Written by Tinthya Liemurs
Edited by Rotem and Scarlette
I confess that I had part of the blame. I also confess, and in a culpable way, that I enjoyed it. But if the pleasures were made to be enjoyed, why should there exist guilt between them? It is known that we are governed by a set of moralist concepts and they make us feel that kind of guilt when you are outside the norm. However, the kind of guilt that I felt was something else; it was something that makes you feel ashamed only by thinking about it.
At a certain point in our lives, we start to rethink some types of reasons and duties. We rethink if we are doing well or badly in life. Well, that could happen if you are closer to your thirties. The truth is that I was in that state for a while. Lost. Alone but in company, with sorrow in me that seemed not to disappear with anyone or anything, even with all that I loved and enjoyed the most in old times. It was an emptiness bigger than the universe, according to me. I got to the point when there was nothing that could give me satisfaction: Not the breeze ruffled the trees in winter nor the summer sun at the beach. I seemed to be an automatic robot made to be on earth and fulfill my duties: work, friends, partner, sex, society. I was in this state when I met her.
I found myself fulfilling my duty of socializing at an acquaintance-friend's party and for reasons of life, and being much too drunk, I was very bad. My acquaintance-friend took me to the second floor to get rest. I fell asleep, worn out due to the intolerance of alcohol and over pillows that smelled like lavender. After a while, I do not know how and why, I found myself in a bathroom, holding a bloody wrist that wasn't mine. Breathing very quickly and with horrible nausea, the wrist that I was holding belonged to an adolescent girl. Her blurry eyes showed me the biggest sorrow that my own eyes could reflect. I looked at my reflection in the mirror, weird, out of place, lost in the space without finding something to ground me. However, she seemed a black hole that absorbed everything around her, all the pain, the suffering, and she knocked over the universe full of stars. With a silent plea and cloudy eyes, I understood that I shouldn't say anything for better. Now I think, better for whom? Maybe for both of us. Cases like these generate chaos on casualties if they are not treated gently. Who knows. The following were a sort of words. Between one-word answers we managed to calm down the mood; between a bandage and antiseptic I put my biggest effort to stop what she pretended to do. As a grown woman, I tried to expose that this wasn't the best way to deal with anything, that nothing is so terrible...etc. I went on, half drunk, and said the things that are said when someone finds another one cutting her veins. How long we were in the bathroom, I don't know. Was someone looking for us, I don't know either. For a moment, we immersed ourselves in an uncomfortable silence. When my instinct told me that everything was under control, we said farewell in a quiet hug and sorrow. I didn't tell her my name; I thought it wasn't necessary. The night was over and I walked with my shoes on my hands, on a street without any car, to come back home.
Time passed and the society whipped me out with unemployment and debts. I didn't have any work and I wasn't called by any of the applications that I sent either. I decided to stay at home, giving private lessons, trying to survive. I was going through all that when I met my acquaintance-friend again by chance. She talked to me about her party and how great it was. She also remembered that I, myself, had mentioned my profession and she now wanted to me to give private lessons to her daughter. We agreed that the classes would be at my house because it was near to her daughter's school.
Through time and between lessons, a bond was made between she and I. With her, my acquaintance-friend's daughter, we talked about many things, except what happened that night in that bathroom. However, there were weeks when she appeared with scratches, with prints of abuse, with marks on her arms. I wanted to turn a blind eye, not because I didn't care, but because I felt that if I mentioned something, she would destroy herself somehow. It started to give me curiosity about her weak mind, her fears, her damages and cries. I wanted to know what she was feeling, but it was more satisfying to see her in pain. Why was I like that? you would ask yourselves. The answer is simple: finally, there was something filling the emptiness of my life. It was the other's life that caused this. It was the suffering and the pain of someone else that gave me pleasure. Doing nothing a satisfaction that it couldn't fit into words.
