CHAPTER I

Mort

Episode III — Mad-House

I kept my conscience safely sealed in the Mad-House where I locked my mother. It was a reasonable way to choose the lesser of two evils. The other choice was to kill her right after my birth, and I didn’t like it. I knowingly broke the rule and left the Meanhumane-Door open when I saved her life. I needed to have one more way to escape in case my hobnobbing with Chroniclers would become intolerable. They were looking for me with the persistence of hunting dogs.

From the beginning of all times, Mother’s body was the best-known way to escape to a different reality. By keeping her alive, I gave myself a way to escape. I decided that to put her in Mad-house. That place of solitary confinement with strict rules and no access to any illegal drugs, with free food and a clean bed, was better than any other hiding habitation.

I prolonged our co-existence as long as I could. I loved her and wanted to spend as much time beside her as it was possible. By the time of our separation, we went through so much together. She gave birth by herself in a lonely, shabby apartment. We moved to small towns and villages constantly throughout the first two years. I couldn’t wait longer. To keep her safe, I needed to be as far from her as it was possible. Being two years old, I had the wisdom of all my lifetimes. I lost the count of years I’d been alive and the count of realities I’d been to myself.

The first innocent blood I spilled was her brother’s. We came to live in the same town on purpose. Her entire family rejected her but him. Tranor gave her money during all those years, and now he was ready to give her shelter as well. I staged the play of fire and death on the same day Tranor opened his door for us.

Like in a bad dream where you cannot control your body and although you tell your limbs to stop — they do not listen to you anymore, my mother turned a small roaster on, put an old blanket over me, opened the door and sat on the other side road pavement to watch. Tranor was calmly sleeping in his bed. The custody worker didn’t believe her when she confessed to starting the fire. She was too vulnerable, and he considered her words as the delusional statements of a crazy woman being in shock and sorrow at the death of her brother. It was good they succeeded at least in making her sign the rejection paper so that I was taken to the Cast-Aside-Corps. She was better off without me… safer for sure. One part of my plan worked.

The other part was to hide her in a secluded place — the Mad-House seemed the only option. While I was beside her, I could easily direct her behavior. Being separated — I made a titanic effort to stage that final scene, which left me unconscious for about ten days. I entered her subconscious as I did constantly when we were close. I made her brain a Sahara one more time, dry and empty. No life — no willpower. She went straight to her savage beast-like father, the one that took so much pleasure in depriving her of her mother’s love by sending my grandma to the place where he would imprison my mother as well. That was my intention. She came close to her family dwelling and there she had her moment, spitting her long-locked rage. All her essence screamed about lonely nights with no hand to hold and no cheek to kiss, shouted out her burning emptiness where love should be, it yelled away from the humiliation of her agonized body and soul. She’d set her hatred free and collapsed into a dark, dense-foggy-sleep — I shared it with her — our last before long encounter. For ten more days, we were together. Not in body, but in mind.

The play worked as I staged it. She woke up in ten days in a Mad-House bed. I painted a picture of a small cheerful girl holding her mother’s hand and looking up with love and devotion, a landscape of bright colors, and the sky with a rainbow of emotions she longed for and didn’t believe existed. I instilled that image in her suffering mind — let her rest for now. I made her mad. Or was she the only sane one?

I woke up in a Deprived-Site of the Cast-Aside-Corps. Bulldog was assigned to take care of me. A huge heavily muscled 12-year-old boy with a deformed inspired face in a ludicrous wheelchair became my closest friend.

My named brother.

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