Witch Doctor #2: Sacrifice (Staten Krown)

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My mother clicked her nails and said, "You are witch doctor."

I remembered the first time I saw Beauty and the Beast. The way that I understood it was that Belle was a sacrifice to the Beast. I used to think how really fucked up that was. Didn't anyone look at this and say what did Belle do to deserve that? Doesn't anyone care what Belle wants? No.

"Come again?"

"Micko. You are a witch a doctor."

Don't look at me that way. I know the way you are looking at me. You are thinking this is one of those stories again. How could he had not known that I was different? Of course I always knew something was different about me. I figured it was the fact that I was gay or something. Usually that would have been enough but that wasn't exactly what was going on here.

Could you believe my mother would break this news to me when I told her I was going off to college? You would think she would be excited for me but she wasn't. She never really was.

"Come again?" I asked her.

I'd like to say that is how my story began and in a way it was.

"You are a descendant of witches. Our family is the Boss family of Moreen Island. We are one of five families in a coven of witches doctors. In my culture the witch doctor is a medicine man with powerful abilities to heal and also abilities to destroy."

Many people would have felt a sense of shock and to a point I did feel surprised. That was normal right? I was always one to believe in supernatural events even though I never saw any of this coming. I didn't have anything strange happen to me growing up. I hadn't developed any strange abilities. I didn't see dead people. Hell...I was the most boring kid around. There were no signs of what she was going to tell me until she told it to me.

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.

My mother never had a sense of humor. It was almost as though she was looking right through me as she talked to me. Did she care? Hell no. That wasn't a surprise though. My mother never really seemed to give a damn and the more she talked the more I realized why.

"You are an offering to the head family. The leader of the coven is Genesis Bah. Our family must make their offering like the other families. You are it."

It.

The more I think back now the more I realize my mother was always very detached from me. I was never her son to her. I was it. I had no idea back then exactly what IT was. I remember now the days I would come home with bad grades. I remembered showing them to her and just seeing the indifference in her eyes. I remembered the nonchalant acknowledgment she gave me when I came out of the closet. It was a soft, "Oh." She had turned and continued to fold her bedsheets. She had found her bedsheets more interesting than an confession of her oldest son's sexuality. When I had found out that the opposite of love was indifference I knew that my mother didn't love me. I had always known my mother didn't love me. I'd wonder why so many nights.

It was on my 18th birthday that I realized why.

"Do you have any questions?" she had asked that day.

Her nails clicked on the side of the table.

"I got accepted into Penn State."

I know it wasn't a fucking question. I'm not stupid. I felt stupid though. I felt useless. Her face didn't have any sort of expression to that. Maybe she thought I felt stupid. I wouldn't blame her. She had never found interest in my academics. She never seemed to encourage me to apply. She had showed up at my graduation lazily as though it was some sort of duty. There was no excitement in her eyes. I used to think she was fucking nuts. Seriously. I thought she had some sort of mental problem.