With fall comes the atonement
By Osvaldo Álvarez
I’m fine. I never thought I would be able to feel that way. I’m alright. It took me around five long years to finally come to this point, but at last I can go home, take a hot bath and get in bed.
I’m fine. But I wasn’t always that way, if God exists, it can be a witness of my hideous life before my renaissance. What I’m about to write is not intended to be a redemption letter or a diary entry to justify my deeds, I need to write it down just to feel it’s real, to realize that what I have done is not a dream.
Dreams of a better yesterday
When I was a little kid, I used to have these horrible nightmares, I woke up sweating and screaming and wishing not to remember the scenes I had lived on my dreams.
Every time that happened, my mother came to my room and surrounded me with her arms, like a protective shield, against my bed time’s ordeals, she had the powerful ability to calm me down, even after the worst nightmare, she was my anchor, she and those almighty deep blue eyes, with which she saw me and told me “ Everything is alright”.
She was the only thing that kept me sane. As for my father, he was just not there, and I did have a father, he just wasn’t around when I needed him; and that’s fine considering the fact I never really counted on his help, or his presence. His absence became a tradition on every single holiday or important event of our family history; he can be considered a living ghost .
Once I had a dreadful dream, surprisingly, it didn’t seem a nightmare at the beginning, it was just me, standing in front of an old house’s porch; it took me a few minutes to realize that I was a little version of me, like my four-year-old version. I heard screams and felt a vibration every time the person inside punched the door, it was a constant punching. It was a couple, a young couple arguing about a third person, an intruder who had the audacity to meddle in the perfect relationship they had, honestly, I felt interested on the conversation they were having, I was literally gossiping at that couple’s expenses, until the girl, whose voice was distorted until that moment, said:
— Beware your words, Angus, it’s your daughter you’re talking about — .
That simple but strongly meaningful phrase changed the sense of the whole dream. Until that moment, I thought they were arguing about a love affair, but they were not talking about an affair, it was a daughter. The subject of disagreement was a little kid, a new-born in fact, and it wasn’t an amicable position the man was having about her. As soon as the girl put a name to the shadow of that man, the walls started tumbling down and the couple was finally exposed; they weren’t shadows anymore. That troubled couple fighting for a little baby girl were my parents. The inherent innocence of my childish body tried to stand between the couple and put an end to their fighting; but I wasn’t able to, the harder I tried to get to them, the further they seemed to be.
The arguing continued in a timeless loop, day and night became one and I started to grow up as they continued fighting. My mother cried and Angus yelled, and I just watched; every tear dropped by my mother felt like a burning sword on my heart, those deep blue eyes started to languish with every tear, Angus was killing my mother, and she was dying defending me. The hatred against Angus increased with every word he said, the anger was consuming my soul and the only thing I wanted to do at that point was… to kill him.
I woke up in the middle of the night, discombobulated and angry, not knowing what the meaning of my dream was nor the reason of my anger, but the only thing I had for sure was that I loved my mother that night more than ever.
From that night on, I tried to go back to that old house, relive that moment of despair, I tried hard on changing that awful scene but it was hopeless, every time I went back, the situation stilled the same. For several years I devoted my nights to go back then and save my mother from that obnoxious man, but no matter what I tried, Angus always ended up killing my mother. I was an orphan on my own dreams, trying to repair, with no success, a broken yesterday.
Angus
I had never heard that name before, it just appeared on my dreams.
The first time I spoke out loud his name was in therapy. My therapist jumped rapidly to the conclusion that I was a troubled kid with daddy issues. Of course I had daddy issues, my father never showed even a little bit of interest on my life after all. My first rejection in life was from my father, so, it was not a hard thing to find out.
The situation with Angus was the nonexistence of him at least not in real life. In my dreams I tended to relate him with my father, after all he was discussing with my mother, so he must have been my father, the thing is my father’s name was not even close to that name, nevertheless, his behaviour and physical appearance was almost identical to my father’s.
No matter how hard I tried to describe the recurrent dream I had, my therapist seemed to not care at all, she was determined to believe I was just a spoiled girl wanting to get the attention of her father at any cost, if only she would know that at that point, I had lost all hopes on getting some affection back from my father.
The case was closed. I had no chance of getting a second point of view, nor another diagnosis from another therapist; from that day on, I was the girl with daddy issues, but I knew there was something else wrong with me. Angus continued killing my mother night after night, and I continued being unable to do something to confront him, I was certainly frustrated at that point, and that frustration was turned into hate against my father; then the compound of resentment for his neglection and the somatised hate against the idea of Angus, created an unmeasurable anger against my father. My bitterness was like a snowball rolling down from a hill, it was getting bigger and bigger as I grew up, along with my unhappiness.
Angus never showed up alone. He was always accompanied with my mother, it seemed like his strength came from that fragile woman, he fed from her suffering. Neither of them said a word to me ever, I was like an heterodiegetic character on my own dream. There was just one occasion where I could get close to my mother, and I almost caressed her, for that brief moment, that lapse of intimacy, the silhouette of Angus vanished, and my mother saw me with a pale grey tender look. I could almost heard her telling me to go away but I couldn’t.
As soon as she turned her sight apart from me, Angus reappeared. He was the eternal executioner of my mother, better worse, he was my mother’s subconscious. Night after night I witnessed the undying struggle of my mother against herself. Angus was the part of my mother who wouldn’t want me to exist. Was the mastermind behind my mother’s attempt of abortion, he was the guilt of my mother for marrying a man she didn’t even love just to provide me a parental figure.
Suddenly everything started to make sense. Angus was not my father. He was the evil of my mother’s being. She was in deep pain battling against her subconscious. That was the reason why I couldn’t get to Angus, he was nothing more than an extension of my mother, her inner more being torturing her. Every night I witnessed my mother’s soliloquy.
There is no atonement for the living ones
Some would have thought that the only path to follow was my own death, but no, I didn’t have to die, after all, that was what my mother’s subconscious would’ve wanted, my vanishing.
If someone had to purge her sins, that was my mother. Once she atoned her deeds, she would finally be able to get rid of her torturer. So, I decided to go back to the old house on my dreams, I needed to observe my mother suffering for the last time , I needed to have a solid stimulus, thereby I wouldn’t hesitate once my mother’s redemptive voyage started .
The house wasn’t vitreous anymore. It was surrounded with enormous walls, both Angus and my mother were shadows again, reflected as blurry silhouettes through the window. The atmosphere felt peaceful; the screams weren’t there anymore; there was a white noise instead. The canescent scenario contrasted with the igneous coloured leaves that crowned the trees around the house. Autumn had arrived.
I started punching the door, trying to enter and see for the last time the languishing face of my mother. But I couldn’t. I was forced to leave without saying goodbye to my mother’s true being.
I woke up a half past two in the evening. My hands were trembling insistently, as if my body had been taken by the adrenaline. I finally succumbed to that rush. Last night was the last time I would witness my mother’s self-inflicted suffering. If I was the reason she was in deep pain, I should be the one who set her free.
Unfortunately, there is no atonement for the living ones. My mother had to be freed from her physical form in order to leave behind her painful existence. Once freed, she would transcend into a cleansed being, with no guilt or regrets, I had to sacrifice my soul in order to set her free. By killing her, my soul would not be pure anymore, so all of her sins were supposed to be transferred to my soul; I was about to turn myself into my mother’s sins depositary so she could go free and stop suffering.
So I did. I killed my mother.
I stole her sins so she can be finally free from her torturing past. By killing her I killed Angus. And she knew that was the only way out. The one-way ticket she had to get was the last chance she had if she wanted to get rid of Angus. When I came to her, she told me — I heard you knocking at the door last night, I just didn’t want you to see me — .
She knew I went there to say goodbye. But she also knew that if somehow I had seen her, I’d have hesitated and I wouldn’t have been able to set her free.— So I locked the door and outcasted you. That was the last time I would have to protect you. Now it’s your time to protect me, you have to finish what I’ve started — said my mother.
Not knowing what to do, I held her hand and saw her eyes for the last time. She guided my hand to a pill bottle right next to her, and stared at me, that wordless conversation enlightened me, and guided me through her death protocol. I poured a bunch of pills on her hand and she swallowed them with a bit of water. Then she saw me and with a peerless calm told me — Sleep with me, I don’t want to sleep alone — . I hold her hand tightly and smiled at her. She felt in an eternal sleep, and I, I entered with her in that old house for the first time. There was no Angus, just my mother and I.
I cried, and she surrounded me with her arms like she used to when I had nightmares.
A nurse woke me up and told me that I had to step aside. My mother was finally free from her pain. She was dead.
I had to bury the carcass of my mother, and I did feel a strong pain for a bit, after all, after that moment I wouldn’t be able to touch her again. A part of me was relieved because I knew my mother wasn’t suffering anymore.
As for me; well…
I’m fine. I never thought I would be able to feel that way. I’m alright. It took me around five long years to finally come to this point, but at last I can go home, take a hot bath and get in bed. With fall comes the atonement. This time, I will go to that old house and my mother will be waiting for me. This time, it will be just us.
