by Marian Unn
*****
The scenery never changed outside my window. The seasons affected the evergreen trees very little. The only significant event I ever saw through it was the sun’s rising, part of which was blocked by a tower across the way. I tried to ease my boredom through books, which had been returned to me upon my imprisonment.
Literacy being one of the skills I was taught when I had first arrived, I quickly found that they too failed to interest me. The stories simply repeated themselves or were on unappealing matters such as war, or painful matters, which both began and ended in tragedy. I had heard from a maid that tragedies were becoming quite popular in the city. I cannot understand why. It is incomprehensible why anyone would enjoy having their heart torn out by such depressing tales. Life is hard enough as it is, why would you want to cause yourself more suffering? Truly the popularity of these tragedies was inconceivable to me. Although they were not satisfying, I was still very grateful for each and every book, for literacy opens up so many doors to the mind.
What a shame that the price for this gift is the closing of one’s own self. For as one reads these remarkable works, they are swept away into another world. Dull or exciting, depressing or joyous, it matters not, for the world is still not one’s own. When one is swept away by the words of another, entering the pages of wisdom or fantasy, they often leave their own world behind, losing themselves in a false reality. As nasty and beautiful as gift books are, they are both a great privilege and a great curse. They give us so much knowledge yet distract us from the people and world around. When one-
What am I doing?
Thinking of the goods and evils of literature? Blaming it for the world’s success and failures? How foolish of me. In truth, literature is an incredible gift to humanity; I am just unable to appreciate it fully. I guard myself against it, afraid to let it enter my heart. I have no more room for it or anything else. Not right now. Right now, I- I am- I am trapped. I am prisoner to this room, to these books, to this chair by this window, to that man. To that terrible violent man!
What useless distractions! I can deny it no longer! This misery is much too close to my heart to be this heavy.
This pain in which I endure cannot fully be described in words. It is the type of pain that exhausts a person without the person having to do anything. It is a pain which stretches you to your limit; but when you reach your breaking point, the pain eases, and for a while you feel nothing. However, that nothingness longs to be filled, and when you try to fill it, the pain rushes back upon you, fiercer and harder. This pain is more than simple boredom; it goes beyond dreadful loneliness and utter seclusion. It is a pain of starvation, of longing to be filled by something greater than oneself! We all have it, we all long for it. But it is only now that I realize that this spiritual starvation could torture me as it does.
Yes, it is as I said before, it is my soul! My soul is thirsty for Love! It hungers for His ‘life giving bread and saving cup!’ The seclusion is dreadful and the boredom excruciating, but this lack of nutrition for my soul is devastating!
I have heard of many, from peasant to queen, who suffer in persecution from lack of this spiritual nutrition. However, one truly only knows the pain when one experiences it for oneself. How dreadful and depressing it is!
This room, this dreadful, beautiful room appears to me ever smaller the longer I stay here. The single thin window, stretching ever higher upward, gives me the feeling of the bars to a cage.
“Like a bird with good wings, I am trapped in this tiny cage, with only my voice to express my suffering, and even that is not heard,” I spoke to my son, who had come to visit me for the second time today.
“You must understand it is your own folly that has caused your suffering,” he told me with no sympathy in either his eyes or voice.
I stared out at the courtyard below. The soldiers bellowed, talking joyfully while making their afternoon patrols. Clearly acting against military disciplinary regulations, the soldiers did not always hold the respectable front that all soldiers were expected to possess. This thought almost made me smile, smile at their joy, and even laugh at my own pitifulness. I looked up past the towers at the evergreen trees with their endless pointy hats, so orderly arranged and neat and perfect and wild and, of course, free.
“Yes, I am but a bird in a cage with good wings and an unheard voice. Here, in this little place I am held, with no one to come to me but the maid who brings me food to eat, and my son.” I turned to Merek, who now knelt next to me, my hand once again forced to touch my captor’s face. “My son is the little boy who has imprisoned the bird, prodding and poking me with a stick from outside the cage.” I kissed his forehead.
“Is that how you see me, Mother?” he asked pressing his lips to my hand. Without any expression that could hint to the true emotions which burned in my heart, I stared down at my son. The only sign of my struggle was a blink, which resulted from the strain of forcibly beating down these ravished emotions.
“Did you know, Mother, very few know your face?” his eyes searched mine for something. I tried so hard, but I knew I could not guard against him. I did not know what he searched for, but I was sure by the look in his eyes that he had found whatever it was. “I still find myself incapable of restricting my emotions towards you, Mother, and you seem to be growing thinner and paler the longer you stay in this place.” His voice was flat as he said these things, but I found no correlation with his words. “Perhaps,” he stood, pacing slowly across the room, “we could come to an agreement of sorts?”
“Are you trying to be diplomatic with me?” I inquired, keeping the walls of my heart up, strong and true, sure of myself, that I could shield my heart to any sword he thrust at me.
What I did not consider, however, was which angle he would throw it from. What an unfortunate mistake that was.
He paused, mulling over some thought; he winced his eyes, fighting back a smile. As I leaned forward to see such a rare event, he snapped it back to an emotionless line. “I am simply trying to promote both our interests. I believe we can connect them both, solving our problems.”
“What are you saying?” I stood, wary of his muddling mind and slow dialect, neither of which were ever promising signs. He continued to pace in silence for what seemed like hours, though it was only a few seconds. He reached for a book, his finger gliding across the encyclopedia, it stopped for a moment, along with my heart. He then continued his tracing of the books spines. Pulling a greenish one from the lot, he flipped through its pages.
“I believe we can both benefit from your departure. No one knows your face very well, so I believe you will have few troubles. You will be free, and I will be rid of you and the emotions you instill in me, particularly the one I abhor most of all. The feeling of…” He stopped. Coming to his desired page, he pressed his finger to a word. Peering at me from above the book, he let out a deep sigh, “You know too much of me, you could ruin my reputation.” I felt revulsion at his choosing his own prideful image over his mother’s happiness and freedom. “That is why I have found a gentleman who excels in this art.” He held the book out to me, keeping his finger on the word.
Pulling the book closer, I read it aloud, “H-yp-nosi-s?”
“Hyp-no-sis,” he corrected.
“What is that?”
“I shall show you.” Without another word, he snapped his fingers. As he did, the doors opened quietly, and a thin little man scuttled in from behind them. He smiled softly at us and bowed. Before he could open his mouth to speak, Merek shot a glare at the door. Nodding with fear in his eyes he closed it softly.
Bowing once more, he smiled broadly, peering over his spectacles with intense gray eyes. “I am Dr. Ernesten Vistmers,” he said timidly, inspecting me carefully with his large round eyes. “You must be his highness’ mother.” He bowed and kissed my hand. “P-Please have a seat.” He gestured towards the chair behind me. “It is best you be seated when such a procedure is done.”
&n
bsp; “What procedure?!” I barked, turning to Merek. “What are you going to do to me?” In silence, he simply nodded to the physician. Grabbing my arms he forced me to sit in the chair.
“No! No! Stop it! What are you going to do? Tell me! Tell me Merek!” Finding him unresponsive, I shot a look of urgency at the doctor who seemed fascinated by me. “Doctor?!” I cried, “Doctor, please tell me!” My son tightened his grip on my arms. His gaze strong, he nodded to the pale man.
“It is called hypnosis. It can be used to get information, to make someone believe something that is not true, and even suppress memory. The process of hypnotizing is not a painful one. However, if you try to break it, it can be painful. Such cases usually occur only when someone has been hypnotized and recalls something awful that was suppressed. Such cases are few and very rare. You should be fine, madam. I am the best hypnotist there is. I can make just about anyone forget, believe, or divulge just about anything. Of course, the patient must be willing. That is the tricky part, to convince them that they really want to believe what I’m telling them. Though of course I have become a master of this art as well. Though I may not appear it, I know how to make you want to forget. Though I do not think you will be a difficult case.”
His confusing words spun round in my head. “What are you speaking of? Forget? Believe? What sorcery do you use? Are you a witch of some sort? Some devil’s advocate?”
Laughing at my franticness, he shook his head, “Dear God, no, good woman! I am a scientist of sorts. I study the brain. Hypnotism is a way of-” He thought for a moment, “It is a way of making you believe something else, and also a way of suppressing other things. For your case, I will only be using the latter, as I don’t believe any more will be required for what his majesty wishes.” He bowed to Merek, who stood silent behind me.
“You plan to make me forget?” I whispered. The physician nodded in excitement. “What am I to forget?” He opened his mouth to speak, but I could tell by his expression that Merek had shot him a vicious sneer of some sort.
His hands tight on my wrists, he bent down and whispered into my ear, “I will have him take all that causes you pain away. All the sorrow, all the loss, all the death, I shall destroy them for you. You will no longer have to suffer. I will no longer have to bind you here. You can be free, mother, because you will know nothing. Is that not your wish? To be free?”
I said nothing. How could I? What was I to say? I hated the fact that he was forcing me to run from pain, but I knew he was doing it out of love and that moved me more than anything. My heart was torn between following my son’s wishes, to giving into his “kindness” of sorts, and following the path that I knew to be true, that I knew was necessary and right.
“My son, you say you are to take away all my pain and suffering, but I do not wish for such a thing. I would rather suffer with my memories, both the good and the bad, than live on in joy and blissful ignorance knowing nothing of the truth. For I have told you a thousand times, son, the truth-”
“Mother, this is not a matter of choice.” His voice was resolute and firm. “You will be happy whether you wish it or not, you will find joy, and you will live out your life with this ‘truth’ of yours somewhere else! Make some other pitiful and weak soul find hope! I no longer need you! I never needed you! I was simply over emotional, giving into my greed and pain. I needed your comfort, the warmth of your hand, the soothing sound of your voice. That is all I wanted. But as the years passed, I saw that you were the reason I could not fully expel such weaknesses, and so I have decided to satisfy us both. You can live as free as you want, and I can rest assured knowing you are free, and that I am free of you. I thought I needed you because you were at one time my strength, but now you have become my weakness, an unnecessary liability.” Pausing for a moment, he grunted in a low voice, “Do your work.” The physician nodded, pulling out a strange object that hung from a chain.
“No!” I cried looking up towards Merek who stared down at me, his cold eyes piercing through me. “Merek, you know that your words are not true! You need me! You need me because you are weak, because you are in pain, because you feel! You are human, Merek, and we all need that one person to lean on, to comfort us! You will only experience more pain by casting away the person who brings you comfort and love!” As I struggled to pull away, he tied my arms to the chair. “No! No! Stop it!” The physician began to move the pendulum, chanting some strange ritualistic sounding words I could not make out. He tapped his foot in a rhythmic beat, a peculiar ticking noise came from the strange object which hung from the chain and boomed in my ears. Was it a clock? Again it ticked, and again, and again, the ticking slightly off from the beating of his foot. I could not hear his words. They were unclear and foreign to my ears. I felt my consciousness beginning to fade.
No! I will not go now! I will not! Closing my eyes I turned my head away from the man and his strange clock. With a large firm hand, Merek grasped my chin, forcing my head to face the man. “Look!” he barked, but I did not. I will not! However, I could not shake or scream in my absolute protest, for my arms were bound and my jaw was in his grasp. “Mother, it is all for the future! Both yours and mine! Now, look!”
Releasing my jaw, he forced my eyelids open, stretching them wide with his fingers, it hurt to squirm and shake my head. I fought back the tears, which unwillingly spilled from my eyes. “You know nothing of what is best for the future! You do not know anything of good! All your actions up till now have proven that! All the horrible and awful things you have done!” I cried as my energy began to drain from my struggling, the strange watch’s ticking growing louder and louder in my mind. The image of its swaying, pulsing through my head, all the rhythms, images, and words, murmured together in some strange symphony of sorts. They pulled my mind into unconsciousness, but before I drowned in that strange symphony, I whispered to my son the words I thought he needed to hear.
“Even though you have done so many horrible things and feel no need to reflect on such despicable actions, even though you have destroyed so many lives… I want you to know, I still recognize you as my son, and I—I—” My numb body had not the strength to say the rest.
The darkness overwhelmed me, a nothingness began to consume my heart. A thought came to me as all of this occurred. ‘Oh, how I love him despite all that he has done!’
But this thought is strange to me now. Now, it has a peculiarity to it. Was it clear before? Was it true before? It must have held some meaning before.
What is before? There is only here and now, right? There is nothing more to that is there? What am I thinking? Who is he? Whom do I love? I love Jobel! Ah, yes, I love Jobel! But Jobel is not here in this place. The thought came to me: Jobel is not here at all. Pushing it aside, all the thoughts pulsed through my very being, taking up everything that I was. Of course Jobel is here! Maybe he is not here with me now, but he will be there. Where is there? Where is here? Where is he? Where could he have gone? Did he leave because of the things he has done, is he the “he” in the thought? No, Jobel is a good man. It must just be a strange thought. Yes, a strange thought is all there is to it, nothing more.
What am I thinking? I forgot Merek! Merek? Oh! Merek is our son! Merek is the son of Jobel and I! Jobel and I will raise Merek and…..
Where is Jobel? Where is Merek? My Father? My Mother? Where are they?
It is so dark. Where are you all? Sister? Nephew? I have a nephew? Oh yes, my sister had her first child last spring, was it a boy or a girl?
‘I like the youngest boy best!’ a thought from within me cried, but that is peculiar. I thought she only had one. No, she was pregnant with the second. Was she?
“Sister!” I called out into the darkness, “Nephew! Mother! Father!” The darkness became more suffocating, my thoughts more confused, they jumbled around in my head in chaos.
“Jobel!” I called, “Jobel I need you!” With no reply, my loneliness overtook me. Although I knew my cries to my three-year-old child would ser
ve me not, I called out for him anyway.
“Merek!” I shouted. Distressed by his lack of reply, I cried out once more, “Merek, where are you! Please come to me! Come to me, Merek! I am here! Merek!”
If only in this darkness I could shiver and weep, but the feelings of pain and confusion seemed to be the only things I could experience in this strange state. I could not move, I could not see, or hear, or smell, or touch…but I could speak, though I knew not where my voice came from. I could cry out from my pain, but I could shed no tears, nor feel them on my cheeks if I did. What a truly miserable place this is. And so I waited here, and for some odd reason, my little boy’s name ceaselessly echoed through my heart and mind. It was so painful that I could not contain it, and so I moaned in silence, for that was all I could do. Lowly and mournfully, in pain and sorrow, my heart gently called out for my little boy.
But in the silence, no answer was heard.
“Oh, my Merek, I pray you are safe, wherever you may be!”
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