ways next | specialagentscully's Blog

- It is pretty close, Nat whispers; we should leave the way and pass by the woods.

I look around me, but I cannot spot the supposed cabin, or small building we will use for military base hiding alien technologies.

- We will have to separate in groups of two, Fab says.

- But keep in sight of our lamp signals, Joris adds.

Nat and Fab will stand on the right side of the path, Cory and I on the left, while Mike and Joris will go scouting. Cory and I are squatted near a tree trunk, lamps off. It is pretty dark, and I am quite cold, but with Mulder I have no fear. After a while, he tells me “I fear they let us down for a special cuddle in the forest”. I smile, and he smiles back at me. This could be the perfect moment, I feel so connected to him, and my heart is racing. But we are on a mission, and maybe I am too close to him, or am I the only one? I did not really try anything, but he says:

- I don’t think it’s a good idea.

- Okay, I whisper.

Okay? My lips said so. But my stomach disagrees, my throat too, so do my eyes that are burning hot. He does not love me. I feel I have to move or I will crack up. I get up and walk to the woods.

- What are you doing? I hear my Mulder say.

I do not want to talk, so I run, I go hide from my friend. He calls me, but I do not answer and go on running. I am a pretty stupid little girl to believe my prince charming will come to save me with his magic GPS, and then make an oath to have only have eyes for me to eternity. Yeah, that is the real reason why I got lost in the forest. As my breath goes calmer, I slow down, but I am so alone now the only sound I hear is my breathing through my teeth. I stand still for a moment, and I begin to head for the panel. Wait, I think that is the direction of the panel. I stop and look around. Everything looks the same here, and I do not see the path anymore. I call them. I call him. I do it several times. But I should not have played. Only the silence echoes my cry for help. And the noises, in the copses; all around me. I begin to be really afraid. These are large woods, I know it, I knew it. I am too emotional about that guy. I ran too far, too fast, and now I am lost for good. The weather is getting colder. The air is dry and sharp. I do not know if it is cod enough to kill me, but what about the possibly wild animals? I call Mulder again, out loud, at the top of my lungs, until I am breathless. The batteries of my lamps are decreasing, the beam is slowly dying. I should have thought about that instead of my hormones. I sit down on the ground that is cold and dirty. I do not give a damn. I hate myself, I am the worse fool. I play with the button of the lamp. I have been there for hours it seems. The scary noises amplify. As I human want to sleep, the forest wakes up. I jump. I saw something. A light!

- Hey! I scream.

I get up and start running.

- I’m here!

I see Mike and Joris coming to me. I am so relieved I chuckle. Joris does not look happy.

- We’ve been looking for you for half an hour, he tells me, and I lower my head in shame, are you ok? Mike asks.

-Yes.

I feel Skinner’s hand in my back s we walk to the path. As if I planned to get lost again. I am drained and I would love that evening to be canceled and be in my bed at home. I can see the lights of the guys on the other side. “Scully”, Cory says as he tries to grab my arm, to be sure he will be able to look into my eyes. But I avoid his move, put my arms around me, and step back. I’m both so hurt, and so full of shame. He is worried; and maybe he is hurt. I clench my jaw to keep control. I am very touched by these sad eyes of his.

- Go ahead; he tells the guys, I must talk to baby Scully.

It feels like a blow in the stomach, but I take it. It is no game. I do not leave him the time to speak.

- I’m sorry, I say.

He sighs and spreads his arms in sign of misunderstanding. I look up at him. I swallow my saliva with pain. I know my eyes are red and my nose is running already. Yet, I keep on staring at him. “Come here”, he says kindly as he gently pulls me into his soft embrace. I do not fight this time and melt in hot tears. He hugs me very tightly and stays his head on mine. And that is all I need. Nobody asks nothing in the car. The other four sparingly talk, or laugh. It is a little lullaby to hear their voices. I have my Mulder near me, and I know he glimpses one in a while, but I prefer to look outside, try to maintain the still fragile balance I just regained. I let him catch my hand. I hold on the sweet touch and close my eyes.


Like I have been drying class so much, I am forbidden to go to parties, or go out in the evenings. For the parties, it is dead, because I should sleep outside of the house, there. It is another story for my X-Files guys. My body aches to be separate from Mulder so long. I have not seen anyone out of school for two weeks. My grand-mother always sleeps in front of the TV. She never comes to check if I am in my room when she goes to bed. And I have got a double of the keys. I put pillows in my bed in case, and I leave the house. I nearly fly to the little unused local where my band must be this evening. I missed them a lot, yet I am too reserved, I feel strongly, but I am unable to hug them like I wish to do. I light up a cigarette and sit down on a step of the stairs.

- You still smoke that shit? My Mulder asks accusingly.

- Yeah, I answer as I blow smokes, I still smoke that shit.

- Weren’t you punished for skipping class? Skinner asks.

- Apparently, I mock.

At least, I make them laugh. But not Mulder. He looks to be preoccupied, and it hurts my stomach.

- What are you gonna do with your life, he says laughing at me.

- Like everybody, wait for death, I say sarcastic.

- Bullshit, you’re a red flower in dark ashes, he tells me seriously, and not unloved, he says in my ear bending to me, I’ll see you all on Saturday, and he winks at me before he leaves.

It is always too hard to leave them, to leave him. I go out less than before, but I wonder if my grand-mother does not more than wonder I see Mulder. We have never been back to the big forest, but to a smaller, very smaller wood, not far from the house. There are great moments, unique youth friendships, and stolen kisses when the others are not nearby. My school work is average, but not such a catastrophe. I still drink some beers in the pubs with my school mates. I still smoke cigarettes. But I feel cool. I am well in my skin.
Until that day. We had been to role play a loose adventure downhill, and I felt so happy to walk hand in hand with my Mulder.

- I have something to tell you.

He looks very serious. I am immediately stressed by his tone.

- I will move, with my parents, western.

- Western? I ask although I understood very well these deadly words.

- Maybe I can come back, when I have a little money of myself.

I nod mechanically. I feel terrible.

- When?

He bites his lip.

- Next week?

Next week? I am unable to say a word. And it is too deep for tears. He has not killed me yet.

- I think it is good not to see until then.

He is on verge of crying. His beautiful eyes are red. He tried to hug me, he wants to hug me, but I cannot. I need to breathe. Since when does he know? Do the guys know already? Why?

- I love you, he says with a little voice. Then he runs away.

I cannot believe it. I hurt from head to feet but I am unable to react. I go home. What else. I will not see Mulder anymore. I do not want to see anyone anymore. School is hard. Home is hard. Living is hard. I cannot go see the guys; it is too painful to me. Joris is the only one I can talk too when I meet him on the street. I will not see them then for a long while. There will be the  holidays soon. Happy birthday Scully. Happy anything.
I need to go to parties, I need to vent. But my Nature is stronger, I am on my own. I do mostly nothing out of writing and watching movies. The weather is a little cooler, but I do not get out of home. I am not so hungry, I will eat better tomorrow. Can I go to Soline’s? Yes, I can. I could not wait death all day long at home. What is wrong with me? Nothing is wrong with me. It must be the winter that has had reason of me. I would rather do something else than to watch The X-Files. Talk? Maybe we can walk, out, nowhere. There will be party soon; will I be able to come? I do not know, my aunt pushes my grand-mother to be severe. Maybe I deserve it. However, it might not be the answer for me. I need love. Love. To love and to be loved. Mulder was right, I am a red flower.
My grand-mother says I can go. I am barely in the bus, leaving this hole in euphoria that I have only one thing in mind. Well, I have two. The first is Mulder. The second is the liters of alcohol just waiting for me. It is not that I am unhappy to see my school friends. Nobody can know what I am going through. After I have drunk the two third of a white wine bottle in kirsch, Soline tells me I should wait for a bit longer before I drink something else. But it is not what I intend to do. So she says we should make up something to eat. Pasta à la Bolognese. Pretty cool, I have not eaten anything since yesterday. I agree with her, but do not quit drinking, one, two, three beers, more, honestly, I could not tell. Have we eaten already? I do not remember. I look at my reflection in the entrance mirror. I am deadly white, gloomy. But I laugh. What else. I go back to my friends in the living room; maybe I should not stay alone there. I am hit by a heavy cloud of smokes as I come in. The lounge is small, and there are lots of smokers here. I am not sure because I am kind of spinning, but one of them is lighting a strange cigarette with the form of a flower.

- A tulip, he says handing it to me.

- Thanks, I say.

I take it and pull on it. Wow, it is so cool. I think about Mulder, and how he would kick my ass, but he is not here, and I laugh. Not I did not. I laugh mentally then? Oh yeah, I laugh in my head, it is so cool, weird but cool.

- Hey girl, pass it on.

Huh, I have not realized I smoked so much. I think I am high, very high, and the room is spinning rather fast, maybe too fast.

- Maybe I should sit down, I say.

I hear them all laugh around me. Why are they laughing? I see the table in front of me. Damn, I am already sitting, on the floor, and the conscience of it does not stop the spinning. And if I close my eyes it is far worse, so I open them.

- Mulder, I say.

I am completely destroyed. I see Soline. “She smoked the half of it, but are you nuts? She doesn’t smoke that kind of stuff!” Bad trip, she tells me. You bet.

- I am gonna puke.

- Not here, the owner of the place says.

- Yeah, now, I say.

- Fuck, he says, and he runs to take a bucket.

I think the last time I hurt like that when puking was when I ate bad oysters. I am vomiting entire pasta, I am amazed. I feel better then. But I do not want to stay there. I go in the kitchen. I made Jeremy laugh quite a bunch. He says I am a champion puker. I tell him to shut the fuck up. I know he said that to light up a bit the ambiance. I know he may have crushed on me since last year. I am a wreck. I am not so pretty, my marks are very average, I am undisciplined, unstable, withdrawn, stubborn and worse. I do not know what he likes in me. I am not in love with him, and I tell him. He says he knows. He only hugs me, and then we talk.

- Why do you drink so much? He asks.

He is a very smart and serious boy in spite of all the laughers and the craps we do at school. He lacks confidence, but he should not because he is loyal and very soft.

- I don’t know, I say.

I will only smoke cigarettes and drink water by now; for today. We remain silent, just the two of us in the kitchen, as my cigarette is dying in the ashtray.


I sighed. Jung looked at me, lie he always did, and he smiled.

- I think it is good for this evening.

I nod. I am very tired today. Very tired of everything.




My mother always said I had my father’s smile; all of my father’s smiles. She is telling me right now. Why? Well I want to disguise, I love to disguise. I do not have any special suit for it at home, we are not rich, but I have got imagination to create my own stuff. In my head, I am going to a soiree, so I must look shiny. That is the picture I have in mind about the beautiful world. I put on one of my beautiful dress, and a little make-up and I need a boa to look exceptional. Of course, I am seven; I do not own a boa. Nonetheless, we have got garlands at home, in one of the cupboards in the corridor. I take the flaming red one, and I go into the living room where the king is waiting for his guests. My mother says I have lots of imagination, but she always looks kind of upset with me, whatever I do. I ask her to make pictures, to crystallize that unique moment. She is a bit reluctant at first but I am telling her it is going to be fun. She accepts and asks me if I am ready. She will have to wait for some seconds more, because my boa fell down. Okay, now I am all ready. So I smile, that is how you do on pictures. She takes two, or maybe three photos. You have your father’s smile she says. “Oh”, I drop disappointed. “Not the one you think”, she adds. I do not know if seven years old children usually gather the concept of abstraction. Children I have had until now did not, until about twelve. But I am different, my brain is made differently, the ear doctor told my mother when I was five. I am not autistic, anyway autistic guys do not get abstraction so easily after all, or not all of them, like lots of normal people I have known. Yeah, I am cynical there. There is something. Of course, I am perfectly normal to him, and I hear very well, I have good ears. Maybe I just do not want to answer when I am talked to. If I am left-handed? Probably, and it should not be prevented, it is not a disease, it is a preference. Or someone else’s. In any case,  I totally gather there is something very wrong in her sentence. “What is it supposed to mean?” I ask her. She watches me and says:

- Nothing.

- Yeah, I say, you started something, finish it now.

I talk like an adult. My friends who live in the building tell me. “Sometimes we don’t get what you say”. I use words that are in the dictionary though. I grew up too fast, but I only have the right to live the inconvenience in being a child. I suppose my mother thinks she does the better in saying I will know later. I have lost trust in so many people already. I do not want to play anymore. I would rather stay in my room, until it is dinner time. There is that clock I opened to look inside, and I am unable to make it work again. But I am not so gifted with my hands.

We have been here, in the nowhere land, for several months now. My schoolmistress is Marina, and she is very kind. I am distracted at school, and I have serious handwriting problems. I do not have much strength in the hand it seems, and I am so late in terms of letters form compared with any kid of my age, and even younger. But to my mistress I do not have any mental problem, not even a motor problem, it is not necessary to call a special doctor. It will just come slower for me, I have to practice, and be patient. Personally, I do not care; it is more the adults that bother me with that. But the signs of my disease already show up. Kids tell me I do the cartwheel on the wrong sense, and I lace my shoes bizarre. Will I not hurt myself if I hold a knife with that hand? No, I always cut left-handed. I am only not conscious of all that. I do not understand why my former schoolmistress, for my first year of primary school, asks me if I still write right-handed. I have no recollection of anything that could help me understand. And my mother is not very talkative. I am right-handed. It is just, I am not very gifted with my hands. I realized that when I started to play tennis. I could not send back the ball, it did not make sense. It is a weird feeling. So I quit. I prefer to go swimming at the pool in Spain. It is ten minutes with the car. Everything is cheaper in Spain; I can go once a week. I do not mind being alone. I even prefer when there are not many people, I have my space. I enjoy also to go with friends, but it is different. I have no real close friends like I had before I left. I thought it would be a great adventure, but I am mostly bored. They all know each other’s here, they have no accent, well, for them, they are tanned. I do not know what it is, I do not get why people are interested in these kinds of details. And I like to ride a bike. My mother bought me one. I know she does not have much money, and it is not the more beautiful bike, but it works, and it is super for stunts. The boys like it. I like to play with boys. It is more fun. I do not dislike my girl mates, but well, they spend hours dressing and undressing a plastic baby. Boys have hidden cabins, they chase monsters, they stunt in the earth. It is another life. So I play with both, just rarely in the same time, and a lot alone too.
And in the mountains we can ski. But not us, we are too young, next year, my schoolmistress tells me. It is nonsense, Nick go to ski with his parents since he was three or four. But Nick is not like the others. He is good at school, good at sport, and he is sweet with girls. His team always wins, but with us two girls in his triathlon team, he will not win this time. He says I run fast, for a girl. What about the other girl? We cannot always win. That is not very nice of me. What is more, I have difficulties to throw a ball. I have my right foot forward, but I throw right-handed, so it cuts all the flying effect. So the young man who takes care of that animation tells me I am a lefty, and that I should try with the other hand. But I am not used to, so the result is the same. The other girl sent at about fifteen meters. I send at about twenty-five meters. And Nick puts the ball on the roof of grade school gymnasium, more than fifty meters away. We cannot fight. We did not win anything on that day, if having a good day is winning nothing.
It is after the Christmas holidays I meet Davy. He is new in the area, and he has got the same kind of dry pointy accent I had when I came here. He is nearly as pale. He is different from others boys, or any other children. He has got good and soft manners, and he mostly does not speak. This is a mystery to me. If I talk to him, he seems to ignore me. So I stay around, and I do not say a word to him. He begins to wonder and bends his guard. We play together in the yard. He speaks to me sometimes, a very little and with very short sentences. But if somebody else’s approaches, he shuts off again. Others find him freaky. It does not go further until the day he makes me fall in the yard. He did not do it on purpose and he is terrified because my head is bleeding. It is because he is so tall, when he moves an elbow, it is the height of my head. I had a stone in my temple. I have to be bought at the center with lots of doctors, downtown. It is not a hospital; we do not have hospitals here. The doctor says I was lucky. However, he cannot sew me, because it would too dangerous. My mother will have to put betadine on it and around at every daily change of dressing; twice a day for at least eight days, possibly more. Davy feels very bad about what he did, although I tell him it is ok. So I am invited at his house, on next Wednesday. His mother tells me he asked her. His mother is a very soft person. His father looks pretty tough. But I am a polite girl, and he does not stay so long. Davy has a special place in the house, a place where only children can go, and we have to crawl on our knees. Behind a small curtain, there is a hideout, with a bulb on the very low ceiling, and lots of toys, and a big train. If only I could have a train instead of dolls. I am not aware of it, but we have bonded a lot, Davy and I. We are always together in the yard, and we mostly speak to no one. At least I do not during school, with some rare exceptions. We do not need to speak to understand each other’s, and we have a little game when others come around, I speak for Davy. Some kids believe he is mute.
Happiness has always an end though. At least to me it seems. After the scholar trip to the castle, he will go. His parents are moving again. We hold our hands before they separate us. Davy looks at me while his father tells him to hurry up. We do not say a word, what for. We have needed that. I see the car going as he is staring from the back of the car. I was happy because our schoolmistress had told us we would take the little yellow train to come back to the valley. But I do not care now. “You will make other friends”, she tells me. Yeah, but not like Davy. But I answer nothing. She would not understand. Kids have no big feelings like adults. I feel pretty empty though.


My two years then are a kind of soft, mute, and deaf nightmare; these that leave a feeling of being constantly unwell, even when everything looks to be fine. I am mostly a loner, and I guess I am weird to kids of my age. I have some friends in the little place where I live, but not real friends. I liked Davy very much, and I do not feel connected to anyone else that way. What does not help me is I am not a follower; I refuse to do things against my will, to play games I do not want to play, or to be the slave or the “aborigines” just for fun. Plus, I defend and protect the mist hated kid of the class. She is new downtown, she is weak and looks like a frail little boy. All the reasons to treat her like a dog. So I stay with her, at school, and out of school. I even fight for integrity, and it can turn bad when they are ten against me. I do the ball, as the common saying tells. I live in my world, I day dream, I understand now I can be a weird kid for “normal” kids. I am rather kind though, I do not search for the struggle, I do not provoke people intentionally, I just want to live it my way. They come to provoke. They are nasty and mean. This is something that you see in kids, but that comes from the adults, make a group to mock or shit on the weaker, or the one who is simply alone. They just do not expect resistance from me. They will not be disappointed. I am taking my independence this year. My mother does not really take care of me. She cooks for me, and I live in her apartment, and we watch television together in the evening. But I do not feel any bond with her. As far as I can remember, she never hugged me, told me I had done right or good. I am just a burden for her. I am not sure that helps me to feel good. I steal from her, in her purse; money. I do not care about the money, I mostly do not know what to do with it once it is stolen. I feel the impulse to do it, and then I feel bad. It is like somebody else’s hand did it instead of me. I did it often before. I do not do it now. But I want to. I am living, but I aim for nothing. What is wrong? I have no idea. I thought it would be nice to have a new life, leave for adventure, but it is not what I expected it to be. It is dead here. Like my mother. Oh, she is not physically dead, but she is always tired. She stays a lot in the dark, in bed, when she does not work. Does our family care about us? I do not think so. We are isolated from the world. Yes, I think we are alone now.
Life goes on. On the Wednesdays, in the morning, I am supposed to receive a catholic education. I went to church last year, with Mrs. Vena, and I still have her this year. I do not like her. I do not like to be here. I do not know why I am forced to go to church and receive that education I do not understand.   God is not more real to me than Santa, it is just another big lies the adults made to have us live in fear. If God exist anyway, ha has forgotten about me long ago. I have no time to waste. In grade three, I start drying the religious class. I go to that girl nobody likes sometimes, and we hang around and do craps. This afternoon will be the end of it. I bought some candies, and one is an egg with a surprise into it. It is a little orange duck. It has a hole to make the eyes, and although I am pretty sure it will not float, I want to try. So we go to the very little river at the back of the pub her mother holds. I do not want to get wet, or even less muddy, because I am wearing those new navy jeans, my mother just them to me. I stay at a distance of the shore, by holding a piece of wood fixed on the ground, and standing. What I ignore is that the floor is moving, not much, but enough for a thin loaf of wood like that one to fall; and me with it. I splash straight in the waters. I get out of there as fast as I can, but I am already all wet, all muddy, and I have some leeches stuck on my clothes for a bonus. I am done. My mother will know I skip religious class. Curiously, the only thing she asks me is to finish the year, and then I will be free to decide whatever I want to do. I heard it is my grand-mother who wanted me to be raised catholic. What I have learnt about Catholics is they are Catholics when they want. I am what I am all the time. I say that is it alright that way to my mother, but I already know the answer. I will leave the religious class at the end of the year, that is approaching quickly now. And the holidays with Satan too.

I opened my eyes. I felt weird, like if some tings inside of me and that I ignored wanted to go out of my body. I watched Jung. I was unable to go on.

- Could we talk about something else? I asked.

We?

- Of course, he said.

- I want to go back in time, when I think I saw my father for the first time, my real father.

I sometimes stay at school after the class. A place that is not made for children of my age. It is a study class for teenagers, and they are mean with me, not the kids, the watchers, as I call them. But not this evening. Mom came to take me at four thirty, with a friend of her I like, Mailyn. She is very soft and kind. I do not know where we are supposed to go then, I think back to the PJ, where my mother works. It is an old memory, as I am only four I guess. I do not remember my mother to look so good then. Not that she became ugly then, she never was ugly, but she takes care of her, hair, clothes, I do not know, I do not really recognize her from the very picture I will keep of her for the rest of my life. We are walking across the street, but the two women stop and turn round. I can see the green gate of my school, and a man standing on the opposite sidewalk where we were some seconds ago. He is watching us. I look up at my mother, and she is watching too. It is like they know each other’s. I watch back at the man, and he is staring at me now. I do not remember what feeling is across his face. All I know is he has fair hair, a bit long. That is all I consciously recall. Mailyn asks my mother who that guy is, and my mother says no one, but he is still gazing, and so does she. But the weirder of all is, I cannot really explain it, and it is even weirder as I am a quiet and reserved little girl, but, but I am drawn to that man. If I was not so introverted, I would hold out my arm towards him. I am stuck to him with my eyes. I want to walk to him. My mother pulls my coat, and I watch her, and I have to walk with her, but I still look at him.

- Why did we have to walk away? I wonder, often, was he my father? I think all the time about it lately, as it if was the key to the answer, to everything.

- Maybe you should get help to search for your father?

- I have. I have the feeling to have tried all I could. I have other ideas, but not easy to make them real. There’s a quote that says, far from the eyes, far from the heart, and it’s kind of a trick, because it’s a bond that never really dies, however distance is materially a difficulty in my search.

He nodded. Then he wrote something on a paper.

- Try that, he said handing me the paper, say I recommended you.

I thanked him, but I did not know what to do with that. I knew the solution to the problem. It was so easy, why was it so hard to realize?


I thought a lot about it, and when he asked me what I wanted to talk about I said it was about something I wanted to speak out, but could not, because I could not really speak about it.

- Like a secret, I said.

And it had been so true, for so many years. It was a secret. They would have hidden me secret if they could have done it so. But they could not, because the only way would have been to kill me for good. I wondered if some of them even had had that thought. I wanted to believe they had not.

Instead, they raise me in silence. This is how I grow up, in silences, between some assassin mysterious sentences. I always have the feeling to be the toy kid, the experiment, the guinea pig. I do not anyone who accepts me as I am, for what I am, and with the past I have in luggage. They act like never has ever existed. But it is not reality. I am a quiet kid, and I will become very secretive with the years. I think that lack of communication is no stranger to that. It strengthens my independent nature. As I become a little girl and not a toddler anymore, I start understanding that things happened before I was born. It is difficult to figure out how things can different from how I see them. It is a little like if my mother had always been in her thirties.
It is by the age of ten I will become more and more by myself. I still will have friends and enjoy spending time with them; I will even make some very good friends. But about personal things, I will not talk, for years, for more than a decade actually. I cannot know then how destructive it can be. It is dangerous game, but a child does not know that. I live the way I am, and when I forget, the worries disappear. At least, I think so. It is the year I became very close to Charlotte. It is also the year I became sick. For no apparent reason, one day, my mother looks at me as if I was going to die, and she asks me how I feel. I am okay; really I am, what is so wrong? She does not tell me more, but she calls the doctor. They both find me abnormally pale. I have always been pale. But it seems I do not look healthy. I am healthy, what are they talking about? My mother is already very sick. We have been getting used to, she has cancer, a badly placed colon cancer. I think that is why motivates her to be careful with my health. Well, maybe she will actually save my life, who knows. The doctor takes my blood; I do not fear it, though I am not fond of it. I do not realize what the results mean, I will have a treatment, and I am confident. It says I lack iron, and I am seriously anemic. It says my white cells are a bit high. So I will be under surveillance. If nothing changes, I will have another test in two months. That one will be better, and the treatment works well. Normally, I am supposed to be out of danger. I will have another blood test in two months. And then in six months. But I am doing fine. I just always feel like there is something missing, and I keep myself busy not to think about it. I think I have been trying to remember that memory again and again. I have tried to remember every little word, to be the surer in the decisions I would take. But I think I am so in shock that only hypnosis could come to that outstanding result. I am going to go through this, one more time.
I am in my bedroom, and I want to go out, in the big garden around the small buildings where we live. It is agreeable there, and there are lots of kids, more or less my age. I have hesitated on which time exactly it happened, but I am pretty sure it is the last holidays before the Summer holidays, so in April. I am ten, I am about four feet three inches, and I have a movie to direct with the guys. A fictive movie of course, and I will play in it too, as a mastermind private eye. I am going to tell my mother first where I will be. I walk across the corridor that leads to our living room, and then to the third room that is behind. It’s a guest room, but also the place to put some clothes, and where my mother irons. She is ironing right now. I ask her if she does not work today, she says no, not all the time, with an air, like if it was a reproach from me. I tell her it was just a question. I am a bit dry, but cats do not make dogs. She tells me it is okay for I play outside, but to come back before it is night. No problem. Before I leave she tells me her grand-mother called and that she would like me to go there for the next holidays. I count in my head, wait, the next holidays it is in two months! I tell her I do not want to go there. She asks me why, and that it would do good to me to go the beach and see the sun. I say I do not feel like it. There is plenty of sun here too after all. I ask why she would not come, and she answers she is not invited. I still feel that like an embarrassment. It is family. She insists, and I say I do not like her, that she is a dragon. She says I will just have to focus on the beach then. I feel hurt. I begin to cry and tell her that if she wants to get rid of me, it is not a way to do so. She says it is not what she wants and that she will not force me to go there. I want to go away, but I have it in mind. Why is she not invited? It does not make sense to me. She came with e, four years ago when we were there. She looks annoyed I asked. She sighs and asks me if I really want to know. I am pretty curious now, yeah. I feel strange; it is like something enormous is going to fall on my head any second. I feel it in my stomach, that ambiance is not normal. She tells me my father’s name is Clayton, she talks to be about a Cory Clayton, a Cain Clayton, and a Warren Clarence Clayton. I do not understand which is my father in the three, but after what she says, one of them is. I am confused in my head. I do know there is something wrong about what she says. I spent so much time getting rid of the memory of my father who hates me. I do not see him anymore, why is she talking about him to me now? Will I have to see him again?

- I don’t understand, I say, my father changed name?

She looks at me for some seconds. She seems to be puzzled.

- You don’t understand?

- No, I say.

- Then give it up.

I want to know more, but it is the end. I already forget about it. I will remember, later, long, long after she died. I still do not know today if it had any incidence on my recovery, but I was said to have been recovering very fast then. When my last routine test is done, I am eleven, I hear my mother say to the doctor:

- I told her, but it’s like she doesn’t remember.

- Remember what? I ask.

All they do is look at me in silence.

- Don’t worry, the doctor says, it will make its way in her head.

Yeah, it will, in fifteen years.


- I shouldn’t blame myself for that, and I don’t want to blame my mother, but how things would have been faster if I had remembered on that day. When I think about all what happened then, it really was a waste of time. I know a part of me will never come back from there.

- Maybe it’s not too late? You can’t cancel the past, but it’s possible to be in peace with yourself.

I said nothing.

- I don’t know if there’s really something that could be done. I have the feeling it’s too late, at least for my father.

- What do you mean?

- I have the feeling he’s the one of the three who’s dead.

He looks at me.

- Are you willing to have such an answer?

- Yes, I am ready now.


The more I grow up, the more I understand the words said, the weirder the situations are to me. There are big secrets in that family, and I am one of them. There is something they do not want to say, it is always latent, there are words, looks. I feel like the ditched one. When I am twelve, they talk about my chin on my new school pictures. They say it is like my father’s. But it is not. It is normal I look like my father. But I do not know. I do not know what? Not in front of me. I am the plague. Things are unclear to me through things I live. But I forgot. And I am a rational person. I cannot believe that something like that could happen to me after all I already had to live. I am shut off to every possibility that is not peace of mind. Even when Coco talks to me about that very blonde guy, who is American, and who seems to own a house a lot from here, and that is interested in me, I do not want to believe her. I tell her I believe what she tells me, but that it must not be what she thinks. I mean, I do not even know that man, why would he be interested in me? It does not make sense. Even telling her about that large dark, tinted windows limo, with that bizarre plate that stopped in front of my grand-parents’ house, some months ago, I do not freak out. I do understand there could be a correlation, but I tell myself it could very well be a coincidence as well. I suppose we are only two to know that plate number today. Troubling numbers that tells me something about the driver. By these numbers I can have a good idea of who was driving. But at that time, I do not realize all I already hold in my hands, or more in my unconscious. I am not naïve, but not aware.
I definitely validate the secret about my mother when I am snooping in the boxes in the garage, looking for “something”. I am fifteen then, and apparently, as I hear from my grand-parents; there is someone I will never know, someone who died one year earlier. And there is nothing anymore to be found in the boxes. I am very suspicious but also cautious to whom I talk to. I am sure there is something now, but I do not know what, and when I ask, whatever I can say, I only hear the wind in return. It will take me more than two years more to start seeing just the beginning of it.