unusualities
renewal
"For the first time in my life I tasted death, and death tasted bitter, for death is birth, is fear and dread of some terrible renewal." ― Hermann Hesse
She had never been afraid of death.
Never.
There was no use of being afraid of something that was a part of life, a constant, a continueity no one could change, when there were so many things to be afraid of. And there were many things she was afraid of. Not of death, not with how prone she had been to accidents and near-death-experiences. Nearly dying because of her apendix breaking; that one time a car ran her over or that one car accident were she was sitting in the backseat of the car (swearing she God or at least a God like being, maybe Death personififed), cursing her to a life of being traumatized and never being able to learn how to drive a car.
No, she really had never been afraid of death. There were many things she was afraid of. Spiders (which was silly she knew) and the citiy traffic and driving a car, she was afraid of people (because of her social anxiety). And she was afraid of pain and torture and she bruised easily. So, what she was afraid of in particular was the way her death could be like. Her favourite way to die was dying in her sleep. Any other way would be too painful. Which was hard as it was because there had been instances in her life were she had wanted to end it, her anxiety building up to a depression which turned uncontrollable until she was thinking about suicide. But she had been a coward, too afraid of bodily pain. It wasn't because of her family or her friends. They may claim they loved her but she knew it was all lies – and it wasn't the depression talking, her mother being a narc, her stepfather never accepting her, her brothers ignoring her, and her friends leaving her one by one. It was simple. She had never ended her life because of some sentimental notion. Her family would grieve? Good, at least in that way she'd be able to feel the love that had never been shown. Her friends would miss her? Which friends? The ones who only came to her when they wanted something? Neighbours then, and work collegues – as if. The other students? No, not one of them would care about her death. She simply had been afraid of dying painfully. Her aunt had killed herself, hang herself from the roof in the tiny apartment she had shared with her husband and her sons – good-for-nothing-relatives that only took and took and took until there was nothing left, only a shell of a once beautiful woman who had ended it. At some point she had considered hanging (just like her aunt had done), but only for a few seconds, before letting the idea go. Then, when she had been twentyone, studying abroad and trying to be a good student – which she wasn't, had never been, undiagnozed ADHD at that point in her life – she had felt so unhappy, so full with grief she had started to sleep with a knife. Which was only the peak. It had started with neglecting herself, her health, her hygiene, everything. Then she had stopped doing school work, letting her projects just be, days filld with either tears or hollowness. Years later, when she thought back to those days she only remembered pain and abandonement. No one had understood her. So before she had taken that knife that had started to be her friend, her companion, she had taken everywhere with her, hidden under pillows, in her clothing, in her bag, resting beside her notebook, before she could have hurt herself imparably, she had went to the universites health center and got diagnozed. Anxiety and depression. At that time, lonely and hollow, it had come as a surprise. All this time she had been sure there was something uterly wrong with her; wrongwrongwrong, as if there was this wall seperating her from other people.
Instead of working on herself she just let it be. The diagnosis was hanging over her head, like the sword of Damocles, and instead of the knife she had always carried around with her she had now a sword looming all over her, everywhere she went. At some point she had realized she was too afraid of change. That she enjoyed her pain in some twisted sort of way, which she in return turned into physical harm by pulling her hair, nibbling on her nails and scratching her skin raw until it bled. She was confined in this victim thingking and it was comfortable and she knew it so well and she wouldn't know who she was if the pain left her. It took nearly three years after that first diagnosis before she looked for a psychologist and started her therapy.
Then the slow process of healing had started. It was years until she had found out who she was, hard mental and physical work until she came to a point were she didn't want to end her existence. Years of therapy and medication and self help books and podcasts by people who had no fucking clue about the world, but liked to pretend otherwise. It was liberating. Because no one knew shit. Most liked to pretend but in reality? They were all just children in the wheels of fate or life or whatever that decided on life; if something like fate even existed. And then, after years of hard labour and finally having friends she could trust, having something to work forwards to, she… had died. She was just… gone. Gone from the world, her soul wandering the different planes of existence, just floating and feeling, but not knowing. Never knowing. Only feeling. Until this was gone as well and she woke her eyes and her body felt hot and her tummy was empty and it was so loud, so incredibly loud and then she saw her tiny tiny hands and tiny tiny fingers with even tinier nails. Her throat felt raw her skin clammy and there were voices and… oh. Oh.
Her name was Jurata Gerrlamhach. And she was a newborn. An actual newborn. And although there were memories etched into her mind from her former life she couldn't quite grasp them. Her brain was too underdeveloped to fully understand the meaning of this so she did the only thing she could. She cried.
As days passed the situation wasn't getting any better for her and there were many things that confused her. For one her size. Because this was all wrong. There were pictures and sounds in her mind, faces that told her she should be big, as big as the woman that fed her and the man that sometimes held her. It took several years until understanding fully came to her. It was a slow process and it didn't come to her like some kind of epiphany. No, it was something that gradually came to her the more time went by. What also seemed to be the case was that she was deemed as intelligent, which was only because she wanted to do things. Which she couldn't, stuck in this little underdeveloped body, clumsy and weird. Sometimes the woman (her mother) laughed at her, delighted at how cute her little daughter was. The man (her father) smiled sometimes too when she tried to stand or when she started to learn how to read and write when she was around three or four years old. She also talked a lot, talked and talked, and had tutors that taught her all that they could; who complimented her and her intelligence her parents shining with pride. The feeling was… unfamiliar. This pride. Those happy faces. The love for their child.
Jurata realized, at some point, that she liked this life. Because her parents adored her, loved her with all the parental might parents were able to. And she had an older brother, who was funny, because in her old life she also had an older brother. He had never been like this one though. He was always nice, and adored her as well. If someone made her cry he got angry on her behalf. Which didn't happen often, as her mind was actually that of an adult, only… her brain had to finish growing as well. It was weird, to say the least, experiencing these mixed feelings and thoughts of a child and an adult at the same time. Jurata also started to be Jurata. She wasn't that girl from her old life. It was like watching a movie, experiencing what the actor was going through when she remembered her old life. She even remebered her name when she finally realized what those memories meant. Every thing she liked, everything she had done and experienced was saved in her mind like it was a computer processing data from a different hard disk.
As time went on she also started to realize that something was strange. She was strange, she knew that, but this strangeness didn't come from her. She had only ever focused on herself, which is why it always deluded her. But then she realized more and more things. For example the crawling people. They had collars and were crawling and used and beat and spit on. It made her sick. That night, she crawled into the bed to her brother, lying that she had suffered a nightmare. In her previous life she had been a great liar. And she never got used to it she just… tolerated it. Because what could a kid like her do? But she wanted to do something, because this was wrong; wrong on so many levels. No one should have to suffer like this, to be used as a slave. Nothing justified this. When she had asked her family during dinner once, her legs kicking and a smile plasted on her face, the chair to big for her childish body, they had laughed at her and told her those are just slaves honey and don't worry about them and do you want one for your next birthday?
That last question nearly made her gag. She didn't, but ate and did as if what they told her made sense, as if it was completley normal to use human beings as lifestock. She tried to distract herself by doing and learning the things she had enjoyed in her old lifes. Which was music and dance and art. Her mother in her old life had sent her to piano lessons and dance lessons and with time she had painted more and more until she had tried to make it in the big world of art. She didn't make it. But it didn't matter anymore. Now she was here, learning all those things she had always wanted to learn, her brain springing from being mature and adult to being childish and easily swayed. Her new family never understood why she wanted to learn those things, because why? She didn't need them. Her life was already perfect, they told her. She was a goddess among cockroaches. Not punching someone in the face was starting to turn into a task that was harder and harder to do.
Then time of the test arrived. She wasn't the only one attending it either. All children between seven and ten years old were to attend. They were tested on their intelligence and health, and Jurata, with memories of her old life (of exams and tests and projects, of school and university and workshops) had no problems with it. She had never been the best student in her old life, but her very own DNA had suffered from ADHD and this body and this brain did NOT. It came with no surprise for her that she aced these tests and was the one with the highest mark.
She was to be presented to the elders. The Great Five. Her family was so proud of her they presented her with so many gifts she was completely overwhelmed.,
Jurata blinked at them. She was all pretty and dolled up and wore pink pretty shoes and ribbons in her hair and all she could think about was that they were familiar. Someone asked her a question. Jurata kept on staring, unblinking now, directly into the faces of the five men that held all the power. Well, except for the one sitting on the empty thrown and Huh, where did that come from?
„Jurata Gerrlamhach, daughter of Ludwig Gerrlamhach.", one of them said and she finally reacted: „Huh?"
Some oft hem squinted their eyes at her, some of them were suspicious of this girl, because how could such a girl with such poor manners be one who had achieved some of the highest scores since the World Government had been build?
A blush crept up her neck all to her cheeks and she felt hot emberrassment pumping blood through her veins, her heart squezzing in her chest, the same way she felt when she looked at the slaves, only without the need to punch the one toturing and killing the weaker.
„I apologize, Elders.", she curtseyed before them, shying her eyes away as it wasn't proper to look into their eyes. She had done so for several seconds without fear. But everyone feared the Five Elders. The oldest one was more than amused and had to hide a smile behind his beard.
„Do not worry child. I believe it must be quite exciting being here."
„It is, my Lord.", she answered sweet and shy how she had been taught by her tutors under the superivition of her mother, keeping up the act she, the role she was always playing in front of everyone.
Then it was time for the question. No one knew what the question entailed or what the right answer was, but she knew her answer was something that would shape her future. So, Jurata decided to ignore the niggling feeling in the back of her mind that something was hella weird and not right and just ridiculous.
One of the Elders, the blond one (she had always been bad at remembering names) cleared his throat and then he asked: „Are you ready for your question, young lady?"
She rolled her shoulders and nodded, determined to give him a statisfactory answer. She hoped.
„What is your opinion on our Government?"
She opened her mouth, wanted to answer and no sound came out. That was… not what she had expected. Maybe something philosophical, but then, these men were no philosophers. They weren't Plato or Aristotle or Diogenes. Those were old man that thought they were better than anyone else; men that held slaves and were cruel and who controlled the whole world. Whatever she would say in honesty would be the wrong answer. She knew that. So she closed her eyes and looked at them. She looked at them closely and thought of Obama, and Kurz, and Kim Jong Un and fucking Donald Trump, and saw all of them in these five men.
„I am only a child. I don't know.", she answered, „I haven't seen the world, I live in a place were there exists no grief and no pain." At least for me, she wanted to add but she didn't and kept on: „I can eat how much I want, I have my parents and my brother, and I wish for it to be kept this way." She smiled brightly and clapsed her hand in front of her, bobbing forth and back, from her toes to her heel: „I don't know anything."
She never said the government was bad; but neither did she say it was good. The silence that had come with her words kept and stretched and stretched until it got uncomfortable to move so she stopped bobbing on her heels and kept her smile, althought it fell a little.
„What a diplomatic answer.", the bald one looked at her thoughtfully and she kept her gaze, never wavered from the looks, just like she had done in her old life; sometimes, not always, doing so only when she had felt brave and strong. And at the moment? She felt braver and stronger than ever. This body had not went through the things that she had went through in her past life. Her brain was healthy, no accidents, no trauma, only happyness and family and love. She never went out with her family to protect the happiness, which would crumble around her when she saw how her family was treating other people. Fucking slavery. She hated it.
Nothing else was said between her and the Five Elders and so someone picked her up and away she went.