust him. "Keep him safe, will you? Make sure he doesn't get hurt."

Kenny, the anxious mother, the overprotective mother, the mother I wish I had grown up with instead of my real one back in France where we're visiting today, who never really was much of a help to my perplexed mind becoming more perplexed with each year until I was thirteen and removed myself from my family's life completely by abstaining from taking pictures of myself to make it seem as though I was already dead, because I was sure that I would be soon.