God’s Favorite

God’s Favorite

Don’t believe them. I know you will but I will still tell you to not believe them. My family tells everyone I’m crazy which is why they’ve kept me locked up here, in my attic room. But I want you to believe me.

My small room is made entirely of wood. It’s basic with a bed and a box full of Greek mythology books my mom gave me when I was a child, before the southern doctor told them I’m crazy. I live alone but I’m rarely lonely. My bed is usually surrounded by at least one of my friends from the sky. From the night goddess with her sharp teeth and black lace gown with glowing white pearls adorning her body to the angel trickster with his different forms each night and sometimes even the stars, if they are in a good mood.

It would be close to midnight when my older brother would tiptoe up the stairs, the old worn-out wooden planks creaking under his weight. I would close my eyes tightly shut and pretend to be asleep as his aged, sun burnt face would hover over mine for a second. He would squint his eyes and retreat outside, satisfied that I was in control. My white pills hidden below my tongue, I would stay in bed, motionless for the next couple of hours to make sure no one was coming to check up on me again. It had happened one time, long ago, when I was gazing out my window, trying to fit my small bony body into the gap in the walls to escape, when my mother suddenly walked in. She just had a hunch, she later told me. Her stroke of luck turned into red slashes across my wrist which I still graze lightly with my fingertips to remind myself that this is real and I am alive.

The only connection I have to the outside world is through my window. I could be sleeping at three in the morning and I would hear someone tap on the broken glass pane. The morning mist would be swirling like an enchanting pattern made of smoke and ash, creeping its way inside, daring me to come closer. Without my touching them, the windows would creak open, compelled by Goddess Selene who would gaze at me from the dark night sky, urging me to escape.

One time, many years back when I wasn’t even twenty, I almost got to the parapet outside my window. I fasted for days and fed my food to the crows so that I could become as thin as the scarecrow my father had put up in our farm. I bent my back and twisted my limbs as I forced my body in the shape of a square and got one leg out of the window. It was a starry night. The night sky was like a black canvas with streaks of shining blue and purple splashed across the landscape with shimmering stars whispering to each other in a secret ancient code. I had a connection to them. I knew they wanted to see me with them, running away from this place where I was held against my will. But again, I was caught. This time by my neighbour Billy. He screamed as he saw me climb out. There were only a few farmhouses in the midst of acres of farm land surrounded by grey mountains on all sides.

I was angry so I dropped my cactus plant kept on the parapet on his head. He annoyed me. He made me go back. He made me go back and disappointed the Gods who were cheering for me. I was fed more colorful pills the next day after I was tied down on my bed. I never tried again.

The afternoons are the worst. I wake up unwillingly, with the harsh, glaring sunlight trying to blind my face. I’m not allowed any curtains. They’re scared it would make me crazier than I already was if I lost track of time. I don’t have a clock so I look at the scarecrow standing in the middle of the golden-green paddy field. His body is made of sticks and his head of an earthen pot with black paint to make his gory eyes, he looks more like a messenger from heaven to me than anything else. His shadow cast on the ground becomes shorter and longer with time. I know this was a message from Helios who rides his chariot looking for me. If I wake up on time and look outside through the window glass, I could see him riding his golden ride, engraved with ancient hierographic symbols and drawn by three snow white horses who seem like old acquaintances to me. The sun hurts my eyes but I don’t even blink. My eyesight has decreased. God Helios was angry.  

The evenings are a time for normal people. People like my sister with her long shiny hair which sparkles like gold in the setting sun, as she talks animatedly to the neighbor's son. Evenings are nothing special for me. The grinding sound the tractor makes masks any humming the birds might try. It’s the only time I get to see my sister through my window. She wishes I were dead because every day she has to lie at her school that I’m buried six feet under our farmland with a gravestone over my head. A dead sister is less embarrassing than a crazy one.

I watch from the window each day. She speaks to him at length or at least tries to, but he manages a reason to leave each time, seeing right through her fake façade. He heard me laughing once and looked up the window and smiled. His brown, uncouth hair and crooked smile too honest for this part of the world. It was a sympathetic gesture but it had been ages since I had seen anyone smile for me. My sister glared at me. That night, I was forced to swallow more coloured marbles from my brother’s hands than usual, as my sister silently looked at me from behind the door. I knew my tears would give her pleasure and I almost gave in but then I heard the window open with the gush of night wind. My best friend, Loki, was standing behind me, quietly whispering in my ear to do what he had taught me to. I looked at him and smiled, knowing fully well that no one else could see him. I laughed. I laughed as much as I could. I choked on the pills, on my tears, on my years of captivity and I fainted.

Each day, that I spend locked up in my room, is a reminder of how wasted my life is. In the darkest nights, the fireflies outside the window, dancing between the golden maze crops, tell me how my spirit glows in a kaleidoscope of colors. They narrate stories of faraway lands where I could sit in a city square full of people and just narrate all the stories the fireflies told me each night. They don’t mind that I see things nobody else does. They wouldn’t mind that a quack doctor told my parents when I was little that I was crazy because I’m not. All of them are just ordinary while I’m chosen by the Gods. My brother thinks I have delusions of grandeur; I think myself to be too great. I know I’m great. Who else can survive years of captivity and not lose their mind?

I often eavesdrop on my family as they sit and chat during dinner at night. My back crouched, legs folded and ears a hair’s breadth above the creak in the wooden panel forming the floor of my room on the roof. It was one of those times when my old friend Nyx visited me again. Like all the other times, he had a different form I had never seen before.  The window was open, and he sifted inside in the form of black smoke which looked like it descended from the galaxy next to ours. It’s was darker than any black I had ever seen. He tells me that my time has come. He had heard the Gods whisper a masterplan which exactly at noon the next day, would move planets and veil the world from the sun just so that I could escape. Goddess Selene would blind Helios and give me just enough time. She would take out her daggers and stab them between the spokes of his golden wheel.

Exactly a year has passed since that day now.

The next day, at noon, I broke my window. Smashed the glass and dislodged the window pane to make the hole in the wall bigger. I jumped on the parapet and then on the ground. I fell chest first. The throbbing radiated from my chest to the side of my head. In an instant, all the people my family claimed I was hallucinating about appeared in front of me, expressionless, on the horizon of the green paddy field, pointing towards the farthest mountain. The taste of sand and the smell of the wet ground I hadn’t felt in years felt surreal. I couldn’t see properly. Everything seemed dark and cold even though it was noon. I got up, brushed my bleeding knees and ran as fast as I could. Beyond our sandy backyard was our field. I could feel the wind gushing across me as it howled and kept increasing its velocity. I thought my lungs would burst. My feet were bleeding but I kept running expecting that my big bruiser brother would catch me and put me back in my room with my neck strangled in his muscled hands but after what seemed like hours, no one came. I stopped for a second and looked around. I was at the foothills of the mountain. I could hear the roaring of thunder. I could hear a stream nearby and honks of distant cars. I looked back at my house, a huge farming field, bright green and golden against a blue grey canvas separating us. I saw my neighbor Billy, standing on front porch with my father and wondered why they weren’t running after me. My father stepped away from the shade of the house and leaped forward as if trying to catch me. Billy pulled him back instantly as if stepping out would mean a death sentence. I looked ahead and put one foot forward to run again but hit it against a rock and fell on my back. Then I saw it. The sun was covered by the moon. A dark black disc appeared in the sky with angry red and orange rays forming its brim, as if they were trying to escape. Goddess Selene kept Helios at bay. Nobody but me knew what was happening. My eyes burnt but they were already so damaged from years of sun gazing that nothing could make it worse. And a big, fat drop of water fell on my cheek. A heavy downpour began. I got up and without looking back, ran ahead.