- Vol. 10
- Chapter 11
What is your name
I am the one whose eyes have seen what your mouths cannot speak. I am the one whose name you say in the prayers your god ignores.
I am the one with slender arms and queer-shaped palms that slither around your brain and squeeze it till you drop.
***
SHRIEK!
The metal doors slide to a close, scraping the floor on the way there. They had an understanding; the floor and the door, the dents on the floor and peeled paint on the door showed that.
One could not say the same for my mother and I.
CLAP!
The pastor goes again, in a motion he repeats from time to time. It is hard to concentrate on his words with droplets of spit jumping on my skin from his lips. I would run, I should run, but I am being held in place by my mother.
An onlooker would think, she was laying her hands on me. The onlooker would be wrong; she is holding me down, rather securely.
She knows … I know. What I would do if she wasn’t?
Inside my mind, emotions churn and twist, a relentless storm gaining momentum. Unrecognized and neglected, they start to weave together into something sinister, something that will soon take on a life of its own.
What is your name
His praying intensifies and annoyance strikes a chord that strikes many other chords in me as the pastor tries to cast out a ‘demon’ in me. Among the many things I have been called, that was my least favourite.
And so I surrender to the overwhelming sadness, endless questions and everlasting unrest that have consumed me, becoming a vessel for the very thing I've been trying to escape. I morph into a formless, shapeless entity, a living embodiment of fear and unease.
“Blood of Jesus!” my mother screams. “Pastor my child ooo.” I watch my mother, tears streaming down her face, but I know I cannot stay here anymore. I refuse to remain a victim of my emotions; I am the catalyst, everyone will feel what I feel, and I will haunt humanity for generations to come.
…
Anxiety. That is what they call me.