Repose Memories (reposememories) wrote in repose, @ 2017-06-11 22:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | burden bell, ~plot: memories |
[Memory]
What: Memory
Will characters be viewing the memory or experiencing it?: Experiencing it.
Warning, this memory contains: Violence.
You still remember your time in the womb. Not all of it. But, eventually, you gained a manner of cognizance. A seed of sentience. You do not know when, as you did not keep time—did not understand time—but, after what you later gathered was a year or two, you became aware. And, as you were taught language, you were able to think through experiences, to apply names and labels to yourself and those you heard around you. It was through hearing that you first experienced the world in any conscious manner. Feeling, as well, but specifically, with the involvement of language, hearing. You could not see. You did not open your eyes, just as you did not breathe oxygen with your own lungs until you were truly born, excised from the womb. But, you listened. Beyond the words of your lessons, which began with repetitive phrases, until you learned to associate sounds with concept, you listened. Perhaps this was an incidental, unanticipated. But, you were confined to the red warmth, and, when you were not learning, swallowing history read to you in Arabic, then English, you would listen to those in the wider world beyond. You learned the voice of Daughter and Father. This was what they called one another, and so, what you called them. They would discuss you as they watched you. You thought perhaps they would know you listened, as, eventually you learned your brainwaves were shown upon a screen for all to see, but, if they did know, they did not care, or perhaps, only did not pay heed.
After your birth, sight became important. You remember the first image you saw. A low, gold-hued room that you later learned was a cave or cavern. Several people, dark-skinned and black-eyed, stood along the edges of the pool you swam into from the womb. The water, and it was water, was warm, salty, and strange on your skin. You breathed through your lungs and it was painful, wracking. There was a woman on the craggy ground nearest you and you knew, though you had never seen her before, she was Daughter. Her eyes were light. Her hair was lighter. You went up to her. You could not walk, but you were in water, so you were able to move. She shook her head, which was a gesture you did not understand. But, she gave you her hand and you turned it over in your own (which you only just recognized was what they were). The world was bright and cold and your body stung. Your lungs ached. You wished for her to talk. She said your name.
You learn she is not Daughter to you. To you, she is Mother. She tells you this with a gentleness she never uses with Father (Grandfather, you are told). You do not know it, but you begin to smile. It is a haphazard thing, because you do not know how to do it without reflex yet. She does not smile back, but she does the thing where her head turns side to side once more.
It took you six months to be able to walk on land. You spent much time in that pool at first, learning the movements and muscles necessary, learning not to breathe in the water. Once you are mobile, however, ambulatory, you are running. You are climbing. You are given a thick, wooden sword. You fight. You like the word, because it feels strong and you already know strength is prized. But, before that, the first night you are out of your warm pool, your second womb, you seek Mother in the caves or caverns. You walk resolutely away from the winding walls, so as to prove you require no assistance, but you do not like the hard bed on the hard floor you are meant to slumber upon. You have only floated until now. You do not like this newness. You decide to find Mother. Now you know that shaking one's head means 'no.' She does not do this when you find her bedchamber. But, her face is cold. You know the expression now and you try not to make the soft sound that comes when you are upset.
She places you back in your own chamber, upon your own pallet. But, your instructor, the one who teaches you to make pictures with paint, he is given a bed as well, near the door. It is a compromise. Mother says your name, but it is an admonishment and you hear that she thinks you are weak.—The next night, you make the same attempt. This time, she almost relents. You see it in the softness that comes just before the coldness. She touches your ear, beneath tonsured black. Then she slaps you and your skin burns long after you fall asleep, in your own chamber, alone. The darkness is meant as punishment, but you prefer it. The following night, you do this again, not for her company, but for the lights to be put out. Instead, you are put in a place without walls. It is not a cave. It is outside and you are terrified. It is too big, too cold, and you tell yourself it is agoraphobia. You find a stream. You sleep in it, though it freezes you, and you wake yourself shivering several hours before light.
That is when you are taught to fight. Not with the stick, but first, without, because something finds you sleeping and it attempts to eat you. You escape, your throat raw from your screams and your skin rough and bleeding. That night, you do not sleep. Nor do you sleep the next. You imagine the stink of the thick fur, the breath of the creature. The stick makes fighting easier. It takes you seven years (you know time now) to beat Mother with the stick, but now the stick is a sword, beautiful and worn to your fingers. It is weight you feel more comfortable with than without, and this day is glory. You have killed men, many of them, but you have never bested Mother.
Now she is beneath you, her chest rising with hard breath, and the tip of your blade is at her throat. You smile, though you are missing your front teeth. "Capitulate," you tell her, and it is haughty. Your chin is up and you look down upon her and you feel better than you ever have. You are not meant to gloat. You know this, but you find yourself unable to resist pride. It is in this moment that she brings you down. You are on your back, looking up at the craggy sky, dazed, before you realize she has done this. Now, it is your blade in her hand, at your throat. You let your emotion blind you to this. You did this. She tells you that. You are not to feel any emotions, not even when fighting her. You are to feel nothing. And, look at how weak you are, that you did not kill her.
So, why does she not kill you then? You ask her this, spitting it at her, suddenly, angrier than you have ever felt. She stabs you in the throat. And you look up at her in what must be disbelief. She takes you back home before you bleed out. You are resuscitated and recuperate over the following weeks. And the next time, the next time you have her down beneath you, you try. You try to make yourself do it. To feel nothing. To gouge her esophagus with your blade.
You cannot do it. You stab her in the leg, so she cannot chase you, and you flee. You do not return for a day, and, you only do so then, as you are taught to face your shame, rather than run. You are punished ruthlessly.