“I woke up to the sound of my mother’s scream — being the child of alcoholics, it wasn’t an unusual thing to be startled awake by loud noises. But never a scream, this was different.
I got out of bed and opened the door to my room, in the hallway I could see my other siblings, standing by their doors looking concerned, no one making a move to go downstairs and check on our mom. I guess that too is to be expected when your father is a violent drunk. I summoned all the courage of our ancestors and made my way down the stairs into the living room. My father was standing with his back to me, and my mother was kneeling before him, begging him to be reasonable. In my head, I knew that there was no way of seeing reason when your vision is blurred through the hazy of ogogoro, so I wondered why that was her choice of words. Before I could get any closer, I heard the loud bang of what I could only assume was a gun. It shook the foundations of our house, and I found myself on the floor, with my eyes watering and ears ringing. I looked up to see my father standing over me, looking like a genuine lunatic with blood splattered all over his shirt and face. He did what I’m sure he thought was a menacing laugh, but really it just sounded like he was choking on his self-loathing. I turned to look back at where he had been standing, and I saw my mother lying on the floor, a hole in the middle of her forehead, her eyes staring at me. I hadn’t fully processed what just happened when I heard more gunshots coming from up the stairs. I listened to my siblings cry and beg and scream, and then I heard silence. All I could do was lie on the floor and wait for my death — it’s a really shitty thing to anticipate for when all you wanted to do was have a good night’s sleep for a change.
I closed my eyes momentarily, thinking that I should probably pray to someone so that my afterlife is significantly less shitty than my mortal life. Still, I didn’t know who to pray to or what to say. I opened my eyes and saw my father standing over me again, this time with more blood and a bloodthirsty look on his face. I was about to ask him if he felt any fulfilment from what he had done, but then I blacked out.
I slowly woke up with a dull ache in my head and some sticky stuff covering one half of my face, the other half was puffy, like I had been punched a lot. I tried to reach out and touch my face, but I realized that my hands were tied, I decided to open my eyes, but that only made the ache grow more intense. So I just sat there, floating through consciousness, wondering where I was and why I had been beaten so bad. When I finally woke up, I was in a hospital, the doctor asked me if I remembered coming in and what I remembered at all. She asked me for my name, my age, my favourite food, the typical questions you’d ask a 2-year-old. I was about to answer when I realized I actually didn’t have the answers, my mind was blank, and I couldn’t think of anything at all that would suggest that I knew who I was. The doctor told me I had been in a trauma-induced coma for the last 6 months and that this same trauma had caused me to lose my memory. I asked what kind of trauma that was, and she just smiled and asked me to get some rest. As she walked out the door, I looked around me. I noticed that I had handcuffs attached to my wrist. I also saw this disproportionate looking man nervously glancing at me and then looking away every time our eyes met.
“What is it?”, I was equal part amused, same part irritated by his constant glances. Little Man first said nothing and glanced away. But, as the silence thickened, he blurted everything out — How I had killed my mother and my three siblings and how I had left my father so damaged that he had to be on suicide watch for the last 6 months. Little Man said he didn’t believe that I had truly lost my memory and that he hopes I get the death penalty for my horrendous crimes. I realized very quickly that the entire world and Little Man shared the same views and since I couldn’t remember anything, I was the easiest scapegoat. There was no need for any investigation or for any witnesses to step up and share their account. The judge sentenced me to life in prison with the first 2 years in Juvie since I was under 16. Throughout the hearing, my father didn’t show up at court, and it was understandable because he was just too scarred.
While in prison, I started to remember bits and pieces of that night, but none of it really made any sense. I remembered my siblings standing at their doors looking terrified, my father choking on his self-loathing and my mother’s lifeless eyes staring at me. Then, I guess he was no longer on suicide watch because my father shot himself, smack in the middle of his forehead. Instead of a suicide note, my father left a whole ass home video. In the video, you see him kill my mother and then my siblings and then beat the shit out of me. Then he’s in a ratty room that can only possibly smell like alcohol and piss. He’s talking to this camera again, saying that he just wanted my mother to love him more than she loved her kids, more than she loved me. He killed her because she kept promising that she loved him, but her eyes said a different story. After killing her, he realized that he was now stuck with 4 children that he didn’t actually want, so he killed everyone but me because I was her favourite and he wanted to me to suffer and feel the pain of being unwanted.”
“So yeah, that’s why I need therapy”, I muttered. The cleaner looked up at me and grimaced.
“But sir, this is a children’s nursery”.
