Finding the Ground Beneath the Feet
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«Getting ready to die,» I answered honestly. «When they die, they piss and poop, I know, so I need to sit there like this so the women don’t get angry because they need to clean too much.»
«You’re not going to die,» the boy said as he looked around.
Immediately this man, who was Death, came up and took me in his arms. It was so gentle, so warm that I cried again because I couldn’t help myself.
«Why is she crying, Daddy?» the curly-haired boy, who reminded me of someone, asked.
«Because she had no one, son,» replied the man holding me in his arms. «Depression is the worst executioner of special children.»
They put me in a car and took me somewhere. Probably, to the cemetery to bury me there. Nobody wanted me, where else would they take me from the hospital? Either to an orphanage or to a cemetery…
Fiance
We didn’t come to a cemetery but to a house. At the house, a woman met us, not like the one who came to the ward, but a very different one. She was kind. She said her name was Ms. Elsa, but I could call her… mother. I cried again because I got Mother, a real one, can you imagine? And the one I called Mr. Death turned out to be Dad. And the curly-haired boy’s name was Herman. I was definitely in a fairytale because that couldn’t have happened to me.
«Do you want us to adopt you?» my new dad asked me.
«Can I not be adopted?» I asked and explained immediately, «Well, not for real because I could pretend that Herman was my fiance and I would have a future.»
Dad smiled, and the boy (he heard what I said too) seemed to be on the verge of tears.
«Do you need a fiance for the future?» Mother smiled.
«Well, if there is a fiance,» I shared my thoughts, «Then one day there will be a family… I know I’m going to die anyway, but just for fun, can I?»
My mother cried and allowed it, and Herman hugged me and told me how good I was. It got so warm, it was impossibly good. I had no words at all, only tears. I cried a lot that day, more than I think I had cried in my whole life.
At lunch, it turned out that I had little willpower, and the pain made the tears flow. Dad even scolded me a little.
«You mustn’t tolerate pain,» he said while caressing me. «If it hurts, you have to tell me.»
I was ready for Daddy to take the belt, but he caressed and scolded me so gently that I wanted to cry again.
«Aren’t you going to give me to a psychiatrist?» I asked because… well… «No psychiatrist, please.»
«Poor baby,» my mother hugged me. «What have you been through…»
«No one will give you to a psychiatrist.»
I noticed that those words made Herman look very pale. He must have been afraid of that liar too. Dad told me that he would help me stop the pain. And I believed it, of course. Then, Herman took the spoon from my trembling hands and began to feed me like a baby. I didn’t want to eat, but I had to be obedient…
«Let’s eat some more,» the boy told me. «Then, you can rest while I do my homework»
«Can I come too?» I asked him as piteously as I could, and my «fiance» agreed.
Herman didn’t mind being a fiance at all. I even asked him why, and he answered:
«You’re a miracle,» he said and caressed my head so tenderly that I squeezed my eyes shut in pleasure.
Oh, I forgot! It turned out that I was ten years old and almost a year away from the dreaded academy. And I didn’t look like Mariana in the mirror, not at all. So I definitely died and became a new person. Someone wrote about this in some books, I don’t remember the name. The academy was in the book, so I thought: if the surnames are the same, then I’m in the book, right?
Herman got down to his lessons, and I rolled closer: not to distract him, but to be busy with something. He put the history book in front of me and told me not to distract him. So I was reading the story without distracting him and imagining that if I had distracted him, he would have been very upset, and I didn’t want to upset my «fiance», even if it was just for fun. Herman was doing his exercises and was upset because something was wrong. I looked in his notebook and almost immediately saw that he had mixed up the minus in the beginning with the plus. I used to make that mistake too, that’s why I noticed it. I was sitting and worrying about it, and Herman was worrying too, so I couldn’t resist it.
«Herman,» I called him softly and touched his sleeve. «May I disturb you, and later you can beat me up for it?»
«Oh…» The boy was angry at first, but then, when he heard what I was suggesting, he just hugged me and held me tight. «You little kitten.» It was so tender that I sobbed. «What’s wrong with my dear one?»
Herman was so much older than me, wise, so kind, and affectionate… I just couldn’t help crying.
«You’ve mixed up the minus with the plus here,» I pointed out cautiously and immediately squeezed my eyes shut in fear.
«Thank you, kitten,» the boy thanked me softly and stroked my eyes so that they opened. Somehow he wasn’t angry with me at all, even though I disturbed him.
Then, he quickly finished his homework and started asking me about history – well, about what I had read. Somewhere in the middle, I got scared for some reason, and Herman somehow sensed it and stopped asking me questions, although I expected him to scold me because I’d forgotten half of it. But my «fiance» somehow figured it out, put the book down, hugged me, then put me to bed and wanted to leave, but I gave him such a pitiful look that he stayed.
* * *At dinner, I couldn’t eat on my own again, so Herman fed me and Dad was frowning for some reason. I got a little scared. If it hadn’t been for the nappy, I probably would have peed myself, but Dad had thought of everything, and I just… well… Daddy said that a lot of people pee after a ca-the-ter and it’s no big deal, the nappy was just to make me feel comfortable and prevent me from crying. It was so weird that someone would care about me. Dad also said that he would think of some ways to help me, and I was a little afraid.