The Cycle of Revenge

Trauma, apparently it’s a bit like holding your hand in ice cold water: numbing. That’s how I felt, as if my senses had been voluntarily paralysed. In front of me, inside my skull, I can still see the reverberations of shock mounting up; mounting up to strike again. Parts of me doubt that it was even there at all, but then, almost simultaneously, I doubt if it will ever be gone. The “it” in question is a decaying feeling left by a would-be innocuous child whose existence alone is a miracle; or a downfall into damnation.
Strange how, when presented with an unsettling situation, the human mind has the ability to adapt by simply adding in an element of disbelief, or eliminating parts of reality. It’s this attitude to survival that makes it difficult to accurately recall, even the direct moment after, just what was going through your thoughts like an instant dart of primal fear that is quickly disguised by more complex considerations. When I very first laid eye on the dishevelled figure so inappropriately alive I’m almost certain I saw it as a mound, an inexplicable mound yes, but one inhuman and therefore unimportant. I think it was the wrinkled nose and protruding toes that sparked my reaction, grappling desperately and suddenly from beneath saturated cloth, naked flesh bouncing off sunlight in an intimate drive for connection. There’s no accounting for it and by all rights I should have ignored it for nothing that is impossible is a possibility for truth as the motto goes. Yet (so often a “yet” or a “but” arises, it’s hard to stay safe) human curiosity, or maybe some drive from a throw-away generation, overpowered even the incessant threats and poisonous warnings, leading me over to the entangled figure. Scooping it up, thick charcoal hair flopped forward, followed by the heavy sway of a fatigued head on an untrained neck. Air exploded out of my archaic mouth, bellowing into the dry cell, washing the cracking asbestos walls with hot gas; the evolving dust adding to my already congested lungs. The child was beautiful. Gazing, blankly at first, but then with a depth I had never encountered, it studied my worn face and scattered expression as I fell into the cavernous potential contained within that small being’s reflective stare. Never before had disbelief intermingled so readily with a profound sense of belonging; of attachment, despite the ruthless severance of the scarlet lifeline between.
That was the beginning, there is no end.

My disbelief at the heaving, sweat-jewelled event was well-founded. Clinics, white coats, pills and a grotesquely aimed knitting needle in a moment of uncontrollable panic denied the slippery passage into existence. No doubt I had regretted the tension-wrought pregnancy, for no one wanted to risk such exertion in the polluted atmosphere but seeing the composition of my flesh and pain dispelled the formerly overwhelming resentment and fear; replaced by protective urges. In retrospect there was already something unsettling about the grappling infant. Behind the obvious innocence and beauty, enhanced by cloudy maternal perspective, a hint of anger glinted through, her wide pupils momentarily descending into the thick blackness reflected in her hair. However, once noticing such a flaw I promptly discredited it (human survival kicking in again) and returned to ignorance dressed as a newborn.

Mya I’d named her, after some divine enchantress I remembered from childhood, a story whimsical and diverse yet comforting in strength. It had led her to the same fate, into a world of continuous adventure coupled with despair, one from which she would return from with a silver slash on crumpled cloth. Now, later, I find it hard to imagine that first brief moment of bliss when I felt the innocence of youth contact my wizened features. Again I am barren as my only daughter was brutally stripped from my slumbering form, hours old and dependent

Crisp, almost nauseating in its perfection the foliage folded into a pathway that day, disfigured by strands of stickiness pervading the once well trodden road. Manically staring along it, searching for any revealing quivers threatening the harmony, parental drive momentarily suspending sense, I hunted for signs of the captors, stealing off with my limp package of life, lying defenceless in a wrapping of birth stained fabric. Of course they were long away, perhaps not even in this direction and gradually, as initial reactions ebbed away, a clarity of reason filtered through the haze; my body crumpled beneath me and thick draughts of tears rattled to the ground. Not that I abandoned all at that moment of ultimate grief. The vulnerability displayed rebounded into an echo of power, driving me to continue, if not a search, then at least a life with forward motion, not one centred on past damage. She was unwanted in arrival and so dispensable on removal, I willed myself to believe such self-imposed propaganda. Foolhardy. Years passed until I confronted and accepted the true depth of my sudden loss, by then she was moulded into something else, her dark hair grown long, her eyes cleansed of any fabricated innocence and focused on an inconceivable task.

Where they hid her, the shady location, I never uncovered. Throughout the seventeen years proceeding the birth, despite daily séances: manufactured fluorescent smoke reassuring my conscience she was alive, I knew my motivation to search was superficial, within my fragmented heart I was sure the truth would cause more pain than obvious trickery and delusion. However, no incident is ever unique, and similar cases involving stronger mothers arose and stories as to the fates of the snatchlings circulated, gaining atrocious detail with each telling like a freewheeling snowball. They morphed into a tale of torture, cruelty and unfathomable love.

Initially the captors delivered the infants irregularly, many still seeping maternal fluids, to infested camps within the dust laden waste land between the burnt out factories, radioactive goods leaking intolerable waves into our conceived flesh, a method of random selection. Either they died from the involuntary exposure, their fresh, untouched skin decaying from soft bones, fatally premature wrinkles gathering around undeveloped, popping eyeballs as infected spit frothed between smooth gums blocking undirected screams of protest. Or they thrived, unknown vapours invading their developing systems, settling deep within cells, rooted in bone marrow, strengthening them by mutation just beyond human expectation. These prodigies, enhanced by poison now pulsing through veins and soul, born affected by gas and now further mutated, were selected and moved to improvised training camps; slums surrounded by viscous metal teeth coiled above harsh brick boundaries, stern representations of the cruel community within. All the windows were blacked out, painted with thick, putrid tar which released nauseous vapours under the hazy heat of midday. Inside the children (at this stage still vaguely recognisable as products of humanity) ranged about, eyes enlarged to accommodate the ever present gloom, overstretched senses permanently contracted. Torturous descriptions of the physical environment continued up to the kitchen pits where the smell alone was a force enough to kill. These horrendous images aren’t what disgust me most. Even the mongrel children and their viscous natures don’t. Inside the camps were adults, from my generation, my background, encouraging the inhuman behaviour: commending and brainwashing. Mya was exposed to this treatment. I know from the hardened welts on her rotten skin gained from repeated whipping and well-aimed kicks that were visible the next time I saw her. I know from the distanced glaze to her eyes and the steady blackness contained in her dilated pupils. I know from the fact she didn’t recognise our blood-bond or love.

This next meeting of mother and daughter was unexpected, a jolt to the system as deeply covered emotions vomited forth from internal caverns. She had grown. Most would say unrecognisably so but, despite our precious time together being ruthlessly short, I knew it was her. Or at least the shell of her. When we came face to face she tipped her ragged head slightly, creating an air of childlike curiosity, which sparked maternal yearning within me. Her well-rounded features reflecting back the reality from years of delusion. In a flash however, my child darted back inside the camp-trained monster as a blade on heavy handle plunged effortlessly into my chest, the crack of ribs echoing my shattered heart; boiling blood spurting in gasps, disturbing the same dry floor as her birth. I remember the blankness exuding from her, and that soulless black hair.

I want my child back…