Novel?

Mar 29, 2008 - 02:18 AM PST

It’s become quite obvious that I’m not the man I used to be, I have no heart, I have no soul, I am but a calloused ghost thickened by a shell of broken dreams. Thoughts of love and happiness have all escaped me I no longer feel joy, nor sorrow, pain, nor suffering; my only emotion is apathy and nothing more. A sour, bitter taste left in my mouth by the life which has preceded my present state, but still I do not feel it. I can only look back on that life with no feeling at all, and just see it as the life of someone else, someone who felt.

I was born Sean Cale in the town of Quiet Creek, Massachusetts to Tom and Mary Cale, a teenaged couple that chose to put me up for adoption. I was then sent to an orphanage owned by the Sisters of the Holy Name of Mary. These nuns treated the kids who went there with a discipline that brought us nostalgia of the Roman Empire. The beatings on the back of our hands looked as though we had received forty lashes and developed the stigmata. By the time I was seven, “God damn it,” had become the most popular phrase in my vocabulary just to spite Sister Monica, who’d given me a beating that numbed my body from any pain I had received from any of the other nuns. Even with such a beating, she hadn’t broken me; no one there could they were all full of cowardice hiding behind their rulers and pointers afraid to lay an actual hand on me even if God was on their side. These nuns claimed it was their God given duty to take care of me even if that did include the occasional beating, I however argued that God did not intend for the beatings to be an everyday occurrence which left my body looking like I’d been crawling under barbwire all day. These nuns seemed to be a Viking horde that left my body like a monastery in the Middle Ages; pillaged and beaten with every ounce of life taken out of it.

At the age of twelve, my Savior came in the form of three different people. Margaret (Mag), Tim, and Father Derek. They were my refuge, I was able to tell them each anything I wanted to tell them, I could trust them more than I could trust God. After the brutality I had faced which began to occur now in bi-weekly intervals; these three helped me cope with the beginning of my teenage years within Hell’s confinement. Derek whom I’d been seeing everyday for a confession helped me understand who I was he’d tell me, “To be a rebel for a noble right is one thing, to be a rebel without a cause is another; find a cause Sean and when you find it, fight for it.” To this day I’d only found two causes.

Mag, my first and only love. I’d tell her anything and everything, but for a year or so we’d only seen each other as nothing more than friends. We attained an unconditional love which would never die. She was the only hope I’d ever possessed which actually meant something. She was a cause. The bi-weekly ravishing began to occur more frequently because Mag and I had become so close that every night I’d sneak out and into her room, to do nothing more than talk. Mag and I could go on all night about nothing in particular. We’d developed a partial insomnia where we’d both be able to go with only about an hour of sleep. I hadn’t been caught at night it was always in the early morning when Sister Patricia would come and awake all the girls, she’d see me on the floor with Mag’s sweater covering me and I’d receive a rude awakening. Every second spent with her was worth an eternity to my young mind. She gave me something to live for within my torture, within that nunnery.

Tim, on the other hand, my best mate. I wouldn’t do as much to talk to him as I would with Mag simply because I wasn’t attracted to him. I’d finally realized I was attracted to Mag. It was through Tim that I was able to realize my affection for Mag. When I’d told Tim how I’d felt for her, he was ecstatic we plotted on how to get her to fall for me. But with Tim’s help it seemed as though Mag had already fallen for me. She confided in Tim that she had affections for me as well.

Father Derek was my haven from all those evil nuns whom had tried to pillage my back with their wooden whips. I’d confess to him everyday, but it wasn’t always for my sins, it was also simply to talk about life, Father Derek was the wisest man I’d ever met. He’d taught me so many things about life, especially how to treat Margaret. I saw him as my own father, not just as a father figure. Father Derek had agreed to marry Margaret and I as soon as we were of the appropriate age, and I felt honored that he’d do so. It was he that I could confide in because I believed he had the confidence of God.

One night out of the blue I climbed into bed with Mag and kissed her lightly on the lips and asked her to be my girlfriend, she slowly kissed me back and whispered, “yes.” She held me there for the rest of the night and would not let me free from her bed or from her grasp. In the morning, I’d received a beating equivalent to what Jesus had received in the scourging at the pillar. Sister Monica yanked me from the loving grasp of Margaret’s arms and onto the hard floor where she assaulted my back with a yard stick, a pointer from her chalk board, and then with a metal strip which came from behind the door. She left my back a deep crimson red and a burning sensation that was nothing compared to how much I burned for Mag. This burning for her would continue to be the greatest pleasure in my life, for the longest while.