vox populi

I. Learning How To Scream (in five parts)

I.

At five, I always believed what everyone told me, especially words from the others who come out every Saturday morning with their doting mothers in perfect pig tails, pierced earlobes, and shoes not meant for the sandbox but worn anyway.

J, I think, was my best friend. A thread from my sweater got caught on J’s earrings. Her earlobe was torn. J would kill me if she finds out.

I didn’t tell J.

Two decades later on a rare visit back home (to sell the house), I ran into J. Her face was barely recognizable with all the makeup, but she smiled, recognizing me, and tucked her hair behind her ear to show me the scar I left her.

Only then did I realize that J knew.

“You were the only one who wore such shabby clothes,” J said, filling my silence.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” I asked. We are walking now, down the street to the playground, or at least what used to be one.

“If I told people, you would be forced to apologize. And I would be forced to forgive you,” J replied. “It’s only because no one knew and you were forced to remember that you stood by me. Otherwise you would have told them, wouldn’t you? How my mother snuck out at night just after my drunken father got home. You would have told them you saw him in my room, watching me pretend to sleep while he touched himself.”

I watched J walk ahead of me. Her careful, measured gait betrayed the mask she wore on her face every day while her spine carried the anger, kept her back straight even as she jumped behind strangers’ cars in the dead of night.

“You said…” She turned to look at me. “He was sleep-walking.”

Her lips, painted red, broke into a smile. “J would kill me if she finds out,” J said, her voice resounding like an echo from the past.

Did I say it out loud back then?

“Tell me, Luka, why you always wore that tattered sweater.”

She wasn’t waiting for me to answer, her eyes said as much.

It wasn’t really J who would have killed me if I said it was my fault—it would be the man behind the door in the second floor.

“Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.”

“Deuteronomy 21:21,” J replied with the air of a catholic school girl.

We parted ways without saying goodbye. There was no sandbox, I realized as I stared at the playground. It was always just the two of us playing in a corner, isolated from the others that I spoke of. The secrets I thought we kept to protect each other was never a secret. J wasn’t wearing a mask because there’s no need to. Meanwhile, I run away, clinging to an age old collection of books. The lord is my shepherd; I shall not want… to scream.

II.

Ever since the odd man moved in with mother on the second floor, shut behind that door day in and out, I’ve lost sight of pretty things. He was always rambling on about how pointless it is to want to live life to the fullest, or to think that life is beautiful.

“We’re all going to hell!” he’d scream, the scream muffled by the walls, the door, the windows—everything that separates the odd man from the rest of the world.

Then, he would laugh like he said the most amusing thing of all. Soon, I would make the mistake of going inside that room while my mother is out.

Soon after soon, I would make the mistake of returning because I want to see.

There are just so many things between that closed door, the odd man and the window behind him.

At four, it felt like the whole world was there, in the air around him. I’ve only ever known placating words and polite smiles from dead eyes those early years; I have never known misery and seeing it for the first time fascinated me.

He would often grab me by the arm and push my face against the window.

“Look,” he’d say, “they’re all going to burn in hell!”

When I became one of the people outside, playing in the playground with the other kids, he started hitting my arms and legs.

“Purge the evil inside you!” he’d scream into my ears.

Fascination was quickly turning into fear. But I still came whenever the odd man called my name. Perhaps, I was afraid of what disobedience would bring me because even now, when I pretend I pitied him, the lies burn at the back of my throat, scorching, taunting. I didn’t think the neighbors heard, but soon, the other kids stopped playing with me. I was… a saint until J moved in next door.

Unlike me, J has always been alone. Apparently, the other mothers warned their kids not to play with her. She just sat in a corner watching, like a porcelain doll made only for display.

I passed by her once, and she grabbed the hem of my sweater. No words or looks exchanged, I just sat beside her and we started drawing on the pavement with the stones in my pocket.

Since then, I’ve become a sinner. Every morning I would receive punishment, and by the afternoon, I’d sin again. Fear turned into hatred.

III.

My mother fell ill just after I finished high school. By this time the odd man on the second floor has been dead for three years. People from the local parish would drop by every now and then. On Saturdays, the parish priest would visit and pray for my mother.

“Come pray with us,” he’d say. “God is kind and forgiving. Call upon him when you’re in need and he would listen.”

Everything he said conflicted with the words I grew up with. His words made my scars seem worthless, like I was receiving punishment I could have lived without had I prayed, laced together a dozen flattering words.

“Just pray,” he said almost like a broken record, or a parrot taught nothing but.

So, more in disgust rather than a change of heart, I prayed, or something of the like.

I woke up one morning and she was perfectly fine, dressed in her favorite dress as she made pancakes for breakfast.

When I got back from running an errand for her, she was dead.

The priest was right, wasn’t he? I prayed for her to get better and she did. Perhaps I should have prayed for her to live instead.

IV.

 I’d be lying if I said I don’t know how I got here, or how I became this way.

In a sense, I consoled myself by saying I’m just a coward, and cowards do what’s necessary to survive. Even in pretense, faith allowed me to live. Everything happens for a reason, I tell myself whenever life shits on my face.

Carry on, carry on, I go, enduring in silence, making God owe me for being so nice to him. It was stupid. I was stupid. I clung to words; words make things easy with dos and don’ts, should and shouldn’t, and promises, don’t forget promises. At least until perhaps and what if came.

V.

J taught me a lot of things, mostly which doors should remain closed and which ones I should open, primarily by making me watch her learn through that window. I have decided that mere wishes, half-hearted words can’t create miracles. The Lord isn’t my shepherd and I am free. Pain isn’t something I have no option but to live with, and it certainly isn’t forbidden to scream.