Images start exploding in my head. My life comes back to me in vivid and profound moving pictures as if it is anxious to jump out of my mind. I writhe and grumble as my angel holds me tightly and tries to soothe me. His strong arms surround me with deep protectiveness, but they can’t prevent the pictures, like old fashioned snap shots, from cutting through my memory spaces—these memories shoved in hidden corners because of the drugs I’ve been taking most of my life.
Pictures rising to the top—
--I’m in my real parents’ arms—a small, happy child. My mom and dad smile at me.
Smile.
“We love you.”
--“Your parents had a horrible accident,” states a man with vacant, uncompassionate eyes. “Don’t you remember, Madrigal?”
I shake my head, terrified. I don’t remember a thing.
“But you were there.”
I keep shaking my head.
“Good. The medication is helping you.”
I was taking medication even then? I ask myself. My fake parents told me I had started the drugs after my illness was discovered a year after my parents died, but now I remember clearly that I was taking some kind of medicine since my parents’ accident. The clearness of the thought soon moves on since my mind is still foggy. Other images appear.
--Being placed with my fake parents after the death of my real ones. No hugs, no kisses, no warmth—just twisted words:
“It’s too bad that you’ll never be normal.”
“Your real parents must’ve been very unattractive.”
“If you’re anything like them, your parents must’ve not been very bright.”
“Don’t worry, Madrigal. We’re here to protect you from yourself—your many defects and constant clumsiness.”
--Even though there was no physical abuse, there are other ways to be cruel. . . withholding warmth. . . withholding words of encouragement. . . withholding love . . . spreading insecurity . . . spreading hopelessness . . . spreading judgment.
ARTHUR! His words jump out, ferociously stomping on the ugly ones:
--Don’t let them keep you down.
--Keep their ugliness away from you.
--You’re special Madrigal—you just don’t know who you are!
There were so many times I had argued with him about using the word special to describe me.
Stop calling me that, I had demanded of him.
Why don’t you believe me when I tell you that there’s much more to you than you think there is?
Today, QT100 and her boyfriend stuck a picture outside my locker of a wild gorilla, all crazed looking, bending the bars to his cage. How special can I be?
If they knew the real you like I do, they would worship the ground you walk on instead of hurting you.
“Oh, where are you, Arthur?” I moan unhappily. “Are you gone forever?”
I’m not, Madrigal. I’m always with you, his voice in my head jolts me and I am in complete disbelief. Had he really spoken to me?! Is he back?!
Arthur! Arthur, I cry out in my head.
But nothing else from him comes, and I suffocate in my sobs. My angel’s arms tighten around me. More flashes of my life explode in my head:
SCHOOL—
The taunts from other students—making fun of my glassy, spacey self and playing tricks on me like hiding my stuff and physically pushing me. Their heavy, cruel hands shoved me as if I was their personal toy. Of course I defended myself any way I could, landing in detention often because my teachers never seemed to believe me.
“SHE'S CRAZY—SHE'S CRAZY.” I can still see QT100’s boyfriend, Royce 2225, spreading it around that I was a total head case, his charcoal eyes trying to drown me.
CRAZY GIRL.
That’s what I became to everybody and even though they stopped the physical abuse because they were frightened of me, the stigma remained of being the crazy girl.
Students hated me.
Hateful QT100 and her cat-like green eyes scratched me till I bled along with her horrible boyfriend Royce.