Saturday, December 11, 2004
Is There A God In Heaven?
She opened her eyes. Her brain screamed with all the rage that a soul could ever muster, Why am I here?
Ever since she was little, she was always escaping. Why?, she constantly asked.
Little scenes in her head. Like the time when she was in second grade and threatened to run away. Her mother and brother (in a mocking tone, she felt) asked her about her plans. "Where will you go?" "How will you feed yourself?" "How will you earn money?" And by the logic of an 8-year-old, she got mad and then proceeded to unpack all of her things in a huffy manner, mad that she couldn't answer those questions adequately. They did have a point, after all, she thought to herself. She couldn't quite remember whether she was mad at them or herself. Or the time in third grade when she announced that she was running away, went out the door, and and hid in the hallway, out of grown-up sight. They called her for dinner and she didn't arrive. They ran all over the neighborhood -- she saw them walking around, from her vantage point -- calling for her. After maybe an hour or so of looking for her, she walked up to the top of the steps and said, "I'm back!" Needless to say, the family was not pleased. And then there was the time at her grandfather's apartment, as a small child, barely kindergarten age, where she lay motionless for two hours under a dusty bed while her maiden aunt ran around frantcially looking for her, and as soon as the words, "I'm calling the police" were mentioned, she came out of her hiding spot.
Like the girl in that movie, The Egg, she thought. But it wasn't as though her parents fought enough to make her unhappy, as the parents in that household were constantly fighting. She never understood why she felt that way. Why she had to disappear. Why she had to make her loved ones prove that they loved her. She never felt the unconditional love that she felt for others...and she wondered why it was this way. But it was just more than that; she wanted to disappear. She wanted to be in the alternate universe. She wanted to be part of the alien network. She wanted...so many things.
And to wake up here in this asylum is not surprising, she thought.
By human standards, she was crazy.
But there had to be something, somewhere, that understood her. Or not.
But I remember things, she thought.
And then she had a day and evening that exposed the great lie that she knew lurked in the distance. A lie that expanded across cultures, across space and time, hell, across planets.
The final answer to "Why am I here?" would take her on a journey that she had always dreamed about but believed to be the romantic tinges of a disstressed and geeky teen....
She opened her eyes. Her brain screamed with all the rage that a soul could ever muster, Why am I here?
Ever since she was little, she was always escaping. Why?, she constantly asked.
Little scenes in her head. Like the time when she was in second grade and threatened to run away. Her mother and brother (in a mocking tone, she felt) asked her about her plans. "Where will you go?" "How will you feed yourself?" "How will you earn money?" And by the logic of an 8-year-old, she got mad and then proceeded to unpack all of her things in a huffy manner, mad that she couldn't answer those questions adequately. They did have a point, after all, she thought to herself. She couldn't quite remember whether she was mad at them or herself. Or the time in third grade when she announced that she was running away, went out the door, and and hid in the hallway, out of grown-up sight. They called her for dinner and she didn't arrive. They ran all over the neighborhood -- she saw them walking around, from her vantage point -- calling for her. After maybe an hour or so of looking for her, she walked up to the top of the steps and said, "I'm back!" Needless to say, the family was not pleased. And then there was the time at her grandfather's apartment, as a small child, barely kindergarten age, where she lay motionless for two hours under a dusty bed while her maiden aunt ran around frantcially looking for her, and as soon as the words, "I'm calling the police" were mentioned, she came out of her hiding spot.
Like the girl in that movie, The Egg, she thought. But it wasn't as though her parents fought enough to make her unhappy, as the parents in that household were constantly fighting. She never understood why she felt that way. Why she had to disappear. Why she had to make her loved ones prove that they loved her. She never felt the unconditional love that she felt for others...and she wondered why it was this way. But it was just more than that; she wanted to disappear. She wanted to be in the alternate universe. She wanted to be part of the alien network. She wanted...so many things.
And to wake up here in this asylum is not surprising, she thought.
By human standards, she was crazy.
But there had to be something, somewhere, that understood her. Or not.
But I remember things, she thought.
And then she had a day and evening that exposed the great lie that she knew lurked in the distance. A lie that expanded across cultures, across space and time, hell, across planets.
The final answer to "Why am I here?" would take her on a journey that she had always dreamed about but believed to be the romantic tinges of a disstressed and geeky teen....
