The Slave
Chapter 3- Trauma
That night I had a weird dream: I was a wooden puppet with various cords attached to my hands, feet and head. In the other end, different people took turns to move me; I saw my father, some or other teacher, and a ex-girlfriend. They all laughed making me hop and dance, placed me in ridiculous positions and forced me to gesticulate like a monkey. In my dream, I knew I could easily break the cords but I preferred to let them manipulate me. I suppose it was easier to let others decide for me, than make me responsible of myself.
When they all got tired of playing with me, they left me in the floor, the floor turned into a bed and then I could see the lamp of the room… I had woken up. Sleeping with open wide open was the weirdest thing. It was hard for me to get to sleep every night and in the mornings it cost me some work to know when dreams ended and reality began. Sometimes I realized I was dreaming because I could move or because I wasn't in this horrible room of the hospital- then, I ran to get away the most possible and wished to never wake up. However, day after day, I found myself staring at the lamp, the ceiling, the black bellow going up an down and the device that kept me in this unending nightmare.
The door opened and I saw Esperanza come in, she had in her hand a plastic recipient with water.
"Good morning" she said
"Good morning" I always answered her in my mind
"Today's your bath day"
"No, please, how embarrassing!"
She removed the blanket and my light blue shell that covered my naked body. I was filled with embarrassment. In fact, I was the puppet of my dream and the others could make of me what they wanted. Something in her look calmed me down, I supposed she didn't see a naked Koopa but a patient like many others she tended to.
She put a sponge in the recipient and began to wipe my face.
"Look at you, you're so young…"
Why did she talk to me? Did she know I could heard her?
"Besides you're not ugly, you're very cute" she smiled timidly and blushed "I hope you're not conscious, poor little thing"
"I'M COUNSCIOUS!"
"I hope you're already gone, and the only thing left here is your body"
"NO, DAMN IT! I'm here and I can see and listen to you!"
"If you're in there, you must be feeling very lonely"
She remained in thought for a moment and a tear rolled down her cheek.
"I'm also very lonely, you know, my husband died some years ago" she continued as she dried her tears with the sleeve of her white coat "since then, I feel like paralyzed, filled of fears and insecurities" she kept going with het monologue as she wiped my body with the sponge "I suppose that, in some way, we are all paralyzed by our fears, our resentments, the worry or our traumas…"
"Don't speak me about traumas because that's what brought me here"
"I'd like to be braver and dare to do many things. I don't know, maybe keep going with my studies or look for another mate, anyway, so many things. But I can't."
She finished wiping my body and as she put me my shell once again, I realized that, she had lost everything, contact was the thing she missed the most. I would like to tell her not to leave, to keep talking to me a while longer.
"I must keep working but I will see you again when I come to change the serum"
"don't go, please, stay a while more"
She caressed my hair once again and stared at me for a few seconds with a great compassion.
"I'm sure your family must be looking for you and won't take long in coming to visit you. Lord Bowser had been very busy lately, Larry"
She went out of the room and I was alone again, like everyday. She was right, I feel very lonely in here and… now I understand it was all my fault.
"Guilt is a useless feeling" I heard the voice of my Guide once again
What for me was a great happiness because, despite he made me angry for the things he said, I spent the best time in "the prison of my body"
"Of course it's call my fault. If I accept I wasn't a puppet of circumstances, then the one to blame for everything that happens to me… it's myself!"
"This is a life full of contradictions, you are born free bur you must work to keep your freedom and must made yourself responsible for it. You, for example you're alive but you're not at the same time, the doctors think you're a plant but you're conscious. Esperanza in the other hand, has all possibilities to do what she proposes but she feels paralyzed just like you"
"She said because of her traumas"
"The word Trauma comes from the Greek and means wound"
"Yes, I once read that in a psychology book"
"Of course you read it if you hadn't, I would not be able to tell you now but don't interrupt me... this is life's first contradiction: all living beings are born completely free but completely dependent. In fact, from all animals, the ones who require more attention from their parents are the Koopas and the Humans. The children know that, of their parents don't take care of them… they die! Then love become for them, a life-or-matter. Now, when children are growing up, they don't know anything in absolute and… who do you think they learn everything about life?"
"Their parents"
"Of course. If you arrive to an unknown planet and saw that all inhabitants fight with each other, you would conclude that it's normal"
"Like my damn father, that always beat us"
"Now, well, the children know nothing about themselves neither and... who do you think they learn everything about themselves from?"
"From their parents too, obviously"
"That is, the children think that these two powerful beings their lives depend on, know everything and are always right. When your father told you: you're an idiot and you're useless you believed it"
"I did not!"
"No? What did you tell yourself when you made a mistake?"
"I'm an idiot"
"And, what did you tell yourself when you drank again and had proposed yourself to stop doing it?"
"I'm useless"
"There you have it! The children, besides, copy from their parents the way of relating wit everything around them. If the father thinks humans are evil the children believe it too. If the mother is worried or full of anguish, the children will feel the same"
"That's how we start tying cords in hands and feet, right?"
"Exactly! And in this relationship start our traumas or our wounds. When you were a small child and made a mistake, your father insulted you or sometimes beat you, you thought you were bad, that hurt you more that the beating. When he told you if you didn't behave well he didn't love you anymore, it hurt you to and filled you with anguish"
"Then he is the one to blame for everything!"
"no sire, don't be stubborn. He also has wounds and he did the best with the knowledge he had. He also learned it from his father and his father from his father."
"it's a vicious circle"
"a circle that can be broken"
"Yeah? How?"
"To stop looking for anyone to blame. Look, guilt is, in reality, the fear of being rejected by the others. A fear funded when you were little, if your father rejected you, your life was in the line. Your father used guilt so you would do that he thought was the right thing. If you don't eat well, you're a bad boy, if you behave badly I don't love you anymore, people don't like children who say lies or are rude."
"But… it worked!"
"of course it worked! Guilt is excellent for controlling others"
"But, without guilt we would do everything e wanted and kill each other"
"that's why I say guilt is a useless feeling, as with guilt and everything, everyone is killing each other. in becoming responsible of itself and its freedom is what every living being has failed. The person that accepts the responsibility of its life, realizes that its him who makes his destiny and knows that every decision he makes molds his future, he accepts the responsibility of his acts but understands that, as he is not perfect, he can make mistakes and in this case, he doesn't blame himself; if it can be fixed, he does something about it; if it can't, he know how much guilt he feels about what happened nothing will change. With traumas and everything, with wounds and everything, living beings have the possibility of make his life better or destroying himself."
"Like me, damn it! Don't say anything else! What does it serve me to know this now? I'm here like a plant without being able to even discharge this rage and sadness I feel!"
"Even now you're free to choose your thoughts and feelings"
"Well, then in this moment I choose FOR YOU TO SHUT UP! I choose to feel damned, I choose to fill myself with sadness, hatred and resentment!"
If my father did the best he could, really, he didn't do anything right. I was free to mae of my life whatever I wanted and chose to drink and drug myself, I chose to end up here like a damned, thinking plant… today I choose, then, to lose all hope… the only thing I want is to cease thinking, cease existing!
Those were my thoughts when the door suddenly opened
"Hello again, you won't get free of me so easily" Esperanza said after closing the door, as if she could read my thoughts. She came closer to my bed and commented:
"I have good news; apparently your father is back"
"No, it can't be"
"He will come to see you later" she said while she changed the serum jar "it will be painful for him to see you like this…"
"No, damn it! I don't want him to come"
"…so I thought about fixing you a bit" she got a comb out of her pocket and began to comb my blue Mohawk backwards, I always calmed down when she touched me.
"Why do you do this? Why do you take so much care of me if you don't even know me?"
"I'm not very believer, you know" she commented "but I think there are star spirits who take care of us"
"Oh, yeah, that's why they allow me to be in this hell"
"I don't know why bad things always happen to people" she continued "but I think the star spirits take care of us through ourselves. That's why I'm nurse. I imagine I help the star spirits take care of others. Sometimes I think that, in their desperation, people say: star spirits, why don't you help me? But in reality, he star spirits are in the good people who help others."
She let out a timid smile and I thought the room had illuminated.
"Well… you're ready, I'd better go before becoming more cursi"
This time she went more forward: she gave me a kiss in the cheek and hurried out of the room
My father is coming!
Y guide is right, this is a life full of contradictions, I miss them so much and at the same time I'm filled of resentment towards him. I have so much eagerness to see my siblings but I know that seeing me like this will cause them a lot of grief. If I could only forgive them, If they could only forgive me. Will Carla come with them? Night came as I was still with my thoughts mixed about forgiveness, guilt and resentment, until I couldn't take it anymore and fell asleep.