Heart of a Dead Past

I remember when I was a child of about four. I had a wonderful life. Well I mean it was somewhat wonderful. My mother was a junkie and my father was a deadbeat junkie. I can’t decide which one I despise the most. I was adopted by my grandparents when I was two, maybe that’s why my life was so wonderful. Deep down inside I have a certain degree of relief that my grandparents took me from my mother. Deep down inside is somewhere I try to avoid. I love my mother very much and even though I despise her for doing what she does, I still love her for what she did for me. She made me, and here I sit, alive and well, for the most part any ways.

I still see my mother to this day. I can only handle her in short periods of time though. She gets under my skin worse than anybody else does. I really don’t know why, it’s like a part of me that won’t die (or cant). I try and try to lose my hate for her, but I can’t seem to. The anger even follows me into my dreams. It seems like at least two times a week I have a dream about this girl named Annie. She sits at the foot of my bed and we talk for hours, or what seems like hours. I can only see her from the waist up because in my dream she has her legs wrapped in my sheets. I guess you could make the comparison to an elderly lady with her legs wrapped in a blanket while sitting in a chair, the only difference is that instead of a back rest like a chair would have, she uses the flatness of the box spring at the end of my bed to support herself.

I feel as if I have known this girl for the entreaty of my life. I never knew why she appears to me in my dreams, but the majority of my conversations with her involve my mom. For some reason Annie dislikes her more than I do. She doesn’t ever explain the reason to me. Only that she hates her, she gives various common reasons like, she does drugs or she doesn’t care about anyone but herself. Both of those statements are true, but that’s too common of a reason and not really a good reason to flat out hate somebody. I repeatedly ask, “Why do you hate her?” She replies with the same answer, “She didn’t love me”. I never understood what it meant.

It wasn’t untill I turned 19 that the dreams became more vivid. I will only be talking in detail about the most recent one. I fell asleep and woke up in the world of the dreaming only to find myself alone inside of my own dream. I found this rather disturbing. “Annie?” I whispered to the empty dark room. No reply. This dream was more lucid than any other dream I had ever had, I felt like I was there. I mean I was there, but I wasn’t awake. I got up from my bed and walked to my door and slowly turned the knob. I was alone, and I knew that, and because of this I found myself fighting back a flood of emotions. Where was Annie? Why did she abandon me?

I walked out of my room and found myself in a hallway that wasn’t my own. I looked around and could not tell what place this was. It was brick walls and stone floor. “Is this a fucking castle?” I thought to myself. I ventured down the hall and into the room it led to. This room was huge, but despite the size, the room was empty, except for a fireplace, and two chairs. In the chair to my right sat a hooded figure who motioned for me to sit with it. I walked to the chair and looked slowly to the figure before I sat down, watching it while I sat on the padded chair.

`               “Who are you?” I asked the hooded figure. It responded and the way it did sent a streak of unease from my throat and into my stomach, “It doesn’t matter who I am child, for you shall know one day, but right now you are looking for someone important, I don’t have to ask, I only have to tell you where to start looking, and what questions to ask. I would start with your grandmother; ask her what happened on the day of your birth. The when she tells you, the rest of the questions will flow from your lips like water from a faucet.”

This creature spoke with a sound that is only described as monstrous. What the fuck was it? It was only after hearing it speak that I noticed it did not have a mouth. How was it communicating with me? This defies any sort of logic. Then again it was only a dream.

I woke up at 3 P.M the next day. I felt like I had only been asleep for an hour. I was tired still even after staying in bed the better part of the day. I remembered that the thing in my dream had told me to ask my grandmother about what happened on the day of my birth, It seemed to me like A silly thing to do, taking advice from what could only be described as a monster, a monster that spoke to me in my dream. I got up out of bed and took a shower and ate breakfast. I found my grandmother sitting out on our front porch smoking a cigarette. I wish she wouldn’t do that because she was in pretty rough shape anyways. I went over to her and sat down beside her. “It’s a pretty day out, you slept it away though. Only a few more hours before the sun go down.”  She said to me. I looked at her and sighed because I knew this was her way of saying I was lazy.

I started to ask her about the day of my birth, but the landline phone rang and she rushed to get it. I knew it was her friend; they sat on the phone for hours at a time gossiping like old women do. I sat in deep thought and wandered if I should actually ask her about it. I really didn’t expect anything of it. The voice of the monster rang through my mind like a bolt of lightning through a stormy night sky. “If you want your friend back ask her.” This thing had followed me into the real world, or at least it felt that way. Maybe I was losing my sanity, dementia runs in the family; I figured it could have been that. It’s funny; when you have a fear of something you try to kill the fear with logical thinking. Sometimes this doesn’t work, because sometimes your fear is real. I got up off the porch swing and walked into my house and then wandered into the itching where my grandma sat talking on the phone. I could tell by the tone of her voice that the conversation was about to come to a stop.

She hung up the phone a few minutes later and then proceeded to get a coffee cup out of the cabinet and started walking over to the coffee pot, “Nana, what happened on the day of me being born?” I asked. To my dismay it triggered a nerve and made her drop her cup. She looks at me then her eyes become watery. “You are old enough now I suppose, when you were born you had a twin.”  She said to me. By this point I was standing in the doorway in total shock as to what I just heard. “Where is it now?” I asked, my voice became monotone and very emotionless. “You weren’t supposed to live; she was the healthy baby, not you.” She says back, not fully answering my question. “Her name was Annie and she was suppose to live, not you. The doctors said you can have a boy or a girl, not both. Your heart was failing fast and we had to make a decision. Let you die, or let her live. We chose you; the doctors tore her heart out of her body and put it into you.” I grabbed at my heart, and heard Annie’s voice one more time before I stopped hearing her. “She never loved me.”