What is meant to be remembered

Suddenly all the clocks in the house stopped, not too long ago, in a place not too far away. She didn´t have time to take a few minutes and evaluate, there were no minutes left. 

Everything went dark, and the air was foul. She could sense a presence. A nightmare? So unlike any other dream, could this be anything but a nightmare?

-“Hi there!” a voice spoke. A friendly ethereal and strangely comforting female voice.

-“Who speaks? Who is there?” she asked with hoarseness in her own voice.

-“How are you doing?”

-“Who are you?” she asked, closed to tears.

-“Would you care to take a walk with me?” the invisible woman continued as if she had asked her nothing worth answering.

She must be losing her mind. That´s what this was. Her mind was lost. She had finally slipped down the slippery slope of mental illness. There was no other explanation: she derailed and now she crashed.

-“You didn´t lose your mind. You lost your heart!”

-“What?” she wanted to scream but her vocal cords refused to cooperate.

-“Think of a picnic on a summer day.” The soft voice commanded.

-“I don´t think I ever did that.” she whispered.

-“The name of a friend.” There was a melody to that voice. So sweet.

-“I don´t have any friends.” She sniffed.

-“The dress you never got to wear.”

She did not know what to answer, she was caught in a strange place, like a dram in the morning when you´re about to wake up, but your sleepy self won´t release you out of a dream yet.

-“Think of shapeshifting clouds you used to chase as a teenager.” The invisible lady spoke.

-“Yes, I remember those. I have seen so many. I was simply content to contemplate them and marvel at their ever-changing shapes. I imagined I could put my problems on a cloud and have them float away.” She said softly.

-“There you go! What you can´t forget is meant to be remembered.” The voice comforted her. It was soothing, and she began to feel grateful for its presence.

-“Now would you take a walk with me?” the voice invited her.

-“Where are we going?” she asked.

-“To the land where all things forgotten go. Don´t be afraid, there´s nothing to fear. Give me your hand. Brace yourself and follow me.”

She put out her hand in front of her and floated away….

What if her childhood had been nothing more than a question? A few words in a sentence with a question mark dreamed up with innocent eyes which observed everything with childlike simplicity. The most fantastic and ominous occurrences. Maybe this was one of them?

Forced into adulthood. Nobody ever noticed, and if they did, they sure as hell never mentioned anything.

Hot meals made up of fifty cents spaghetti and a bit of ketchup.

No, this was not the whole story. Anonymous misery, anonymous like herself. Made anonymous, so there´s no guilt. Only shame left for her to bear alone.

What did her parents do professionally? That´s never a question. It´s a way to determine your class. A measure if you belong. It´s a form of stabbing, cutting very deep sometimes; best to answer with a lie… obliquely. Things like that.

What if her childhood was untrue? That would explain a lot. Even justify it. she always noticed small and insignificant things. She was like that: the bridge she wanted to take the plunge from over the river where she dreamed of evaporating into the clouds.

What was her first truth? That house, her prison? She saw everything once upon a time. it all resulted in alienation and a descend into melancholia. A condition that would worsen over time. She chose not to remember anymore.

Surrounded by people who turned a blind eye to her precarious childhood, nobody would ever see her. nobody would ever come. All that was left was a retreat, further and further in her own interior with a large staircase to the underworld.

They considered her weird. A monster: ferocious in appearance. Just another mythical creature, she grew to love so much.

She unsettled them. Or maybe that was just what she thought. That is what the others said when the monster was about to trespass into the bourgeoisie. Maybe that is what it meant to be human for the lower class.

Feared for no reason, until she learned to fear herself. One part intellectual, one part peasant, one part worker, one part… monstrous in their eyes.

She learned to fictionalize her own life. Seamlessly unfurling ruminations of intimacy with trauma and the passage of time. A realm of ideas, in which she looked forward to the day she would be able to think something different and imagine another outcome. The others locked themselves into their sense of entitlement. Cruelty and hatred are leftovers for the poor.

She learned to figure out things. To manipulate people and to objectify herself. The evidence of idiocy! She became implicit in their lies. Emotional cruelty in the comic incongruities of life. Outside of normal time, governed by the arbitrary laws of fairy tales, she dreamed of running free to the back of beyond. Until there would be nothing left to extract. Self-erasure into a story with no words, in a book of silence.

 -“Hi there!” a voice spoke. A friendly ethereal and strangely comforting female voice.

She turned around. A lady! Alluring and highly charming…

-“You… you look like me.” she stammered overwhelmed by this vision who strangely aroused hope in her.

-“I am you!”

-“Am I dead?” she whispered.

The angelic creature shook her head.

-“I am you, you left behind.”

-“Have you come to punish me?” she cried.

Her mirror image shook her head again: “I came to reclaim you, so I can be me again.”

She stood there, frozen in admiration and awe: “Show me more!” she begged.

-“Follow me. I will take you to a place where fear, responsibility, and guilt intermingle. A place where you have been alone for too long. It´s a place in the world of men, that men don´t know of. Don´t judge them too harshly. How could they know of such a place? They cannot know, what it means to be a woman without being a threat or a menace to their kind. They don´t know how the rules feel given by them in a restricted framework. Follow me! Don´t be afraid. This is a place where ambivalence is forbidden. Allow your curiosity to thread further. You´ll see! It´s a place of freedom. It´s not a place where you have to fight for your rights. It´s a place where you do not have to fear to be killed by a husband or a jealous lover. Do not fear: this is not a place of hardship or loss. You don´t have to be ashamed there, for being born a woman. Don´t be afraid to love and make love! Courage! Stand firm! Allow your dreams to take wings and build the life you want as you want it. You don´t have to be perfect. The horizon is clear, now wake up! Be a reject never more! Forget how to wave goodbyes smile at the wallpaper. Never forget how terrifying you can be. Accept the possibilities of what is meant to be remembered!

Wake up. The clocks are ticking …..