Who Am I?

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

A question that has not left my mind for years now – WHO AM I? Ten years ago, I was found alone down by Shadings Bay Harbour, “Daddy says that the water in this harbour is bottomless.” I just kept repeating that phrase, yet no-one knew what I meant. I was cold, with torn clothes and I had no recollection of who I was – they said I was 15. A lady came to take me away; I had no relatives that they knew of so I was put up for adoption.

The original photograph that the lady took of me was so horrific that, soon after, I changed it. I was morbidly thin, pale; with dark, black rings hanging from the small eyes that stared harshly back at me. I had chapped, frozen, almost blue lips and it was obvious that I was under nourished. My hair fell from my head in long, tangled, ropey forms and my once bright, red colour was tainted with mud and stained with shades of brown. As I stared into my eyes – they weren’t my eyes – they were the gates to pools of knowledge and memories that I know strain to remember; they were doors to my parentage, but alleyways to the pain that my facial expression showed – who was I?

My name now is Maria Johnson and I am every adoption agency’s perfect statistic – a success story. I graduated three years ago from Oxford University, with a masters in law and History; coming from nothing to having everything. I was told at the age of 16 that I was to be adopted, due to the fact that my parents had been the victims of a double murder, at the house I had once lived in. No other details could be given. Now, sitting in my South London flat, I realise my life is incomplete and as I peruse my adoption file, I think about the beginning and the 15 years of my life I know nothing about…

My file shed very little light on the ever darkening mystery that was my life and although I expected it, it still disappointed me. It contained the photograph, which replaced the older one, of me at the age of 16. It also had a photograph of me as a child, with two strangers holding me. The woman looked beautiful: long, dark, red hair that seemed to be verging on brown, with huge, clear, blue eyes that lit the room like one massive, spectacular illusion. The gentleman had dark, brown hair and a firm jaw line, similar to the firm grip they both had on the baby – on me. “They must be my parents,” I muttered to myself and as I did so, I felt a sense of belonging that I subconsciously had been longing for.

Other than this photograph, my file was pretty much a collection of large, not required words, thrown together by various different psychiatrists and child specialists. It was safe to say that I was less than impressed with my findings and reluctantly, I took myself and the unexplained parts of my life to bed.

That night I fell into a deep, hibernating sleep. My head seemed to sink into the depths of my pillows and the sheer softness of my duvet became apparent, as my body embraced the warmth that radiated from it. As I lay consumed in comfortable bliss, the natural darkness that clung to the inner sides of my eyelids began to clear and I began to dream. I saw through hazy vision, what I believed to be a distant memory: a flashback…

The room was small, with a double bed and a bed side table; the sheets were pristine, white and not slept in and the carpet was a mousey coloured cream. The Bible on the table made the room seem more personal and inhabited. All this confused me, but as my vision became clearer, all was revealed. The bed was scarred with slashes of deep, red blood and the previously angelic sheets now appeared dangerously evil. On the floor, blood congregated in large puddles, before seeping miserably down into the now burgundy carpet. Diagonal lines of red patterned the walls, as blood dripped effortlessly down from the table, to poker dot the floor. Even the Bible was not spared its share of horror, as the blood lining its pages worked its way through the Old Testament, merging the words of God along the way. So much destruction in so little space made my insides curl and forced the lining of my stomach to, rather differently, line the inside of my toilet.

“Here you are miss… miss, I’m sorry what did you say your name was?”
“Maria Johnson, now can I just borrow this for the hour?”
“Well, technically no. You see I’m breaking procedure even just to let you see it, but if you make it worth my while I may overlook it.” The policeman handed me the tarnished file, which seemed darned with dust from the years in storage. I slipped him a neatly folded twenty pound note, smiled sweetly at him and said, “Have a nice day now” as I left the police station. Returning home, I restrained from opening the file; I wanted to be able to take in all of what it said, without the distractions of a Friday morning tube journey through the centre of London…

“Ken & Susan Johnson: Case No. 12037859: MURDER. PC’s Collins and Franck attended the scene upon the instruction of a phone call from a concerned neighbour. At 03:00am PC’s Collins and Franck entered the residence 12 Alcott Street, North London. There was no sign of forced entry and no response to the PC’s shouts. PC Collins went to check the house upstairs and upon entry into the master bedroom, found the two bodies that were later identified through dental records, to be the owners of the house: Mr and Mrs K Johnson. Photographs of the scene are enclosed, but it was obvious that the pair had been brutally murdered, with the majority of wounds to the chest and face. The multiple stab wounds in Mr Johnson’s chest showed a quick death, with the number of wounds, at a glance, to be around 12. Mrs Johnson however only had one chest stab wound, the rest were slashes that cut through her face. This seemed to be a planned crime, though no immediate suspects.
Case No. 12037859: UNSOLVED.”

Retching uncontrollably to myself, I fetched a glass of water as I threw the file aside. This was the description of my parent’s death that I hoped I would never have to hear, but it did fill in one of the gaps in my memory; so grudgingly, I pulled the file open once more. The rest was just similar police reports, until I found the profile of one of the suspects. Their fingerprint was bloody and it said that they didn’t speak in their interview – this must be them…

NAME: Mary Johnson
AGE: 15 years
RELATION: Daughter

I needn’t read any further, I knew their one and only suspect was me. The only difference was my name now is Maria and not Mary. I was involved in the unsolved murder of my parents, the only question that remained now was – did I do it?

“Sorry it’s a bit late; I got side tracked with the details of the case.” I said kindly to the policeman behind the counter, from earlier that morning.
“It’s ok miss…miss…I’m sorry, I’m hopeless with names!” He responded, blushing slightly pink with a hint of embarrassment.
“It’s Johnson, Mary, oh I mean Maria Johnson.” What had come over me; Mary was not my name? It had been an instinctive reaction though, maybe the file had jogged my memory, but did I want it to? “Goodbye and Thank you.” I said as I headed towards the door.
“Johnson?” Looking at the file, the policeman recognised the name and quivered as he read that I had been the chief suspect. As I reached the door, I heard him gasp, “What have I done?”

Fumbling with my keys, I hurried to open the door. I just wanted to lock myself away: pretend that I had never been so curious about my past and that I was just in one long, demented nightmare. The truth however was, that this was the reality of my life, I just had to solve it and put the pieces back together. Falling into that unconscious state of sleep again, I began to see the blood bath that was my parent’s bedroom. I began to sweat, scared that I had been the one to kill them; I began to cry as I felt the teardrops stream down my face. I saw the blood in a puddle on the floor and remembered the details of my mothers dismembered face, hacked and slashed at through hatred…my hatred. I tossed and turned, willing the flashback to end, praying that the blood would disappear and I would see my parents smiling faces. I cried for their faces to appear, I wanted to find some peace amongst the horror, then my flashback changed and a face did appear…

The man had dark eyes and an evil smile: this was not my father. He sent a chill down my spine and I didn’t even know who he was. He frightened me, arousing some hidden fear from the depths of my memory. What had he done to make me curl up in my bed, pulling the covers over my head, like a 12 year old child? “Keep quiet sweetheart; this won’t take a minute, uncle Jimmy thinks you’ve been a bad girl again and bad girls must be punished. Shh shh.” The tears for my parent’s deaths vanished, as they were replaced with weeps of self pity – who was Uncle Jimmy and what did he do to me? Ringing with sweat, I ran myself a cold bath; I needed to wash off the suppressed fears of my childhood.

The next day, I returned to the start of the confusion: the Harbour. I saw the grand boats of Shadings Bay bobbing peacefully up and down alongside one another; they were an array of colour, all united by the white deck that divided up equally each boats patch. As I strolled down the deck, I looked out to sea and saw the sunrise on the horizon, as clearly cut as the yolk of a fresh egg. It was of bright, orange origin with all the positive, upbeat rays of light beaming forth from it: it was magical. I sat down in the spot equidistant from the end of the deck and the land I had left behind; this was where I was found. I let my legs wade through the cool water beneath them, as I felt the contrast of heat on my back, as I turned away from my sunrise. The water was enchanting and mystical as it seemed to draw me in, it was a moment to cherish as I saw a solitary, lone fish swim by, effortlessly moving its fins in time with the almost rhythmic beats, of the curvaceous ripples.

“I used to love this place,” I thought to myself, my eyes still transfixed on the motions of the isolated, golden fish. However, it didn’t matter how mesmerized I was by this fish, my eyes still locked onto the rundown, despondent reflection that stared despairingly back at me. At that moment, I went through in my head all that had perplexed me over the past few days: had I brutally massacred my parents, had the police seriously suspected a 15 year old child and who was “Uncle Jimmy” and what had he done to me? As all these pessimistic thoughts engulfed my already exhausted brain, I realised for all of two minutes I had forgotten my problems, whilst watching that fish swim by and although only momentarily, I had found peace.

Predicaments don’t go away when we want them to though and the thought of solving the ever lengthening riddle that was my life angered me, as I wanted to gain back my peace of mind. I thought about the past and the present and realised that the life I was living concerned nobody else - I had nobody to love and therefore gained back no love in return. I thought about how all I had was my always fully-functioning brain and that my future would merely revolve around that. It was at this moment, as I slid down into the water, that I knew where I was for the first time in my life. I felt at home in that salty water, sinking slowly, my body submerged in the cool, tropical lagoon that was my world. As I saw the surface get further away, the solo fish swam by, singing its harmonious melodies and the egg yolk that was the sun seemed to dim, as the darkness finally got to me. Funnily enough, I now knew that there was no way I could have ever murdered my parents and in those last precious seconds; I now knew life’s purpose, as my life slipped into the shadowy depths of my father’s bottomless harbour.

“Dear Lord,
We ask of you to watch over a woman with a child’s heart, who we sadly lost two weeks ago. Maria was a good person; intelligence came naturally to her and despite the loss of her parents and her childhood memories, she made life look so easy. She graduated from Oxford University with job offers from a number of prestigious law firms and to the world seemed very happy. However, the misfortunes of her past led her to destruction and her hearts longing for unknown answers led her to her death. She will be sadly missed by the people here present. Amen.”

As the vicar walked away from the freshly covered, rectangular hole in the ground, a man placed a single red rose down by the gravestone. In some perverted way this scene could have been rather beautiful, had it not been for the words that spilled out of this man’s mouth, “I said bad girls would be punished sweetheart, but you can rest in peace now, Uncle Jimmy still loves you.”