catastrophe child
mother and child. father and child. mother and father.
I have always believed these to be the three most lethal combinations on Earth, and without a doubt the greatest sources of misery.
I grew up in a hollow wooden birdhouse constructed by a sadistic child and painted over by a lazy chemist. There wasn’t enough room inside to fit all three of us, so my father forced me to climb the walls every night and sleep on the roof, not caring at all that the pointed ridges made it impossible to do so. I developed scars on my back – and a terrible case of insomnia – as a result.
My childhood bled and so did I.
It was on my twelfth birthday – this very day five years ago – that I definitively became convinced of my father’s lunacy. It was also the first time I truly understood the meaning of sin.
After the cake-cutting ceremony concluded and my mother went to sleep, my father and I climbed up to the roof of our little birdhouse – the place responsible for the blood mottling the inner fabric of my shirt – and displayed before me an Old Timer 152OT Sharpfinger 7, the exact blade I had longed to own since grade 4. After removing the knife from its leather case, he held it up to my face, adjusting the angle of his wrist so as to allow the moonlight to reflect off its surface and create a small glimmer of light. I think he did this because he wanted to scare me, so in a way, I suppose he got what he wanted. His eyes looked like those of a serial killer glaring down at his next victim, and the intensity of his gaze suggested he was contemplating a swift and unforgiving stabbing of whatever object – or person – was closest to him. None of this bothered me, however. The only thing I was frightened by was the fact that in this perverse and twisted man I saw myself- an unsettlingly wretched, broken mirror of the very human I may someday become.
I don’t remember how much time passed while he inspected the knife and I inspected him, but sooner or later he spoke, and what he said instilled in me a deep, deep sorrow that still lingers in me to this day.
“Lift up your shirt.”
The next thing I knew, I was alone and lying down before a sunny sky, my right arm resting atop my abdomen, which hurt- a lot. I lifted my shirt slightly and winced as I laid my eyes upon the crimson bruises and swarthy blemishes that dotted my skin. Before I could think of what to do or say next, something shiny to the right caught my eye. I glanced over and saw the Sharpfinger laying down next to me, entirely clean and unblemished like a pure, inviolate child.
Today may have been my seventeenth birthday, but I did not turn seventeen today; I turned twelve for the fifth year in a row.
What is the greatest sin?
I have always believed it to be whatever my father did to me that night.
He always believed it was me.