Snowstorms and Sunlight

"God loves you," the tiny voice hung like a ghost in pitch darkness as Misaki pressed her body against the cold surface of the linoleum wall. Despite her efforts, she couldn't stop her back from sliding down the bathroom wall and her butt from touching the dry linoleum flooring. She thought of the most beautiful and fragile garden she had ever seen. Glowing pink carnations, pastel beaming sunflowers, large indigo irises that hinted at a great mystery but weren't threatening, white heart-shaped flowers nodding joyfully in the wind. All of it flourishing and fragile.

It was no Eden, but since she lacked the imagination to envisage that mythical place, her old friend's flower garden would have to do.

Nothing bad ever happened there. No birds chirped so the air was always quiet and her heart was quiet. The plants emitted gentle fragrances that mixed in such a way that it was redolent of both lavender and her favourite suimono soup at once. The plants whispered to each other constantly, but in the most diminutive way possible, nothing beyond the whistling of wind on a calm night, so she was never afraid and never alone.

"God…" The words trailed off as she said the name. She curled her knuckles and punched them hard onto the floor. She did it again. Now, they were red and stung only faintly.. She exhaled, leaned on the wall and thought of God.

It is said that God created everything. If that is true, then Stepfather and I must have been created by him as well. God knows that this world is full of suffering and sin. That is the Devil's fault. But he is willing to forgive anyone, no matter how awful they are. That's why he sent his only son to die. He would be willing to forgive even Stepfather, and me.

Her fingers tapped restlessly on the floor, as her head began to ring uncomfortably.

But if that is true, then why are my family's lives still so awful? Can't he control everything? I must have prayed and asked for penitence a thousand times. Why did my parents die? Why does Stepfather hate me? Why do Uncle and Aunty argue sometimes though they did nothing wrong?

She knew the answer. It had creeped up on her on an afternoon a few days before, like the feeling of walking out barely clothed in winter and having the cold seize your body. She distracted herself from it until now by focusing on doing work until she was so tired she couldn't think and fell asleep immediately when she collapsed on her bed.

But it had never really left her, had it? A desperate rage surging in and out of her heart every time she locked eyes with someone, bowed towards them, asked them pleasantly whether they were interested in discussing God for a while. At home in private, sometimes the anger got too much for her, and she punched a few things at home; her pillow, her mattress, a chair, anything that would depress or shake to her hits.

She knew what the feeling signified. It was literally one of the cardinal sins. Though it was Wrath leading the march, she could sense his siblings (envy, greed etc) slithering and hissing in the poisonous cavern of her mind. You ungrateful bitch! her stepfather sceamed. I've treated you with kindness all this time and you're still so awful to me. That's why your mother killed herself. She was ungrateful, wasn't she? Even when Uncle and Aunty treated her so well and gave her everything she wanted, she was still so angry. There's only one possibility for someone like you.

She was the Devil from the Bible.

It was impossible, she knew it. The rational part of her mind resisted against it, but the idea crashed over her like a tidal wave. That's why the bad feelings never left her, and that's why those around her were suffering. God said that he could forgive everyone, but he never said that he could forgive the Devil. That's because the Devil made everyone sin and caused terrible things, because he was jealous of God. She didn't want to admit it, but she was envious of everyone around her. Whenever she saw parents acting intimately with their children, like having a meal with them or hugging, her stomach would twist and her heart would race.

Everyone else was a servant of God, even the Devil at one point, until she betrayed God and God stripped her of her powers and cast her into hell. So, it would make sense that the Devil would want to lure as many people as she could into the underworld with her limited powers so she wouldn't be alone. She bit her lip. The more she thought about it, the more she could sympathize with the Devil more than God. But you don't have horns or a trident, the rational part of her mind squeezed out. She knew she wasn't the Devil, but the similarities were too numerous to be a coincidence. Just like how God had his servants, the Devil had hers. She was a devil on earth.

She shook her head. No, she couldn't let these negative thoughts bog her down. Her uncle and aunt liked her and thought she was useful. That was their own words. They would be sad if she were gone. She heaved her body of lead onto its feet, gripping the straight razor in her hand like a stress ball. She couldn't bear to look at the shameful object as she hid it behind her back and exited the bathroom. The door swished and clanged open. She turned on the lights and quickly returned the razor to its hiding place: underneath a box containing some old books on the lowest shelf. Only then did she look up at the clock sitting at her bedside drawer.

It was 11:08 P.M.

Damn it, I've fallen behind in schedule! It's supposed to be my bedtime, but I still haven't finished my study period yet. Bad Misaki! Next time you do that, you're going to pay a ¥1,000,000 fine! She knew she didn't have enough money for that, so she thought again quietly, Or 5 slaps to the head.

She went to her bookshelf and picked the first book on the top shelf that caught her eye. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud. Well, I've finished my Japanese and Maths studies for today, so I might as well reward myself with some leisure reading. She also picked a notebook of SECRET NOTES from the bottom shelf. She sidled over to her desk, procured a pen from a tumbler, and was ready to study.

Oh! So Freud believed that the mind was split into 3 parts: the id, ego, and superego. The id is the selfish part of our personality that seeks pleasure without regard for reality. It is present in us since birth. She duly copied this down in her notebook.

The ego is the constantly developing part of our mind that tries to satisfy the desires of the id in a realistic way. So, when a boy likes a girl, it is the ego that tells him to make friends and be nice with her first instead of just rushing up to kiss her. She penned this down, including the example. Beside the words, she drew a crude drawing of a boy and a girl holding hands and drew a heart shape around it.

The superego controls the selfish id. It is developed during early childhood. The superego is made of two systems: the ideal self and the conscience. The ideal self is an image of oneself as one wants to be seen. When one's behaviour falls short of the ideal self, the conscience punishes them with guilt. Punishment... Misaki's hand slowed as she added the last free hand travelled to her temple.

"Idiot!" He screamed, his voice full of smoke, and struck her on the head. Her brain began ringing"I'm doing this so that you don't end up like your stupid mother!" That time, he had found her sobbing in the bathroom. "You think your life is terrible, because I hit you once in a while? What about me? I have to work my ass off all day trying to find a job so I could feed your ungrateful mouth? My father used to beat me all the time when I was young! "

One time, she had returned home from school to find the her mother sprawled awkwardly against a wall in the living room. Terrified, Misaki had let her school bag fall to the ground and rushed to her side. "Misaki," she said, as Misaki kneeled beside her and began to cry as well. Her mother took Misaki's tiny hands inside hers. "I'm sorry, I'm a failure. I'm a terrible mother."

Misaki suddenly realized she had left her desk and was pacing circles in her room. She sighed softly. She entered the darkness of her bathroom and shut the door.

She was really selfish, wasn't she? Her uncle and aunt had taken her, a cursed delinquent , into their house from the kindness of their hearts. They had provided her a life of luxury. And how had she repaid them? She'd dropped out of high school , because she wasn't strong enough to handle people around her. She'd taken their hard-earned money and squandered it on books she liked. Since she arrived, they also began fighting a lot.

Yet they had always been so kind to her. When one day she had finally broken down and told her uncle that she felt she couldn't continue going to school because she was a burden on her classmates, he had smiled so warmly, and told her, "They don't, Misaki-chan, but I understand. You can try again anytime you're ready." He even said she could work part-time at his manga café to occupy herself. Her aunt had chastised her (as she should have), but eventually suggested she should follow her for soliciting so she could 'let God heal her with time'. She even bought some religious books for Misaki and expressed the hope that she would feel better soon.

Yet she did nothing but pile trouble after trouble onto their lives. She remembered that on the day she had asked to quit school, Aunty and Uncle were arguing. Although she knew that she could should have stopped hersel, she didn't deserve to, she didn' stop crying, letting the tears rush freely from her eyes. They had halted the argument temporarily then, and had awkwardly comforted her and ushered her back to her room. But they had continued in even more heated tones in the privacy of their bedroom because of her. She knew because she had snuck down to listen. And she was hiding the razor from them, too. Stepfather was right, she was just as selfish as her mother. And she couldn't even believe in God, for her aunt's sake.

Yes, she didn't believe. How could there be, when a devil was allowed to ravage the earth to kill people and make everyone miserable? Why hadn't she been struck dead yet? Unless God was evil too, and she was his servant, sent down to do his bidding. But the bad luck he imbued in her was too strong, and his creation began to foil the own purpose of her being. Her awfulness filled her with remorse and pain, it clutched her during the day, it kept her awake at night. She yearned to end her life, to lessen the filth in the world. "Killing yourself is selfish too. Your uncle and aunt would grieve. " a part of her mind reminded her. That might be so, but at least they wouldn't be plagued with misfortune anymore. Knowing that such a selfish person had died, they would recover quickly and come out happier than ever.

I'm rotten to the core. I wish I could just die now.

She imagined a ray of light breaking into darkness –selfish bitch – She willed a pink flower to grow facing it—ungrateful – She tried to recall the good things Uncle and Aunt had said, "You're just like the child—devil—we never had!" "Thanks for doing all these chores! You're such a great kid!" –like your mother— "We're so happy to have you—You're actually a terrible person, you know it. You're just fooling them. – around," he said, smiling.

She felt like her breath was catching in her throat. She slid open the door and escaped the bathroom. She felt better, but breathing was still uncomfortable. She flicked the light switch and threw herself onto her bed. She tried to think of the gorgeous garden where nothing went wrong. After laying there with her eyes opened for a while, she realized she couldn't sleep. She turned on her bedside lamp and checked her clock. It was 12:18.

She retrieved her sewing materials from her bookshelf. Then, a pair of calico jeans torn at the left knee from a box at the foot of her desk. It was her Uncle's. She had planned to patch it the following day, but decided to work on it now since she was insomniac. She made a plain blue patch to cover up the hole. When she was satisfied with her work, she looked at her clock again. It was 12:32. She felt wide awake.

She opened the window and let the winter air bite at her exposed hands. The sky was abysmally dark and cloudy and the silhouettes of the distant town were further shrouded by a layer of powdery snow. Her hands were frigid, but it distracted her from her thoughts and reminded her to be strong.

She stalked over to bookshelf and bent down to retrieve the object hidden under a box of books on the bottom shelf. She paused, and walked away.

At about 12:45, she turned on her desk lamp and began studying. If she was going to live, she would likely need to take a nap tomorrow from staying up so late, so she should finish as much work as she could now.

She continued to alternate between studying at her desk, occasionally glancing at the box at the lowest shelf, and walking to the window whenever she felt overwhelmed. 1:02, 1:18, 1:28, 1:47, 2:01 passed like this. Finally, at 2:26, as she was reading a section on polynomials, her eyes began to droop and her mind was lead. She felt safe to turn off the desk light then. She collapsed on the bed and let darkness consume her world, something like triumph blossoming in her heart.

Daybreak.