Bloody Daughterhood

 The heartbeat in the womb is very loud - as loud as a church bell that wakes up the whole town. It thudded at such speed with blood pouring into me with warmth. The dull and soft sound is imprinted in my brain. The pinkish-orange light coming through the belly was my whole world before the contraction started. It squeezed and pushed me. The first pain I feel - it was as ecstatic as the dance of the burning flame. The light was overwhelming my sight, the cold rushed into my skin, enveloping me with the shiver.

 It is an unfortunate coincidence that I never had a glimpse of my mother's face. When a nurse offered her to hold me, she refused. Then, I was carried in a basket with a blanket covering my face. If I had a glimpse of any part of her face - her eyes, lips, or jawline - I would have remembered it till I die and must have found my mother with it. But on the other hand, I would have wasted my whole life finding. The only heritage she left to me was the memory of her fingertips. 

 The orphanage was surely a bad place but it was not as horrible as you imagine, especially when it is the only place you've ever been to. The only problem is that it erases the sense out of you. Endlessly numbing till the ground snap and drop you into endless nothingness.

 It took me five years to figure out that I had an exceptional ability. I could remember everything I chose to remember. I call it a burning process. When I see something I want to remember, I gaze like drawing lines over it. The curves, the rim, the colors. I become a painter, recreating the whole scenery from another point of view. I started to collect beautiful sights while letting the ugly memory dim into forgetting. The poignant color of roses, the glass-like fragile blue of the sky, deepening green of the grass. But the most beautiful thing in the world was humans.

 It was rare to have beautiful people in the orphanage, but every time it did, I made friends with that person. My first pick was Ms. Frost, the teacher who visited from time to time and taught me how to write. Ms. Frost was in her 20s by the time. Her skin was white and soft like a fluffy cushion she used to tap on her face. Her lips with perfectly round and plump, looking like blooming buds. She taught me how to spell my name, Valerie. V with her white teeth brushing the inside of her lip, al putting her tongue backward, and Lerie pulling up the edge of her lips almost to light smile.

 Beau was the most beautiful kid I have ever seen. Though he was in the orphanage only shortly. He was adopted quickly and we had to become friends in a short amount of time. In the daytime, I would be his sister, taking care of him, and making him laugh. In the nighttime, I would paint every curve of his round cheeks, long and thin lashes that are smeared into the darkness with a sense of duty. His eyes were the color of hazel with green mixing like the leaf among the branches. You cannot imagine the loss I felt when the chubby fingers left me without giving a kiss to my palms.

 When I was seven years old, I grew into height to reach the mirror. That was the first time I saw vivid reflection of myself. When our eyes met at the surface of the silver mirror, I thought our gaze into each other would break the mirror into a million shiny pieces. I was not particularly beautiful like Beau's angelic face or Ms. Frost's womanly face. But I had strong features even as a kid. I had a steep sloping jaw and a straight nose bridge. My eyelids were gently covering my eyes like moss covering a pebble. My eyes were the color of unfathomable green. As I looked deeper into the mirror, deeper into my eyes, I felt like I was pulled into it. They were the only pair of eyes that looked at me with meticulous observation, tender affection, and curiosity. I was the first person who showed true interest in me.

 That night, I lay on my bed, fiddling with the memory of my face. It was like falling at first sight. She, the girl in the mirror, who is firmly closing her lips with determination was my family, my companion. With her so strong will in her eyes, I would be safe. I was sure that I would be able to achieve anything I want. The time in the orphanage slowed down. Every day was filled with practice. I studied myself over and over. I was building a sculpture of myself in my mind.

 From time to time, I got permission from the director to go for a walk outside. In the forest, I collected the way the sun collides with green leaves and makes them illuminate with orange transparency. The patterns of the bark, the line of the ants, and the sharp end of the leaf. The forest on the outskirt of the city was always deadly quiet. But as I walked deeper inside, it filled with sound. The chirpings, exotic melody of a small windpipe of a blackbird. It has shades of blue and red in its glistening rich feather. Take another step, and walk, the forest was full of minted air that is almost tangible while it's forming into dew. A haze in the dawn that hits the white sunshine like a floating galaxy. A silver spider web knitting death to catch the wings of the fly. Their silence told me that the human tongue cannot vocalize.

 Whenever the numbness ate my heart, I visited the forest to wash everything off. The memories, my obsession, my unfulfilled mind trembling uneasily, and gray that surrounded me - gray building, gray wall, and gray clothes. They were all washed away by the illuminating vision of the forest. Until my seventeenth birthday, the forest was the motherly world that guarded my childhood.

 It was easy to earn money for me. With a few tests and a certificate scored top by accurate memory, I became a judge for selecting models, an authenticator of paintings, and a helper to accountants who are running out of time. Meanwhile, I rewarded myself for everything I missed. I bought a house, clothes, and vacations. Some might say that I am superficial, but money indeed makes you feel potent. I felt invincible. Then, something came up, just to remind me of the rudimentary vulnerability I have as a human.

 Yesterday, I was returning home late at night. Streets were glistening under the lamplight like stardust. The sky was completely black like the underground. The breeze was washing over swiftly but it felt like I was buried alive under the darkness smothering me. The apartments lighted with orange and yellow put up shadows of residents on the curtain like shadow play. It still made me grin.

 I heard a squeak, a scream that was covered instantly. I turned in that direction, holding out my house key as a weapon. Something told me not to run or speak or even breathe. Upon the slippery road made of bricks, I stealthily went around the corner not making a sound. I stood by the corner and planted my legs strong to launch at any time. There was a man with a knife, blazing with the cold jet-like reflection from the shimmer of the moon emerging from the cloud. His bluish dark coat was glinting with the dark liquid oozing from the victim's neck. A girl was in his arms, dropping her head backward. Her white neck under the moonlight became a white sheet to emphasize the blood dripping from the wound.

 I covered my mouth and turned around. I wasn't thinking at the time. My feet delivered me to the police station, not needing my ration to command it. When the police arrived, the man was gone. Only the girl was lying on the street, dead, cold, and white that looked like a scream to me. Her eyes were closed but her lips were slightly opened as if trying to let out a moan. She was wearing a purple coat and a black dress. Looking like midnight came to life, her black hair was as dark as night. It could not be differentiated from the clinging shadow.

 After a few hours, a detective came. Narrowing his eyebrows, and wrinkling his forehead, he looked into the scene of the incident and came to me. He had such empathetic eyes, I wondered how could he be working as a detective.

 “Did you see who did it?” I nodded.

 “Blue coat, about six feet tall, black hair. He was holding a knife in his right hand, holding the woman in his left hand.”

 “Do you work in this field?” He asked me, surprised.

 “No, I have acute memory. It's a disorder.”

 “Maybe a blessing. We might need you for the investigation. Will leave your contact?” I left my phone number and left. I noticed the chill sliding down my spine.

 Over the night, I rewatched the scene over and over again. The man was wearing gloves, but there was a part revealing his white skin. His coat - I remembered that I'd seen it in the market before.

 The woman. She was bleeding, the cut on her throat was gaping to gush out dark blood. My head spun each time I saw her in my memory. Her bright red lips, her round and broad eyelid colored with ash. Her fingertips hung like chandelier ornaments, lifeless.

 Though it made me nervous and nauseating, it had such ecstasy. It was hard to deny that the sight of her death was beautiful. I had this weird feeling of an overwhelming urge to stare into the blood.

 The beautiful things existed in seconds. It always faded away and that's one of the reasons it was so beautiful. The sparkling sunshine on the surface of water breaks into different angles, the sunbeam that cannot be directly looked at. But blood was still, yet it was beautiful in that motionless coldness.

 Blood struck me like lightning. Its color was a toxic hallucinogen to me. I started to fall into a daydream.

 In my dream, red roses bloom. Under the deep blue sky gaping its round roof of the mouth, the red roses shake and its brushing sound is just like a whisper of singsong. I look up and there is no sun or moon. I am trapped in a timeless dawn. I start to walk.

 The world looks so different from the reality. Though I know that I am in a dream, I cannot wake from it. I walk like I am flying in the air. To a house it takes me. I open the door, and there is this emptiness with silence awaiting me. The ticking sound of the clock continues.

 The wallpaper is drawing gray brackens, and it reminds me of decay. The thick rug, the china plates with silver rims. There is a heavy red curtain hiding something behind. It is standing in the aisle. I draw it with one hand, slowly. Black hollow full of blood. Strangely, it doesn't shock me. I feel the wind coming from the other side and walk inside it. The smell of rose perfume gets stronger as I get deeper.

 I hear a sound before I see anything. It is a lullaby sung by a woman's voice. Then, I see her, sitting in a chair made out of gaunt branches that barely supports her. She looks up, removing her eyes from the baby to me. She is beautiful. Not pretty, but beautiful. Her forehead looks grave like the stutue's. Her hair is dark and silky like the skin of a snake. Her bare feet sticking out from her skirt is whiter than the pale winter sunlight.

 Suddenly, I move in a way I do in dreams where my conscience becomes a spectator and my body moves itself. My body leans to her and holds the woman's hands. I watch her white fingertips stained with green and pink vessels. I brush it off with my palm and I gasp. She was my mother. The woman with the hands that pulled the blanket over my head deserted me and suffered for me.

 I held her in my arms. Once again, I feel her heartbeat and warmth transferring to me. I notice the mirror standing in front of us. We look like twins in it. I walk closer and closer. It is not a mirror but an aisle, leading to another space.

 A woman is lying on a table in labor. She is screaming and sweating. Blood is pouring down, turning the white fabric lying on the floor into red. The blood gathers more and more, and it makes a big puddle. I see myself in it. The reflection of myself, rippling as the blood drops in the puddle to make a wave.

 The memories that I have collected open like a box full of butterflies. In the middle of it, me and my mother lie there. I want to deny that I am tied to her other than by coincidence. But feeling her blood in my vein, her reflection in mine, I let the anxiety grow. The anxiety that I was not abandoned but I killed my mother. She is still screaming, opening her mouth to let out a shriek. She is almost losing her conscience. She is too tired, lost a lot of blood, and water. She is so fragile, her breath is getting faster and lighter.

 “Ring, ring.” It was the phone call that woke me from the dream. I was sitting on a chair, staring at the plain white wall with eyes full of tears.

 “Yes?” The voice of the detective came from the phone.

 “I need you to take a look at our suspects.”

 “I'll be there by five.” I hang up and get outside. The sun is turning pinkish-orange which warms my skin with its shiny kisses. I walk in the streets that were once shadowed by death in the night.

 Men with blue coats and black hair pass me by but I don't shiver. Now I know that I am one of them, a murderer.

 I met the detective. He was in a brown jacket, greeting me with a formal grin. There were four men in the jail. One had blue eyes, two had brown eyes, and one had green eyes. The one with green eyes, he looked only fifteen. He was tall but his face was like a baby's that is still forming up in round hills. His eyes met mine nervously. Like a dove fluttering its wings in the presence of a predator.

 “The fourth one is the killer,” I said with a determined voice.

 “The one with the green eyes.” The detective nodded, the prisoner yelled, and others walked away with indifferent faces.

 The fury and anger I aimed at the stranger who gave birth to me turned to me. After all, I was the sinner.

 I went over to the deserted graveyard behind a hospital. Though I didn't know what grave was my mother, nor was the dream a true happening, nor was the green-eyed man the killer. I dropped my blood drops over the graves.

 When I look into the mirror, I see this girl. A girl who is cruel and brutally beautiful. In her blood, her mother lives. In her blood, her guilt boils. When I see my reflection, I see the power that can destroy anything, even myself. But her beauty makes me hesitate. I am not sure if it is her beauty or just affection for myself. But till the blood runs in my vein, I will live as two. As my mother and her daughter, the rage and guilt, the victim and the predator. The world hunts and is hunted.