I’m a man of 18 now and given to reflecting on the facts of my unseemly life as an exercise to clear my mind of pain and paranoia. I lament that this is a human thing to do as a great sage once told me, "With one eye I look forward and the other I’m constantly replaying the past." When I replay the past I can hear Mother constantly mythologizing the circumstances concerning my birth.

She’d use such words as miraculous and breathtaking, swearing up and down of her chastity when her stomach swelled up with me. I can still remember the way her eyes would dart up and down, the sparkling goya stains on her shirt, and the glasgow smile that swallowed her plump face whenever she said I was special.

Mother and I lived in a small house smack in the middle of Hicksville, all of our neighbors resided in genetically identical houses with the same traits upwards from the shape of our roofs down to the diameter of our windows. The pitter patter of rain on our small roof often kept me awake. Uvula shaped tears trailed down my chubby cheeks synchronously whenever precipitation fell, getting caught in the curly hair outstretched over my face.

Up until I was in sixth grade, the weather seemed to maintain collective control over my disposition. With every plasmic strike of lightning I felt an inner rage. On sunny days I was vibrant and warmhearted. Snowy days were always circumstantial with feelings fading and arriving faster than the faintest will o’ the wisp like a bundle of melting snow. She’d rave on and on about how God had given her such a beautiful little boy after years of prayer to remedy the virulence that cervical cancer blessed her with.

Excuse my rather odd diction at times, I hope it doesn’t betray any disillusion with religion since I do believe in a higher power. However, in my youth, her reverent remarks were wasted on me. I didn’t dare take any of her praise to heart. From the very beginning, I was home to a countenance that forbid the accumulation of vanity or pride, although I wasn’t aware of those being sins in my early days.

Years later, at Dr. Stravino’s clinic, horrified psychiatrists would inform me that I showed no signs of developing the internal struggle between the Freudian systems that characterizes a human being. As far as they were concerned, I was barely human anymore. They said, “there was no way they could help me in my current state.” So I begrudgingly walked on but only after reading his mind were my reservations justified; I was sure that a psychiatrist suffering from such virile mental impediments could never properly aid me.

A deathly silence trudged alongside me as it always had and its presence reminded me of the early days when I’d often sit lotus style on Mother’s burgundy carpet pondering why I was so different from the other children. In particular, I recall the first day of Kindergarden when Miss Kuriboh set up an appointment to speak with Mother on account of my reading abilities. At the time we were reading passages from a Children’s bible and mine was the only voice that didn’t give way or stammer over its piecemeal words.