Chapter IV

I was sketching the small cat that I skinned and dismembered that morning when I felt her soft and warm breath on my neck. I closed the sketchbook and hoped she did not have enough time to take a good look at the macabre things I had done to that little creature that morning before going to work. I turned around and there was not an expression on her face that would make me understand if she did see it or not. She was calm, not as always, a bit agitated, I guess because that filthy human was still in her home waiting for her mother to come back from work. He would not dare touch her, because what I did to that little cat this morning would be nothing compared to what I would do to him if he did touch her. But I had seen how he looked at her, if it weren’t for her mother, he would not blink even and do what he wanted with her. I left the chair and went to sit with her on the sofa. I could not get enough of her presence; I could not get enough of having her into my life. I knew very well that she would never be mine, but that did not matter to me, not at all. All I cared about was for her to be safe because happy, I knew she would never be, not here. She started talking about something that came as sweet summer bugs buzzing to my ears, I just stood there looking at her face and the small wrinkles that formed when she talked and smiled, how her eyes would sparkle in anger or joy. How her checks would flash a little bit of red when she talked about her future dreams. Of course, I was no part of any of them, I could not even dream to be a part of them. How could I ever dare to dream of that? How could I ever dream of being something more than what I was in her life, she was perfect, as perfect as an angle could be and I was, well I was me. The psycho that would skin a cat before going to work and then draw a sketch of it when he would be home like it was something normal to do. It had some kind of normality to me, isn’t that all that matters? As I was running all of this through my head she was still talking about faraway lands where she wanted to go someday. I think she knew that those dreams would not leave this damned place, not ever. We were cursed to live and die here. Hope had left this place a long time ago and had no intention of returning. I envied her; I envied her ability to keep something as fragile as hope alive. I had no clue how she did that, but she could. When she was with me, I could somehow grasp the idea and start making up dreams of my own. I knew that was stupid and it would only cause me pain but after all, I was able to deal with pain better than anyone could. I had been born and raised into it and I knew that it would be a part of me until the end of my days. I did not mind that; it did not matter anymore because I was not able to feel much any longer. My innocence and the part of me that was able to feel had died a very long time ago. It all started when I first felt how strong a big man was, and how week I was. Of course, I was only a small child no more than five years old, but some fears you cannot outgrow. The pain that my father inflicted on me will walk with me forever. It taught me a very valid lesson, it taught me to survive in a world that did not care about anyone’s feelings, in a world that could not care less if I was hurting and death would have been the sweetest relief. In a world where you will be stepped on, chewed off, and spat out at the sidewalk as something that mattered so little, in a world that would not blink in front of my demise and would continue to exist as if nothing had happened. I learned to live in it; well, I learned to survive in it because that could not be called living. All that made this bearable, were these little moments with her, these small bits of happiness, and all the light she brought with her every time she would be into my apartment. I would forget about everything that had happened to me, forget that my own father who was supposed to be my hero and savior started taking out his rage on me since I was five years old. The scars he left on my body were still visible to this day, even after all those years had passed, they still hurt, sometimes I felt like they still bled, and I would wake up covered in sweat in the middle of the night. Searching blindly with the tips of my fingers to make sure that the skin was not opened there again and blood was rushing out. Some nightmares that we live will always follow us no matter how far we run, no matter how fast we run from them they will be there when we sleep, and when we wake up, the feeling they created will still be so vivid that we can touch it. Parents are supposed to protect and most of all love their younglings, they are supposed to bring light and hope and surround them with everything good in this world. Teach us to love and accept to be loved, and when that does not happen, well I come out. I could not know if all I am doing is just blamed them, on my father and all his biting, and on my mother that did nothing to stop it, did nothing to protect me from him. I could not possibly know if I would have turned up to be the same person if they would have been different, and I will never know, so all I could do is put some logical reasoning to why I was the way I was. Even though for some things there is no logical explanation, there cannot be one, and the sooner we stop looking for it the better. It is just a waste of energy spending nights awake trying to figure out all what if-s. I was not ready yet to do that, I was not ready to give up and accept myself for what I was and what I would never be so, I blamed everything on them and took out all the rage they created on the small cats and dogs no one would miss. Did it make me feel any better, of course not; it just made me feel myself that’s all. At those moments I was able to drop the mask and just be me, be the monster that they created and inflict as much pain as I could on powerless creatures. They were helpless before me, just as I was before him; there is not any better way to feel empowered as holding another life into your hands. Causing so much pain onto something that breathes that death would be a relief. Looking into their little eyes and knowing that only you can end their suffering. Knowing that only you can keep them alive, or end their misery forever, it was like getting back the power I was stripped from since I was a child. The sad part was that no matter how many of them perished in anguish from my hand, the pain that my father with his violent nature and the indifference of my mother to my suffering cause, was never eased. Nothing was able to cure that and make the voices shut up even for a single night, that is why I had to do the same thing over and over again like a mad man expecting different results. But don’t we owe that to ourselves, if we think that something will make us a little bit better, sleep a sweeter sleep at nights and bring some kind of sickening happiness, we ought to do it. No matter how dark it is or how psychotic we have to go for it, because no one else will ever look hard enough to find or create our happiness but us. And that was exactly what I was doing, I know it sickens you the way I was doing it but it does not have to make sense to you or anybody else, just to me. I had yet to get some positive results from it, but I knew that I would never stop looking for them. I would never stop causing damage all around me in the search of my own saving if there could ever be such a thing. Yes, maybe she would be my saving, but how could I ever know that, I was not willing to take that risk and destroy the only thing that was keeping my mind just a little bit sane. The only thing that was bringing just a little bit of light into my darkness started before I could even understand how the world worked. Before I could even understand the insane amount of chaos, I would go through growing up. I would not risk taking that from her, I would not risk taking the innocence that was killed for me, she had that and she was doing her best to keep it alive, I had to keep my beating heart of stone to myself and never show it to anyone. Especially to her, that was my way of keeping her safe from me. I never let anything slip in front of her, I never led her to see how I felt about her, the kind of love I had should die with me and never see the light of realization. I was afraid that if she knew how much I loved her she might be tempted to love me back and I did not deserve that, I did not deserve to be loved like that, not from her. It seemed to me that it would make it dirtier, like an abomination that should have never been born. Luckily, she never realized that, I was careful enough to not let her see that part of me. Maybe by seeing it she would believe that I could be a better man, but I had given up that hope a long time ago, I had accepted myself for who I was, maybe she would have done the same if she would love me, but I could not ask her to share my cross, that was mine only to bear. I knew that someday she would be happy with someone else; I knew I would keep a close eye on him I knew I would have to make sure that he would love her how she needed to be loved and make her the happiest woman in the world. Knowing that, would make me happy as well, at least that is what I believed.

I was still rumbling through my head when she asked me if I was listening to a word she was saying. I confirmed that I was there and listening, she told me about the young woman that he brought to her home today and her young son. They were from a small city where people could still find some happiness; I could not understand what the woman was thinking about coming here and bringing her son with her. This city only takes and takes from people until they are empty and when they have nothing else to offer, it will just drown them into one of its gutters and there they will disappear forever, never to be found again. She told me that she had to take care of the young boy because his mother most probably will not be around much, as many other women she would end up selling her body to any man willing to buy it in order to bring food to the table and put clothes on their backs. Like most women, she will blend in and be one with the endless crowds of all the other whores that since they sold their soul to a dream, had nothing else to offer to any man. If I were able to feel anything at all I would feel sorry for them, but even that I could not do. It was her choice and as such, she would have to live with it for the rest of her life, but the boy, he had no saying in it. It was not his own choice coming here, he was dragged here by his mother that could not appreciate what she had and wanting more, would end up having nothing. Actually, quite the reverse, owing to this world everything she had. I knew at that moment that I would do anything for that boy as well as I would do for Tina. I would do anything to protect him and not let this filth of a city take away everything he aspires to be, do anything I could so he could keep his dreams alive and make a run for them, make a run to leave this place behind and save himself from it. I knew that would be a near-impossible task, but we are allowed to have some small hope that things might get better, that we will make it out alive and well. That would mean that the boy would live his days in illusion and the disappointment would be even greater, but what can we do, if there is a small chance to salvation, we have to take it. I vowed to be the father I never had for him, help him understand, and make an idea that this world can be a bit better, a bit friendlier. It would be difficult but it was worth it if it meant that I would be able to save that little boy from all the suffering that I went through. Yes, I am one of those people that still believe that if we can help, we must. And I would, even if that would mean for me going against all odds, I would try to save his little soul and allow himself to have dreams for a better future. Maybe I would be feeding a delusion onto him, but if that would mean for him to have some bright days it was worth it, some bright days are worth any kind of sacrifice. She told me that she would take the boy to a book store tomorrow because he loved books. I decided to go with them and maybe have some ice-cream at this lovely place in the city center, even add some sprinkles on it, the colorful ones that made no sense in this deep gray city. But in my mind that was like giving it the middle finger, it was like saying that no matter what it did, it would not hold us down, that I would be able to allow some color into someone else’s life and there was nothing it could do about it. We heard him leaving her apartment late in the afternoon. I went to the door, cracked it open, and looked at him leaving. He turned around and looked at me for a few seconds. If he only knew what I had in mind for him he would start running and not walking like that, if he knew what I dreamed of doing to him before going to sleep he would never come back here again. But he didn’t, that is why he kept coming back a couple of times a week. I hadn’t done anything to him except staring at him whenever he would come and go, if it is true that we sometimes learn, for him, there would not be a chance to do so.