You know what you did, right? For every little mistake your wrath was my price to pay. As you charged towards me with those centaur legs, I would fall to the ground and crawl into that corner. Behind the sofa. She had soon figured why I did that everytime. Your unusually large feet never found regular hawaii chappals. The ones that wear out with time, and thin and soften. You went for those heavy flesh colored Bata floaters. Its thick base made of rubber reinforced with plastic. Its sole illustrated with linear zig zag patterns. The grooves deep enough to leave red and blue block prints on my skin.
You were never the one to pull your punches, like she would. Pressed against the corner like a fetus, as I would shield my torso, the areas that took the blows: my shins, my calves, my thighs, my forearms, my upper arms. I guess my fingers have long forgotten the many inflammation. Depending on how angry you were, or rather, when my bony limbs wouldn't quench your floater; you would grab me by the ankle, and yank me out, so that my body would slide onto it's back, and you could land it on the fleshier surface of the either of my buttock.
Did you like it? Did it satisfy your need to teach me a lesson? When the entire oblique shape of the upper half of the floater had enough surface area to leave behind it's mark upon? Did my scream drown out whatever rhetorical question of rage you had to repeat with every blow? Was it the shrillness of my scream that would embolden you every time? Would it have mattered if my voice had grown the depth to respond with a resounding yell instead? Would you have quit, had you beaten a man out of me?
Do you know, what I did every time once it would be all over? Do you know how I coped with the shock? Away from your vicinity. I imagined you didn't exist. I imagined I never belonged to you. I daydreamed that someone else took your place. In a parallel world. A world where the solidified sand and grit covered dried gum stuck under your floater wouldn't scrape my skin. Where I wouldn't keep a mental ledger of all the inaccessible corners and alcoves in every room.
Where I could tell you about the man whose a day old shave razed over my face as his fingers dug deeper into my arms the more I tried to free myself. Where I could tell you about the boy who stabbed a sharpened pencil through my shorts aimed for my anus. Maybe you would pay attention to my whimpers from the other side of the door, when the healing fissure would snap open again next morning on the pot. Where you would know when would be the right time to hug me tight and make the horror go away. You wouldn't shame me if I felt like crying all the time. Would I have been called a cry baby by everyone, had you been not you? Would I have cried all the time? Had you been someone else. Anyone else. But you.
Did it never occur to you that I could ever retaliate? Or was I indeed too much of a wimp. The thought did occur my mind once. Do you remember that morning? When my ear was still warm red from your second slap on the side of my head. The heat wouldn't cool down. My ear kept getting hotter. I should have just reached out for the paperweight in an impulse and taken my shot, instead of indecisively trying to reach out for it quietly so you wouldn't notice. You noticed it anyway. And you landed your fist with the full force of your shoulder upon my chest.
You never pulled your punches like her. Just so that you can't feel the damage you make. Just so that you couldn't feel the immediate moments I couldn't catch my breath. The paperweight was a stupid move, she said. I should have just taken the shot, she said. But did it henceforth deter you from charging towards me like the mad centaur?
We were just playing, chasing each other around. He tripped and scraped his knee. How many moments does it take for you to process that it was just an accident? Or does that rationale even matter, as you lost no moment, to frisbee your floater through the air aimed at my face. The impact from its plastic edge left on my gums, sent a ringing shiver up my jaw until it engulfed half of my face. I guess my brain failed to process the sharp sting on the left side of my lower lip, until she saw my face, and freaked and screamed, only then I looked down to see the blood drip and blot into my cotton shirt.
Perhaps she felt more entitled to her offense on my behalf, because she never drew blood. She always pulled her punches. Perhaps you should have drawn more blood. And left scars upon scars on my skin to constantly remind me of what you did. Would the existence of those scars be forgotten if I saw them everyday for years, as part of some permanent textures upon my skin? Would it be easier than to forget the scars you left upon my history? Would they have healed faster than these? Would it let me evidentially cultivate more sympathy for the monster I grew up with?
How do I show these scars and the gangrene of misery you left me with, scars which only I see. She was the only other person who did. And now it's just me. I really hope you know what you did.
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