Master Over You

by Cerys du Lys

  I do not know if this memory of feeling unsafe is true or not. I do not know if I have fabricated the idea long after the fact, as a way to rationalize that I should have said something or I should have done something.

  I did not say anything. I do not say anything.

  My father is talking, and my mother laughs. I laugh. She looks back to say something to me quickly. It is a fun, frivolous statement of inconsequential meaning. I open my mouth to answer, and I am going to reply, but then I stop.

  There is a glint of light ahead of me. There is something there, traveling. It is a car. My younger, barely adult brain considers this for a second, because I feel that there is something amiss, but I cannot figure out what. Belatedly, I realize what it is.

  The car is driving in the same lane as us. It is coming towards us at an accelerated pace. My mother does not currently see it because she is looking at me. My father is doing the same. She has not been looking at me for very long, nor has he. A second, maybe less. A fraction of a moment within the grand scheme of life, the universe, and the world itself.

  How many seconds has the world existed? According to science, it is possibly over three billion years old, which is too many seconds to count. According to the Bible, it is approximately six thousand years old, which, again, is far too many seconds for any normal person to fathom.

  This event only lasts for a fraction of that time. Not even a fraction of three billion or a fraction of six thousand, but a fraction of a second. It is as unfathomable to me as the beginning of the world, regardless of when it came into existence.

  The car in front of us collides with our car before I can say anything. My mother and father never see it. I watch as if in slow motion while the sharp metal guts of our car and the other car shred and break and scream.

  Glass shatters and metal tears, slicing my parents into a myriad of bloody pieces. Our car careens off the side of the road and smashes into a tree. The driver's side is completely dented in now, pressing inwards.

  It presses in at me. I am bloody, bruised, and battered, trapped in a metal cage, surrounded by woods and death.

  This is my last memory before my head collides with the side of the car and I am knocked unconscious.

  *** Angeline

  I awake in a hospital bed somewhere. I do not know where I am, nor what this is. I have never been to a hospital before. It is very white and smells like fake pine and bleach.

  For a moment, I think I am dead. Is this Heaven? Will I see God? The accident is a memory that I have in my mind, but it does not seem real or true to me. Perhaps it is. I am unsure.

  At the side of my bed sits a strange machine. It looks like a radio of sorts, except it does not play music, nor is there a news person reading aloud the day's events. Instead of these things, it plays the soft sounds of rains. I stare at it, entranced. I enjoy the rain, very much so. It is relaxing to me. I like to lay in my bed and listen to it and read books or listen to music, with the rain, always the rain, a constant reminder.

  I try to move my legs towards the edge of the bed so I may stand and inspect this rain noise radio machine, but I am unable. My body aches painfully whenever I attempt to move it. I resolve myself to laying still instead. I listen to the rain and my eyes begin to close, relaxed and soft.

  I hear voices nearby, and I listen to those, as well. Someone is standing outside of my room, talking. There is more than one person there, more than one speaker.

  "We're not sure what to do," a woman's voice says. "With both of her parents dead, and no known relatives, how are we going to release her? It's going to be hard enough for her as it is. She can't be on her own after all of that."

  "I know," a man's voice replies. "It's a difficult situation. Unfortunately, it gets even worse. Her mother and father still owed money on the house, and as far as I'm aware they didn't have any savings. They were scraping by just to survive. If she has any personal belongings, she'll be able to keep those, but other than that..."

  The words hang there, lost beneath the sound of rain and the smells of a false forest and corrosive bleach. I hear them, but they do not seem relevant to me. They are speaking of someone else. This has nothing to do with me. It is someone else.

  A tear drops down my cheek as I begin to cry. I am so sorry. I am sorry for the girl who has lost her parents and has no known relatives and will now no longer have a place to live.

  I cry for her. I hope she is alright. I wish to give her a hug. Once I am no longer in terrible pain and I can move, I will find my parents and I will ask them if we can invite her to live with us. I know that we do not have a lot, but this girl has nothing, and so we should attempt to give what we can. If she wishes, I will share my bed with her. We can sleep together and become friends. We can...

  It is not until later that I learn the girl I cried for, the girl I wished to hug and save and give my meager possessions to...

  It is not until later that I learn that this girl is me.

  I am alone. I have nothing.

  *** Angeline

  The woman I heard speaking that day was either a nurse or a doctor; I do not remember. The man's voice was more familiar to me, but I did not place the sound of it at that point in time. I realize it later, because he comes for me.

  He offers me hope, a place to stay. He is the priest at our village's church, and he tells me that I may become a ward of the church. He will offer me a home within the confines of divinity that is our holy church. We do not worship a specific rendition of God, but we revere the aspects of godliness. It will be good for me, he says. I can atone for my sins.

  I do not understand that last part when he first says it. What sins must I atone for? My loss is fresh and my grief is rampant. I do not know how to feel regular right now, nor do I understand what is going on, but I know somewhere deep down in my heart and in my soul that I need something. I have nothing and I need something.

  How will I exist and live without anything?

  I do not know. I did not know then, and I do not know now. I do not know if I will ever know.

  While I am at the hospital, after I learn that I am in fact in a hospital, I am given powerful benzodiazepines. They make me tired, and I sleep more often than not, but they also make me feel less isolated and lost. It is as if I am living outside of my body. Somewhere deep down I realize that this is not absolutely true, and that I am still me, I am still dealing with my grief, but it is easier to deal with because of the medicine.

  Before I leave the hospital, I am given more. I have a bottle filled with little pills, with prescription instructions on the side. I am allowed to take one pill every four hours, as needed, though not more than four in a day.

  The nurse smiles at me when she gives me the bottle. "If you can't sleep, honey, and you need to take another one, five in a day won't kill you, but try not to, alright? I know it's hard, and it's going to take a long time, but sometimes we need to cry a little, too. Sometimes we need to deal with our pain. Don't try to deal with it all on your own, though. Do what you have to do. If you need more medicine, just call the number here. I know it's kind of out of the way for you, but I'll see if we can get some to you. There's enough there for a month."

  I believe I will need a month's worth. I believe I may need more than that. My parents are dead and I have nothing, I am no one; I belong to the church, as a ward. I think that I am becoming something like a nun or a priest or a choir girl. I am unsure exactly what that means, but I will need these pills.

  "Come on, Angel," the priest says, smiling. He takes my hand in his, and even though I find this odd, I hold his hand and go with him.

  *** Angeline

  He has taken them. The priest takes my pills from me as soon as we arrive. I took one before we left the hospital, but our drive back to the village was long. I feel it creeping inside of me, struggling to fight past the numbness of the medication, threatening to devour me from the inside out.

  It is grief and pain and depression and heartache. It is
the worst feeling I have ever known. It is not out yet, but it will be here soon. I need medicine. I need it. I need those pills. You do not understand. It is not just something that I wish for, not something that I want.

  I need it. I will die. I feel as if I am already dying.

  "You don't deserve these," he says to me. He takes the pills as simply as that, the entire bottle. Now I own nothing but the clothes on my back.

  I open my mouth to say something, but he slaps me hard. We are in the church, all by ourselves, and I stand there, mouth open, gaping, cheek stinging, barely holding back tears, feeling grief and anxiety squeezing at my heart and my stomach and my entire chest. I want to fall on the floor and collapse into a ball, but I cannot. I do not know how.

  We talked on our way here. I remember this very precisely. It is the only thing that I know. We talked and I told him about that day. I thought it would be easier to talk about right then, while the medicine kept me in a blissfully soft and sleepy state. I spoke passionately, because that is how I felt.

  My parents died, but they loved me. We were talking about moving to the town we visited that day. It is far away, but there is a small university there and they said they would get a job and we could live there. Even if we needed to live in a van, all of us together, that was fine, they said. It would be like an adventure. I could get a college degree, and a well paying job, and become someone of worth.

  I did not say it to them then, but I wish I had. I did not tell them that if that happened, I would repay them. I would find an apartment that I could afford and I would beg them to live with me. I did not know if this was normal or regular, but I did not care, either. I loved my parents.

  I do not know if I should say that I loved them or I love them. Do I still love them? A part of me wishes to believe I can, but another part of me is unsure. They are dead and gone. They are no longer capable of loving me. They loved me, and I loved them, but now that they are gone, incapable of love, does that mean that I am also incapable of loving them? Is it a physical impossibility?

  I do not know. The thoughts continue. They creep into my mind. I need medicine. It hurts. My cheek hurts. He slapped me. He took my medicine. I want to cry. I cry. I am crying. My throat lets out a harsh gurgle of a scream, and I am not angry or mad, I am anguished. I am tormented and lost and in pain.

  He grabs my hair and drags me across the main sitting area of the church towards the front pews. On the small stage where he gives sermons every Sunday is a lectern. Alongside it is what looks like some sort of bird bath sculpture, but it is holier than that. It is meant to contain holy water, to cleanse and purify.

  I do not understand what he is doing until he slams my face into the water. I scream, until I do not, because a rush of fluid assaults my mouth and my nostrils. I felt pain from his hand ripping at my hair, but it seemed like nothing compared to the pain inside of me.

  I feel a different pain now, though. Water fills my mouth with such sudden and unknown force that I gasp and choke on it. It slams into my nostrils. I try to breathe, but this only makes it worse. Water painfully grinds into my nose, down my throat, replacing my breath instead of acting as a refreshing drink. My entire throat burns from the shock of it, and my nose and ears and head feel much the same.

  I cannot breathe, but I still try to breathe, and every time I attempt to do so, more water forces itself into me, more pain, more...

  At the time, I do not know how long this lasted. In hindsight, I believe it went on for approximately five seconds. It seemed like longer than that, but it was only three or four quick breaths before he pulled my head back and tossed me onto the floor.

  "You are a selfish, useless brat," he says to me. "Your parents died for you, because of your selfish ways. Do you know why you survived when they didn't?"

  I do not know. Does he know? I do not think there is an answer, and even if there is one, I am unable to answer right now. Water consumes me, lighting my throat and nose on fire so that it is all I can do just to breathe. It drops down the back of my throat through my nasal passage, slapping harshly against my tongue.

  I choke and sputter and cough, but he continues to berate me and preach harsh, hurtful words at me.

  "You survived so that you could atone for your selfishness, my little Angel. You are here so that you can eventually realize how undeserving you are, and how you are the reason why your parents are dead. By all accounts, you should be dead. According to science, you're alive. Those doctors offered you medicine because of that. They don't understand the reality of the situation, though. You aren't alive. You're dead. The only reason you're here is because you don't deserve to go to Heaven. You're not even deserving enough to go to Hell. God has forsaken you."

  I remember feeling a sudden rush of agony at that. I am in pain because of the loss of my parents; I hurt because of the water he forced me to choke on; and I am in agony because I am godless.

  It takes every ounce of strength I have not to break down and cry.

  I wish that I could say I did not cry, either. That would be a lie. It took every ounce of strength I had not to cry, but after a fraction of a second of hiding within the stronghold of myself and my strength, I broke down.

  I cried.

  I cried and he kicked me and I do not remember everything that happened, but hours later, I opened my eyes and awoke. I lay on the cold stone floor of a room. My body hurts, but my soul hurts a little less. I do not remember the death of my parents yet, nor the fact that I have nothing. I did not remember yet, but I would remember soon.

  I awoke on a cold, stone floor in the middle of the night. Shackles bound my feet, keeping me chained to the wall. Above me, far across the room, was a small window high up the wall. Outside of it, I could see the barest hint of the moon smiling at me from above the arboreal bars trapping me in the village.

  More than woods and trees confines me now. Presently I am trapped by stone and chains, too. I am a slave to divinity.

  I do not know what has happened to me. I do not know why this is happening to me. I do not know what I did to deserve this.

  Perhaps I am selfish. Perhaps I am undeserving of everything. Perhaps I am dead.

  My heart hurts. I need medicine. I try to move, to struggle against the chains, to pull myself away from the wall. I crawl towards the small window and the moon, hoping to find escape and freedom and relief. The moon reminds me of a pill. I am delirious and confused, but I open my mouth as if to swallow it. I close my teeth around the outline of the moon, attempting to hide it behind my lips, but this is a fool's errand and nothing comes of it.

  Eventually I fall asleep again, but not before crying and struggling and dealing with vast amounts of confusion and pain and hurt and agony.

  *** Angeline

  My life consists of this for approximately three weeks; over one-million-eight-hundred-and-fourteen-and-four-hundred seconds. I do not count the ones at the beginning, but I begin to count the ones at the end. I think the ones at the end are longer. I realize that one second is one second, and this does not change or become altered by anything else, but that is science.

  I am not in a House of Science, I am in a House of God, and if I am being truthful, I think that God has abandoned this place. I do not know if he has abandoned it because of me, or because of something else.

  I am hurt, I am yelled at, I am denied medicine. I am fed, but just barely. I am provided water, but not enough. I am forced to clean, clean, clean, endless cleaning. I scrub the floors on my hands and knees until the skin of my legs begins to bleed, and then I am forced to continue scrubbing just to clean up my bloody mess. The soap and water runs red across the floor, tainted by my body.

  More often than not I collapse from exhaustion, only to awaken later and find myself chained to the floor again. I have learned that this is the basement of the church, maintained mostly for storage, but now it is for me.

  I am led to believe that I am not much more useful than any of the other discarded items that may b
e put down here. I am an item to be stowed away at night after I am used during the day.

  I realize that all of this seems bad and atrocious, but it only lasted for three weeks. In hindsight, it was much more relaxing than the alternatives.

  ***

  Sin will not be Master Over You, for you do not exist under law, but beneath the grace of God.

  *** Noah

  I can't remember how I became the person I am today. If you asked me what the defining moment of my life was, I wouldn't know how the fuck to answer you. Sometimes I like to think that's a good thing, but I don't know if it is. Sometimes I think that's how it is for everyone. I'm not special.

  Let's just be really fucking honest for a second, though. Do you really want to know how I became who I am? A slave trafficker? Some asshole who kidnaps women, hurts them, trains them, and sells them? What the fuck are you going to do with that kind of information? Become a slave trader yourself? Try to fight against the system?

  Fuck off. This world isn't big enough for two of me, and you'll never be better than me, so there's no fucking point in trying. If you can't be the best, then what the fuck is the point? There is none.

  Now that we've got that out of the way, I don't think anyone can tell you what made them the way they are, anyways. There's facts of life, you know? That's just how life works, it's a whole bunch of fucking facts. Shit like what you like to eat for breakfast, or when you go to bed, or whatever you do. It all seems useless, but it's not. It's who you are, it's what you're made of, and it's important for a few reasons.

  It's important because it changes, and that's important because it's a slow process that you don't remember. Let's go real fucking simple here and say that you go to bed at the same time every day. That's the time you go to bed. That's a part of you, right?