Sega owns Sonic and related characters
Pink owns "Family Portrait"
Death owns us all
Day of the dead
Father is speeding. He always does that; whether running or driving, he just has to go fast. I can tell, though, that he would rather not have to move at all today. His gloves are stretched tight over the backs of his hands. If he grasps the wheel any harder, they are going to tear. He keeps his gaze locked on the road, though he doesn't really seem to see anything.
Mother is crying. She always does that. Her painfully gasping sobs form the underlying theme of my childhood. I really wish I had something with which to counter the melancholy, but I cannot even remember what her laughter sounds like. She is holding a handkerchief to her eyes now, but to little avail: her gloves are already dark from the damp contact, her make-up leaving tiny smudges of colour on the white fabric.
Father's ears twitch and that hard line I know so well appears by his mouth. He doesn't yell at her. He never yells at her. Usually he just leaves her sitting there in agony to wonder whether he will be back at all this time. I never quite figured out whether she cried for his leaving or coming…
But today there's nowhere to run; he's trapped in the car with mother and me. He knows it. His eyes dart sideways for less than a second, as if contemplating the possibility of running the rest of the way. He can't. Everyone would be angry, were he to leave mother now. Perhaps he himself would too…
Searching any distraction, probably desperate to drown out the sobbing breath which has filled both of our ears, without pause, for the last twenty-four hours, he turns on the radio. A young woman rides the sound-waves, wailing at my parents:
Mama please stop cryin'
I can't stand the sound
Your pain is painful and it's
Tearing me down
I hear glasses breakin'
As I sit up in my bed
I told God you didn't mean
Those nasty things you said
Mother lets out a small, terrible sound, like the crushed death of something tiny and fragile in a strong hand. Father pretends not to notice, letting the chorus of the song fill the car. Mother's hands are trembling. I can almost see it under her white gloves.
Gloves. From my very first day in the world, right up to today, my parents have always worn gloves. I don't know what their skin smells like, whether their hands are warm or cold, soft or hard, smooth or scarred. Father was always running away and mother was always running after him… Come to think of it, do I even know them? Of course, Aunt Cream and Uncle Tails told me all the stories, but that is not the same! I don't know them, I know of them, in the same way I know of Napoleon or the President. I so wish I could remember just one hug. I long for the kind contact with every last fibre of my cold body.
Am I really cold? Can I be cold?
If I close my eyes I can feel the seat underneath me and how it vibrates ever so slightly as the beating heart of the car speeds up, sending the echo of its strain through the entire metal body like a whisper.
I relive that odd, chilling sensation; like letting go and grapping hold, breathing both in and out all at once. It was beautiful. Beautiful and terrible. And crushingly final. I know. I sought it out myself. I knew my parents would be unhappy, but I also knew it would pass. For all of us.
Why do I stay with them? I wanted to get away, and now, finally, I can. So why do I hesitate? I lean forward slowly, carefully, and look from my mother to my father. I see both of them in sharp profile and imagine for a moment one hedgehog, half of each. Two-face. A monster. With a heart-chilling shudder I realize that the being I just described, half of my father plus half of my mother, is me, and the monster leers triumphantly in the back of my mind for a brief, horrid moment.
Why am I so unlike them? A jab of envy like the sting of a wasp forces my mind back into focus. My eyes sting. I didn't think they could do that any more…
Why did I never feel at home around my parents? I used to imagine that they were not really my mother and father at all, and that somewhere a young, beautiful, extremely fast little hedgehog was crying through the dark hours, wrapped in agony, just like me…
I look at my father's eyes in the rear-mirror. Emerald. Dull, for once, like a dusty gem in the montre of a museum. Old. Secluded.
Daddy please stop yelling
I can't stand the sound
Make mama stop cryin'
'Cause I need you around
My mama she loves you
No matter what she says is true
I know that she hurts you
But remember I love you too!
Mother looks up for a moment, gasping for breath like a diver surfacing from the darkest depths. Her grass-green eyes are clouded and every last straw drowned; thunder over the rice-paddy.
Tell me, I ask them voicelessly, how come the union of the alluringly glittering gem and the calm swaying fields under the summer sun resulted in nothing more than indecisiveness and undefinability?
I try to catch my own eye in the rear-mirror but give up almost instantaneously. No need, anyway; I have spend so much time looking myself in the eyes, I no longer need a mirror.
Looking at my father and my mother you would think their child must have to be pure magic. Wrong! Nothing about me is "like" – when you read a good book, the heroine is always "like" something; "Fair like a flower," "Wild like the wind," "Sweet like sugar." But I am not like that, not at all! The only thing I really am is in between. If this was a cartoon, I would be part of the faceless, grey mass in the back. Yes; background – that's what I feel like. Like the story of my life is not my story at all. Like this is someone else's story, the story of my parents, and I am nothing more than part of the scenery.
It was when I first realized this, I decided to take charge of my own story! Time has been behaving oddly since then, but I guess it must be about twenty-four hours ago…
I ran away today, ran from the noise
Ran away
Don't wanna go back to that place
But don't have no choice, no way
It ain't easy, growin' up in world war 3
Never knowin' what love could be
But I've seen, I don't want love to destroy me
Like it did my family
The car speeds up. The church will be within sight soon. It's strange; I've never been there, and yet I know. Without anything changing, the air around us becomes a little darker. I will have to leave soon. I am almost sorry. I wasn't before, except perhaps for Uncle and Auntie, but now, I almost feel like staying. My parents are both devastated by grief, but at least they are still; at least they are here.
Can we work it out
Can we be a family
I promise I'll be better
Mommy I'll do anything
Can we work it out
Can we be a family
I promise I'll be better
Daddy please don't leave
Silly, really, hoping for love now… hope beyond hope.
And again, just like yesterday night, I realize with grim satisfaction, that though they always left me, in the end I left them… My only regret is that they were not the first to find out, the maid was. Not even then were they there! But, then again, since my life has been so filled with maids I stopped trying to remember their faces, it seems right… Perhaps it was because my parents left me among the grey and faceless, I became background…
The sound of fine gravel under the wheels, a slight tremble through the metal as the motor dies. Looking out the window I see the church-tower stretch toward the skies like a ladder to heaven. No-one opens the door for me. It doesn't matter.
I follow my parents in through the port. Old dark oak-tree. White marble floor. Pale light through high windows. It doesn't so much look like a church as like a forest at winter. Cold but beautiful. The best thing my parents ever did for me.
Suddenly exhilarated, I run towards the altar and the dark, oblong shape resting there. My parents remain frozen behind me. Faces become a blur beside me. Auntie is sobbing softly beside Uncle. Guilty conscience snaps at my heels and tries to keep up, but I'm too fast. I have never before run this fast. It's almost like I have wings.
The man my father calls boy is looking at his watch; Cris can't afford to waste time. My classmates are all seated together, not bothering to look really sad. Never mind. I can't even remember their names. A strange tingle around my neck suddenly makes me nervous. Shadow is looking directly at me from the back, his eyes the only ones in the entire church turned towards me. The only ones to look at me at all today. Oh, well, he sees Maria too, right?
It's strange: I can feel my feet against the hard floor, feel my teeth clatter together at every single step, but no sound whatsoever is to be heard. It's like I'm deaf.
I stop before the coffin. Only one wreath: "Sweet dreams, fair child." Must be to comfort my parents, to give them another reality, in which their daughter sleeps peacefully. Red roses and black ribbon. Would Shadow actually try to help them?
The wood is dark but the silk-clad interior is white, making it look like a trapped cloud, a piece of heaven. I look so beautiful, almost like an angel. Why couldn't I see this till now?
It almost looks like I am just sleeping, only a tiny bit more pallid than in life. The form in the coffin seems otherworldly, as though it, not I is a ghost, a whisper of life. I look so young.
It will not be long now. I look at my body there before me and think back to the last grey hours I put it through. There was no pain. None that I noticed, at least.
It was about two in the morning, and still dark. Neither mother nor father was at home and the maid still sound asleep. I glided through the silent house like a huff of night-air gather all the kinds of pills I could find and making my way towards the bathroom. The floor was cold. Goosebumps spread up my arms as I turned on the water and went through the cupboard, looking for a razor.
Having arranged the glasses of pills neatly beside the tub and holding the razor in the palm of my hand with utmost care, I slid into the hot water. Warmth surrounded me, yet I couldn't stop shaking…
When the pills were gone and my wrists pouring red life into the crystal-clear water, a wonderful drowsy calm overcame me. I knew my decision was final. I was beyond all help. I was free.
This must be what it was like in the womb, I thought, muscles melting away in the medicinal haze. I hereby reverse my own birth. I am not leaving. I am returning.
The sky grew light.
The world grew dark.
The water closed above me.
And now the white marble floor of the church seems to glow with the essence of a thousand full moons. It flows out beneath me, the stones loosing their markings; a pallid desert. I can see the entire room in a single glance – I can see everybody. They all look so small from up here.
Goodbye, mother and father…
O, such light!