Chapter 3 – Bachina and Usopp
MEMORY
Fear.
Usopp has known it for as long as he can remember. It was at first not some silly fear of spiders crawling the dark corners of a house, nor the fear of thunder and storms.
The fear Usopp was subjected to was the fear of being left behind and alone, unable to do anything against it.
The fear of being unable to one day walk up to his mother's bedside and tell her another story about what he had done today, about how many pirates he had driven away all by himself to save the villagers.
Usopp was only seven and he already was confronted with the possibility that every day could his mother's last.
What he feared most was that despite everything he did to make her smile and feel better that it never was enough. He feared to admit that whatever he tried would not make his mother feel better.
He wanted to help her so badly. Seeing his mother in a bed, panting, then suddenly stopping, him running to the doctor, screaming at the top of his lungs, guiding them to his home, watching as they brought her back to him. It left him empty and tired and far more hopeless than was good for a child so young.
The doctor and nurse would tell him he did well; the villagers would try to be nice and understanding.
What few of them did understand though was how much it was killing him at the inside to watch how his mother - instead of growing healthier - deteriorate a little more each day.
Those warm round cheeks sunk in. Those bright twinkling eyes dulled a little more each day in their sockets. That once smooth and well-kept hair became brittle and thin. Her once red lips slowly turned a colorless grey. Her once strong arms, which had lifted him up and cradled him in a loving embrace, were now so weak they could not even hold a simple glass of water without shaking uncontrollably.
And he could not change it. He did not know how, otherwise he would have turned this whole world upside down to get the cure.
But he was just a kid with no power and no knowledge.
And so when evening rolled by and his mother was too exhausted to stay awake to talk to him or delirious with a fever he had learned to relieve her from with a cold rag, he simply sat there and cried.
Cried about how unfair it was, cried because it hurt, cried because he was afraid of the next day coming, afraid of again taking care and it not being enough. Cried because he knew the day where he would be alone was not that far away anymore. And he cried for his mother for he could see it in her eyes just how afraid she was too – for her only son, who she did not want to leave behind.
And the day she died, his world came crashing down.
All of their fears had become reality.
In loving memory of my dear person. You brave warrior, who fought for life till the very end even in the face of adversary and death.