Chapter 3 Life Goes On

So heaven wasn't what I expected it to be.

It was kind of cool. I mean I have wings ( without a Redbull too ) and you live on clouds, but it wasn't all that different from normal life. I eat, I shit and made noise (not always at the same time). Rinse and repeat. The most memorable event was being born… and well, the aftermath too. It wasn't a happy day as such. Happy is too simple a description of what happened, but that's a story for another day, if ever. My Ma would go on and on about that day, especially after she found out I could follow her stories. I'm surprised it took her so long to get that, considering how my eyes rolled each time she began.

I still blame the doctor. He must have had a paper bag for a stomach. Why be a doctor if you can't stand a birthing? Though, with the nurses I understand, I didn't mean to do that to them... Alright, I admit I wasn't in the best shape after being kicked out of my haven, but really who can blame me? Why do you think babies cry as soon as they are out? It isn't out of happiness I can tell you that much.

Although it was weird at the start, I still had no idea of what had happened at that point, the void before this had started off worse and it had ended in my haven. This was nothing in comparison. It took me awhile to connect the dots. Not being able to see those dots as a consequence of my under developed eyes, not doing me any favours at all. I adapted to my circumstances pretty well considering. I had been rolling with the punches for a while now and being shot out like a cannonball was apparently another one. I mean what else could happen that would be worse than before? Well, a lot as I would find out, but that was neither here nor there, so being born to an angel in heaven was not that much of an issue, even if I didn't know that just yet.

It was actually a bit of a relief as time passed, I knew where I stood for the first time since the void. Let me tell you, having a nipple shoved into your mouth which then starts squirting warm milk was not how you want to find out that you are a baby. Sure I had my suspicions before and I was right but that wasn't how I wanted to find out I was right. That wasn't even the last time I hated being proved right.

My sense were crap. Utter crap. I could feel things around me which was quite nice until I shat myself, then it was just horrendous. My nose being flat as a pancake meant that I wasn't tormented by the smells when that did happen. I was still blind as a bat with no echo location because guess what? Yep, my hearing was nearly as bad as my sight. So yeah, being a baby wasn't all that.

It was a good few months after the night of the living dead that I could see enough for faces to register. I could make out these indistinct blobs before, but that wasn't much until one morning I awoke to 2 beautiful green orbs right in front of me, shining through my half asleep thoughts like a lighthouse in a storm. They were, as I would find out later, the eyes of my new mother and was the first thing I remember seeing in my new life. I'm sure they will be the one of the last things I remember in this life.

My vision wasn't all that great though, I had only been able to see her eyes due to how close my mother had been. As more months passed , it steadily improved to a stage where my environment became a lot more accessible to me, certainly more than the blobs from before anyway. Now I could see the small table with a lonely chair in the middle of the room, always accompanied by some type of reading material on top of it, whether it was a newspaper or book. The shelf right across the room from me holding said reading material. I could feel my little bed/cot that I may as well have been born with, it certainly fit like it had. It's how I imagine sleeping in a cloud would feel. I would later learn that was exactly what it was.

That was it. That was all I could make out. The room was tiny, cosy if I was being kind, even for someone that had lived in central London. There was a door a little ways to the left of me but it may as well have been a portal to another world to my eyes.

My mother was the one thing that definitely wasn't small. She could fill any room she would walk into, not takeover, just fill it with her warmth. There was a reason why I thought I had been born to an angel in heaven, the wings and the clouds were only a part of it. She was an angel that embodied the best parts of being a human, which was weird now I think about it, angels were supposed to be above humanity, but she embodied all that an angel could ever hope to be. She laughed like a mental patient, she got angry fiercely but forgave even more readily. She lived life more freely than any that I had seen up until then. Life was a dance for her and she only ever moved to the music that was playing.

She was… she was all I wished I could be and all I hope to be.

Her eyes spoke to me more than her words did (granted at the start I couldn't understand a word she said…). She was expressive in a way I could never be, changing like the sea, impressing outwards all that she was. She was the reason why I love emeralds. The way it would shine made me remember her laughter, tears running and snorting along but her eyes were mesmerising, alive like nothing else I had seen. I could never, ever look away (…Even when I maybe should have).

She was what anchored me to this world; her joyous screams as I waddled about for the first time, the warmth she exuded when she spoke with me, her morals that had been slowly carved into me with her every step, her silent tears when she spoke with the man in white. She danced in the wind like fire, roaring gloriously (…but using her fuel all the more quickly). I was 3 months old when I started the journey that I thought would last a lifetime(… I was 5 years old when I understood that people have different destinations).

The first time I opened my mouth was another moment that I will treasure. It was about 8-9 months into this circus. My body having grown to accommodate my will, was able to sound out the word Ma. Nothing more than that. 'M,A', any other language it would have been dismissed as a nonsense but there and then for my mum those 2 letters meant the world.

'Say it' she would go, clasping her hands together as if she were in a prayer, 'say Ma again, Eneru'

Squealing with happiness whenever I would indulge her. Her hands lifting me off the floor, swinging me higher every time I would repeat it. I could never deny her anything, repeating the word until she would settle down, which could take her a while.

I always made sure to give her a hand to help with what I could, though it wasn't much considering that I literally couldn't stand on my 2 feet yet. Thankfully, my presence was mostly enough for her, just as hers was for me and so days passed by. My adaption to this new life mostly shaped by her and her love. It was so much brighter for it.

She was the one I could speak with, I could never hide the fact I was more advanced than anyone had the right to be at my age. I was devouring books any time I could and all I had was free time I was picking up proficiency at an alarming rate, which brought my attention to something I never noticed before. The pages were running out… not that there weren't more books but all of them were out of my reach, literally.

It was in the months leading up to my 2nd birthday that I really focused on getting crawling down. I had been trying since my first words but my efforts had been more focused on getting my speaking and reading down. It was annoying trying to mime what I wanted and boredom was something that crept in all too easily then. It was also annoyingly harder for something I had dismissed offhandedly. I had trained my motor reflexes as best I could but with the diminishing returns of trying to catch things and the boredom of repetition led me to trying to swing onto my belly so I could crawl, many tries and a couple of embarrassing (crying) episodes later, I was able to do it for about 2 meters before I started gasping for air.

I had never done it in front of my mum, I was waiting for the 20th of February, my birthday. I was going to show off then, to make it even more memorable. She loved celebrating any occasion that we could. There wasn't much to do in heaven (or so I believed) and I wanted make it so that she could enjoy that day to the fullest.

We lived in a small cottage just a little ways out of the nearest settlement. It wasn't big enough to even be called a town, more like a village on the smaller side. We only had 3 rooms in total, with one not even part of the cottage, laying just outside it and for good reason, which I would only later learn why.

My first adventure to get into the little shed really did set me up for this pirate life perfectly. Never assume anything.

It was a burning question for me, for a 3 year old with hardly anything to do and while I'm sure Shikamaru might have loved this, it wasn't for me. The room stood out like a lighthouse. What would I find? I had no idea and that burned me up on the inside. I had explored all of the 2 rooms and was just too curious for my own good. So I waited and plotted, then plotted and waited some more just to get a moment when my mum had not been, so I could sneak out to find out. Only for all my hard work to lead me to the fucking toilet. This was when I just shat myself and expected it to disappear with the wave from my guardian angel. This is where I learned of occupational hazards.

We used to burn wood for heat, pulled water from the well when needed and lived off our company. I used to wake up in the morning and just have a sniff, I was always be able to work out how she was feeling with what or if she was cooking that day. The smell permeating the rooms quite easily.

That wasn't to say there was no one around, the little village was about 10mins walk from us but we just didn't go there much, no need to really. The forest provided us with most of living needs. The clearing on the edge of the woods, the pathway leading to our safe haven nearly always blooming green with its lack of use, with its groaning well and the organised chaos that was the animals who skittered about in sprints. Although the last one was sort of on purpose, we always left out food for the birds to hear the beautiful melodies in the morning, they were our alarm clocks. This opened the gates for other animals because hello, free buffet, but she didn't care. She found joy in life like no one else I had met so far in either lives.

There was no living room or dining room, it was meshed together so you would find the books just lying on the floor, the table or the kitchen counter being bathed in the smell of the food …or just food. This made it simple for me to find the discarded ones on the floor but anything near the kitchen was a no go due to a very minor accident that was blown way out of proportion (how was I supposed to know there was a knife on top of the counter? I couldn't even lift my head for god's sake!). So getting the more interesting reads was difficult but I had to keep improving my knowledge, I needed to know where I was or what.

Though thinking back on it now, I should have relaxed on that, I couldn't have acted on that information for years anyway, and any progress I would have made wasn't amazing without proper guidance. Hindsight is always 20/20. So there I was sitting in the middle of the dining room, a little ways away from the kitchen using the table as cover. All I needed was to be able to stand and I would have been able to reach the ledge of the table from which I could try and tip the book onto the floor. Obviously to achieve this I need to be able to stand and the table was stalwart supporter of mine, helping me balance my problems perfectly.

So I grasped the wooden pillar as hard as I could and pulled, squeaking all the while (sue me I was 1 ½ yrs. Old). I strained and clenched my arms to heave myself up, miraculously I felt myself lifting slowly at first but curiously I was trying less harder now though…

"What are you doing huh?" she asked, bringing me up to eye level. Her eyes twinkling away as usual.

"Maaa?!" It was a good thing that I had diapers on.

"Yeesss?" she grinned. "What haavv… oh well that I should have expected"

"Ma!" I cried trying to throw her of, ahem, the scent.

"I know, I'm doing it" she teased, "no need to ppffftt raise a stink"

She could never resist her stupid puns and sarcasm, boy did it get tiring quick… I loved it. It's not where I got it from but she was the enabler, definitely made me worse for it. Any who come across me will have a wonderfully unique experience… or I will, so I win either way.

While she was doing the business with my business, the rustling of papers being gently shifted behind me got me excited. There was a grand total of 2 things It could be, a book or the newspaper and out of the 2, the latter was my hope. We simply didn't have that many books and I near enough knew where they were held. The closest one was on the kitchen counter, not the table. I was racking my head to think of any way I could have swiped it under her nose.

The plan was degrading but simple… I was going to act my age. I just grabbed onto it and threw a tantrum, refusing to let it go even when I was 'bribed' by my mum. It actually worked so well that it was used extensively after its inception (… to varying degrees of success).

I hung on to it like my life depended on it. She let me have it with a huff, carrying on with doing what she had to. I laughed revelling in my victory. The small smile she had let me know what she thought of that.

Though her smile fled when I read the title of the newspaper.

Again Ma, I didn't mean to, I thought I was done to.