Life is a dream

Life is a dream. Some think of life as heaven, and they are the ones who manage to find happiness in every situation. Some think of life as a nightmare, and they are the ones who manage to be pessimistic in every situation. I am neither. I think of myself as an observer, watching the many faces of life like a movie. I never truly participate in it, yet I stand it, apathetic… unhurt.

“You’re just like your nuisance of a father!” her voice lashed out at me.

I turned my head away from the hurt that slashed at me. Mother was irritated. By now I knew already, her anger was stress-induced. It was a simple chain reaction. It was explainable, like everything else in this world. Reyn stuck his tongue out at me when he knew that Mother and Aunt Jermain weren’t looking. A childish gesture triggered by a competitive nature. I felt amusement at the fact that I was also experiencing the same urge at the age of eighteen. I watched Mother shovel dumplings from my soup in to my younger brother’s bowl. She forced a fake smile on to her face, pushing the bowl over to Reyn. Mother then lifted her head to chatter with Aunt Jermain. I listened to their mindless small talk, feeling my heart grow heavier when Mother mentioned me and my ‘uselessness’ easily. I mentally nodded, noting these feelings down. So humans felt upset when their parents thought badly of them. I jumped when Reyn emitted a piercing shriek.

Reyn flailed madly, “I dropped a worm on to my leg!”

I reached for my brother’s sling bag, pulling out a tissue, and in the process of setting it on the table, knocked over the fork. There was a moment of silence as Mother seethed in anger at having the utensil touch the dirty tabletop. I silently picked up the fork and placed it on the rim of the bowl.

“How can you put that fork back in to the bowl?” Mother slammed one hand on to the table, causing the fork to fall in to the bowl, “Look! Now his food is inedible!”

I cringed, hurrying to quiet the desire to defend myself. Luckily, or maybe not so luckily, Aunt Jermain interfered, attempting to calm Mother as she cleaned Reyn up and went to get a new fork. Five-year-old Reyn taunted me with whispers of ‘useless idiot, useless, useless’. I bit my lip, looking away. I wonder why, why I felt so much like crying right then? I tried my best to will my tears away, and cool down. In these moments, I needed to think. I needed to figure out a logical explanation for these feelings. However, I had never been able to understand this feeling.

                        I cleared out all thoughts after that, playing aimlessly around with my cell phone. I flipped through manga without reading, watched anime with seeing and heard the classical music playing without listening. I had to get rid of this numbing sensation. I followed quietly after the three of them as we went to get ice-cream. Mother laughed, and glanced at Reyn with an almost-adoring look through the whole time. She smiled, offering to pay for Aunt Jermain’s coffee. They discussed mindless matters such as how the white powder that was put in coffee contained a lot of transfat, and how bubble tea could amount to six bowls of rice. For a moment, I thought everything was back to normal. Well, by normal, I mean, a shallow façade of happiness. That, again, was another thing I cannot bring myself to explain. Why did we have to keep up such a farce so as not to get hurt? How foolish.

However, nothing had changed.

“Quit acting so dumb,” Mother’s expression soured.

I froze, my innocent smile wavering weakly on my face. I didn’t utter a word after that, for fear of exposing the depth of my hurt. I struggled to push away the pain. This was a dream. I wasn’t involved. This hurt wasn’t real. I stared at floor blankly. This was so… strange. Why couldn’t I believe it this time? I was so… weak it sickened me. I was like a controlled doll. I was pushed there and yanked here, ripped open and painted over by Mother’s wish. This was so stupid. Ugh, why was I even bothering with such details? I just had to be apathetic, neutral. That way, I wouldn’t get hurt. I couldn’t even recognize the torn, pleading face that was in the mirror when I went home and closed myself up in the toilet. My whole emotionless expression crashed as I sobbed in to the sink, my breath fogging up the clear glass. Water and tears ran together, flowing endlessly down the drain, along with my pain.

                        It was always, always, like this. I got hurt, I went home, I cried, and then I was back to my own emotionless self. It was like I treated myself like some reusable android, using myself to experiment with different situations, different feelings. Call me an idiot, or call me weird. This is the life of Rchoen Robynson.