I then fell on my elbows, and was forced to crawl with even more effort on the brown wooden ground; slippery and hostile, it was as cold as the child’s eyes. I knew I deserved this coldness since I hadn’t sufficiently protected children in my life nor loved them enough, and that was why they were all coming back to me in the shape of this monster. A bitter yet productive meeting: I had to pay for my mistakes but I was also ready to admit them.
At that moment another upsetting vision came forwards, of a little girl bound in a rope and being bounced against walls; what was worse, I couldn’t prevent her from getting hurt. She was slippery, seemingly covered in oil – going in all directions, unpredictable.
She was the very picture of the confusion I felt inside my head.
I didn’t know whether to protect her or save myself from the monster that was still chasing me, the little boy trying to grasp me and howling: “Why, mum?”
The word paralysed me, since – although I love children – I have never seriously entertained the possibility of being a mother and starting a family myself. I have always regarded it as something too far in the future, far from me; a limit to my expressiveness and – I hate to admit it – a loss of elegance for the female body. Although taking care of a child may be rewarding, each time I had my friends’ daughters toddling around I feared that the pests would break something or hurt themselves.
But then, there are children and children. There are babies who are peculiar since birth. I mean, we all have our quirks; but children abusing animals, for example, is a clear warning for everyone. It is a fact that some serial killers used to mistreat animals as children, and I thought it was the case of the child chasing me in what had become a dirty woody cabin full of chambers.
From his violence in breaking random objects I could sense that he had never received love, but also that he carried evil within: having been abused, he now enjoyed abusing. It was a kind of evil that spread by touch like an illness without chance of survival, that would chase you down relentlessly and destroy you slowly, in the end. It was as dreadful as it was persistent.
I knew I shouldn’t keep on running away, but react sooner or later, yet I still didn’t feel sufficiently strong myself to make such a decision.
I had to prevent the boy from harming me, and the girl from harming herself. I needed a plan, a strategy to subdue the monster and save her.
Meanwhile, my shoulders hurt too: it was my usual reaction to stress. For instance, anxiety before exams had always led me to contract my shoulders inadvertently, with negative repercussions on my shoulder blades and cervical muscles.
Still, I had to act now.
I moved so that the little girl wouldn’t collide with the wall but with me; I hoped that the push would soon decrease. The rope that bound her was torn but very resistant. I tried to grab it, but the child – still covered in a thick layer of oil – slipped away from my hands each time. It was a dark substance, like tar, and it cost me further exertion.
I felt dissected by my pursuer’s eyes, and feared death coming any instant, with each single breath. The little boy was my conscience, and as such he gave me no peace.
Conscience is what keeps you awake at night, looking endlessly at an unchanging ceiling. It makes you go through your whole life – past and future – in an instant; then you have to choose.
I chose to save the child. I might die, I might be torn to pieces, but I had to pass this test.
I hoped I would gain strength on my way and learn not to flee any more, unless it was strictly necessary. Something within me was changing, and maybe it was for the best. What encouraged me in my fight was – paradoxically – a wish for peace and justice, that innate conjunction of goodness and dignity of the heroes in the stories they told me as a child.
On my part, it meant never accepting evil, without any compromise, because previous compromises had led to fleeing, to humiliation and low self-esteem. I couldn’t stand depression any more, I needed to fight it. In fact, I wanted to save the girl also because I saw myself in her uncertain sway, torn between one decision and another, confused and insecure.
I had to act on impulse when she was in my proximity. I would try to cut the rope, but by what means? Maybe the penknife I used to slice my reserve of dried meat, as well as the berries I was so fond of. It was small and rather ruined, but it would serve its purpose, since the monster wasn’t far from me.
I launched myself head first, thinking that she could be my daughter and that it was my moral duty to save her – or to try at least. The knife easily cut through the first part of the torn rope, then got stuck.
The more I tried, the less I could move it.
When I heard laughter behind me I felt a sudden chill inside my chest, a shiver running down my back and making my arms tremble – not my will though. At that moment, my little pursuer appeared in front of me, his eyes green and terrible.
He had hidden small tacks inside the rope.
Livid with anger I set to removing them, while trying to counterbalance the rope’s motion with my weight. I desperately tried again and again, pricking my fingers and cursing at the sharp pain.
And finally the rope broke. The girl could only fall to the ground, but at least her incessant sway had stopped.
Looking at those horrible green eyes for what I hoped was the last time, I mustered up courage and pointed at the child lying on the ground. Then I yelled at the monster, since I had nothing but my voice: “That’s your doing, now I have nothing left, nothing! We were meant to share a bond in the future, so you took her away from me! Now kill me if you wish... What else do you want, my blood?”
I challenged him fiercely, but in the meanwhile he had changed. Clasping my hands, he told me I had done the right thing: I had passed the test; I was getting stronger.
My strength I had forged and sharpened with patience, as a blacksmith hammers iron and shapes it into swords and pieces of rare value. But even hard workers make mistakes, and that is perhaps humanity’s common ground: that shuddering breath of insecurity which compels us to flee or to fight, capitulate or win.
This time I had won, but the journey continued and other challenges would arise. On the one hand I looked forward to it, yet on the other I still feared the unknown.
Nevertheless I went on in my worn boots, to other challenges and other places.
__________
Behind me lay barren lands typical of the Arctic tundra, with a pungent birch smell and tall spruce haunted by winter snow. The evergreens – which were previously all around me – now receded and gave way to a curious labyrinth.
I approached some elaborate ruins that bore the weight of as many years as the layers of lichen covering them. Although collapsed, their contours still stood out against the background. If I was to go into the labyrinth, I would have to follow them; so with patience, tenacity and spirit of sacrifice I bent my will to fate.
In fact, fate hadn’t been very generous so far given the sequence of challenges I had had to endure, which had hardened my spirit and my skin, strengthening my body but tiring me out completely.
Struggle I knew well, my everyday friend and companion, like a woman who never deceives: awesome yet merciless.
Still, not as enticing were the writings I read on the walls, unholy signs and pentacles that seemed to have been drawn in blood.
They were ever more frightening, warning not to enter, not to venture further, not to try the awful path ahead. They commanded to leave my desires behind as they wouldn’t come true: only death lay in wait.
All alone I was crossing a new, hostile land made of sand, small cobbled areas and moss growing in the cracks of the ancient ruins. Anything, any possible thing could happen at that moment.
Not too far from me lay remains of tortured bodies and discarded skulls, some with hair still on them, yellowed