18. April 2013 · Comments Off on War Games V · Categories: D. 5 to 8 years · Tags: ,

My sister went to the hospital to have her appendix taken out.  My mom is with her.

Uncle Pedro asks me to go with him to his room where he has something for me.  I say no thank you I don’t want anything.  I don’t like cheese and crackers and chocolates are too sweet.  I don’t even play with dolls anymore.

Then I run outside.

At dinner time, as I pass by his chair, he reaches out under the tablecloth and grabs my thigh hard.   It hurts and tickles at the same time.  I jump.  My mother glares at me.   Uncle Pedro is not even looking in our direction.

I am seething at the table.   I wish I were somewhere else.  My mom hits my knuckles with her spoon.   What?  She has never hit me.   She says my elbows are on the table.   It’s not good manners to hit someone on the knuckles either.   But I say nothing.  I don’t know who my mom is anymore.  I am among strangers.

When I come home from school, I look to see where Uncle Pedro is.  I don’t see him.  Maybe he is in his room.  I see a box of photos scattered on the floor.  My dad’s picture is on the top.  It is a large picture.  My handsome daddy.  He wrote my dearest darling Lita on it, for my mom.   I am yours forever.

Suddenly, Uncle Pedro is looking at me, smirking.   I didn’t hear him come out of his room.  He is wearing slippers.  Before he can say anything, I dash past him and run outside towards the servants’ house.  I turn and see that he did not follow me.  I don’t want to talk to the amahs either, and I keep running to the very back of the garden.  I feel hidden among the date trees.

Why did everything turn so bad?  I wish I weren’t here.  I wish I weren’t anywhere.  What if there is nothing?  Why should there be anything?   What was before anything?  I have a strange feeling.  Good strange.  I hold on to that, feeling what is before, before, before anything.  Suddenly, I am filled with the most wonderful calm.  Nothing matters but this sweet calm.

Gradually, the feeling goes away.  But I am not upset anymore.  I know that there is a place I can go, inside myself, when I need to go away.

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