THE VISIT

A muffled cry. 

My eyes scan the area. 

Weird. 

Nobody dwelled here since my family abandons the place to live just a few lots away. This house is where I spent the 7 years of my childhood. 

A square structure with one sleeping room, a bare living room, adjacent to the kitchen/dining area. Nothing really changed. The same gray, dim house.

I’m in the moment. 

Blocking every sound around me, looking at each corners, touching each crevices, I let myself tap the restricted memory bank in my brain. 

Unconsciously, I look for a grieving person. No one is around. Exhaustion is overpowering that I have to sit at the wooden slab of chair. 

I want to be a stranger as much as possible, but a full contact, even with this old furniture, screams beyond familiarity. I used to roam this house almost always half-running. I never got tired. But now, 10 minutes of slow-walk surely wears me out. 

Someone is crying again. It’s getting louder. 

Hello! The crying stop. Not a peep for a moment. 

Then again, now gasping cries… out of breath? 

Ghosts, if such things exist, must be playing with me, again. 

I close my eyes; tilt my head upwards to counter the gravity that’s weighing me down. My mind wander off, thinking about my intentions for getting back here.

A panting breath forces my eyes to open. 

Up in the ceiling… a hanging sack… someone moving… crying… now speaking. 

Please let me out. I won’t do it again. 

Ghosts never appear before my eyes. Maybe I just need to blink and it will be gone. 

Thrice, four times… it’s still there. 

Hypnotize… perplex. 

The voice is fading… slowly fading. 

I panic… stands in the chair… reaches the scissor in my sling bag. Why I always carry one is still a puzzle to me.  I cut the bottom of the sack, afraid of slicing the one inside, at the same time, pondering how I will seize the thing when the bottom is all cut up.

Hey, can you hear me? 

Yes. 

Stop crying, ok. I’m here now. Grasp the sides of the sack. Don’t let go till I say so, ok? 

Hmmm.  

In my arms is a petite girl with long shiny black hair, eyes bulging from crying. 

Who put you there? Where are your parents? Why are you here? 

I can’t control the questions and some of it evaporates in my mind. 

I feel my muscles tingling, wanting to release the anger that’s continuously building up.

My parents had a fight. I tried to stop them by crying because that always does the trick. My parents will stop arguing. Father will ask me what is wrong. Mother will bark profanities. But that doesn’t matter because fighting will end. But that time my father just left without even a glance. Mother is really angry; she’s even close to hitting me. She got the sack, called the neighbor, that one in front of the house, and together, they put me in that sack.

Thoughts are swirling in my mind. But nothing forms into words.  I just hug her. We hug for a very long time. 

There is no warmth from the other body, just coldness, searing my bones. Finally, her crying subsides.  

You’re lovable. What you’ve seen today? Don’t try to understand it. Forget me. Be happy pretty miss. 

Then she leaves skip-running.

Those last words are not what I expect. I’m waiting for a thank you. 

Those words get me back to my musings of why I’m here now. The place, that I always averted my eyes whenever I’m in passing.

I’m here to play shrink with myself. 

Jonathan Kellerman’s influence if someone will ask me. Though, he never suggests analyzing oneself. In his novels, when the protagonist is getting in that direction, he shifted the characters mood/mind to something else. But of course, that’s a novel, fiction, written to entertain. 

But here now, I’m the author of my own story, and maybe this is really the plot I want. Now, who will do the psychoanalysis other than me? 

Psychoanalysis makes me think what kind of psycho criminal ill become (that is if I have the tendency).  Professional help is not a choice of course, other than the issue of money; I believe my screws are still in their proper place.

A muffled cry. 

I look around. 

In front of me is a vacant lot with grasses my height; a ruined house at my back. And me… standing in the middle of the street.

My arms automatically hug my body. 

Fever.