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the lady with the pencil incessantly between her fingers and the glasses falling on her pointed nose asks you if you still have nightmares.
you don't look up from your doll that you're flying through the air. you know that if you answer yes the nightmares never stop she will ask you to talk about it. and you don't want to remember the discomfort that took over your body, the tears that suddenly lodged under your eyelids without you realizing it. when you wake up from your sleep, the damp sheet, your trembling limbs, your still childish cheeks were drowning in sea. mom says you can’t drown if you’re not physically under water but you’re not sure she knows what she is talking about.
the lady you see every Thursday types in her notebook with the tip of the pen. she clears her throat, and all you hear is the graying sound of neon lights from the ceiling. you wonder if the roaring lights could one day drop from the sky, fall just right in the head, on the center of your skull; to kill you. you'll bleed like you used to bleed, in a different place this time, to a fatal point, and maybe you'll never be in pain again.
you are only six years old. you have learned of the existence of death with the cancer that killed your grandmother weeks before, but the idea of meeting her one day does not frighten you. you are only six years old, a few years of life behind you which leave you with a bitter taste for the following years you struggle to perceive.
(you'll learn to name this uncomfortable feeling later when you're older, fighting it with pills. but the fact is; already, at age six, you know life isn't worth living).
sometimes, you ask yourself how many days you have left before finally being freed.
ever since you told mom that uncle sometimes hurt you when he squeezed your crotch, her eyes have been constantly red, blurred by a transparent puny silk cloth. between her and the world now stands a veil, and it seems difficult now to reach her as you used to.
now, you only spend time with your big brother. you watch him play but above all win. big brother has nothing but victory in his mouth and, with all the qualities he possesses, he can only win. his domination and superiority are self-evident. as fast as an arrow, as quick as lightning, big brother flies with the ball at the feet. he looks like an angel come to earth to play this effortless, weightless sport.
and now, you just spend time under big brother’s watches, follows him at his all games and practices. you don't spend any more minutes with your uncle. besides, thinking about it, you don't even know where he is anymore. you haven't seen him for a long time.
your big brother puts his things in his sports bag. you are about to leave the land that your big brother owned as if he were the master of the world. a few tears were shed on the freshly cut grass, but it wasn’t his. it’s never his. you learned this lesson watching him play, being the greatest among the greats.
you grab a piece of his shirt. you learned to watch where big brother goes, to hold him back. sometimes, your big brother has the unfortunate tendency to forget that your legs are too short to go as fast as him; he slips away, like the tiny grains of sand between your fingers at the beach you love to go to during summer. and you know that if you ever lose him, you'll lose him forever.
“Onii-chan... Where did uncle go?”
big brother puts down his movement, stops the course of the zipper slide of the bag in the middle of its closure. a gleam shines in the same eyes you share through the identical shape, and eyelashes of a similar length, but you're only six years old, you can't understand.
“You'll never see him again, okay? I promise.”
you don't understand the seriousness of his tone, the tension rage that makes your big brother's young voice tremble. he always knew how to understand everything, your big brother. always been ahead, he understood your misfortunes and abuses even before you realized it yourself. he listens at every door, understands the weight of every word.
“’kay.”
you answer to fill the silence. you can’t stand silence, absence, emptiness. it leaves the door open to dangers, wandering hands, unhealthy secrets hidden behind closed doors. big brother's answer doesn't satisfy you, but you prefer it to your father's cries and your mother's barely contained sobs.
your big brother runs his hand through your dark hair, closes his bag.
“Let’s go, Rin.”
your big brother's caress is quick, barely visible. the palms of his still tiny hands, larger than yours, barely touch your skull. when mom touches you, tries to take your baths, you can’t stop screaming; and you scream, you cry, you fight with all the strength you have left. you’re only six years old, and you can't stand the echo of touches of ghosts on your body. it haunts you. but your big brother is not just a simple man, a frightening and menacing entity: he looks like the heroic figurines you play with. so, with those fine green eyes, those shiny red hair, your big brother can only be your hero chasing down the monsters living not under your bed but all around you.
you cling to the sleeve of his shirt never to let him go.
after spending some time as a distracted spectator of your big brother's matches, you too become a player who stands close to the divine-looking hero.
the lady with the shaking pencil asks you if the nightmares persist. instead of nightmares, you talk about your beloved big brother trying to teach you a new dribble. football keeps you from thinking about his unsightly sweaty hands against your thighs, and being next to your big brother makes you feel invincible.
protected.
the truth is that the nightmares never end.
when you close your eyes, you only see the frightening blackness and all you remember are the low moaning whispers, the liquid discomfort between your legs, the huge incommensurate hands on your trembling figure which becomes just an entity the monster uses for an evil of which you do not know the name but feel its strength.
you squeeze your teddy bear against yourself as an attempt to protect you from incoming danger you can’t name; the whole world is against you and monsters are everywhere. even under the duvet, even with the light on, they find you. they haunt you until the last tear, until the last cry that you smother against your pillow.
you fear they will come back for you. you can't push them away forever. you are almost seven years old; you know that. you need the thickest wall between yourself and the awful threats of the world; a force powerful enough to fight all monsters. the hero you cling to.
you wake up big brother by shaking him. you crossed the corridor slowly, for fear of waking your parents with the creak of old wood and seeing you in the state that reminds them of the very existence of the name your father forbade you to pronounce. you shake your shoulder, big brother frowns. you shake it harder. he blinks his eyelids.
“Onii-chan… I’m very very scared.”
those long eyelashes touch his skin. flutters like the wings of a butterfly which you sometimes enjoy catching between your palms. you fail every time, scratch your knee, dirty your calves with greasy grass. and big brother has to take care of you, sighing, but still buying you ice cream after you grit your teeth with the stinging episode of the disinfectant on your wounds.
this time, seeing the tears that get stuck between your eyelashes, big brother doesn’t sigh. as usual, he understands the world as if he were the one who mastered it like the play itself he creates from his talent on the pitch. big brother leaves you a place on the narrow bed, push the covers back so you can make your way past the protective wall your big brother is forging.
“Don’t cry,” big brother whispers. “It’s okay, Rin.”
you hug your bear to your chest. the smooth, soft hair at your fingertips, like a reassuring caress. the hero reaches behind your back, lets his own hands cover your body to protect it. since small, when you rested on the newborn bed next to mom, you got the habit to sleep on your back; and she used to pat your back, in a slow and delicate movement. so since childhood, you have often begged for the return of these innocent massages. you sit on your mother and father's lap, leave a distance so they can reach access to your back. they laugh. you make yourself understood without a word. they let their loving hands covering you, and you come back to a time when it was impossible to hurt you, to a time when you did not yet know how painful the world could be.
“It’s not real, okay?”
if big brother says so, he must be right.
mom and dad argue a lot. you hear the screams even if you cover your ears. the forbidden name crosses their mouths. you don't understand the reasons for their arguments, but you hear your first name linked to his.
and you know that all this chaos comes down to your existence.
when mum and dad start arguing, big brother takes a ball from under the armpit and ties your shoelaces.
“Let’s go, Rin,” big brother says and you almost forgot the screams and tears. “I’m going to teach you a new trick.”
big brother never reaches out his hand for you to take. it's always you who has to hold on but he lets you pull him as hard as you can, even if it slows him down. so you don't try to take his hand, you will stay by his side in any form, at any distance. you just have it in your field of vision, never take your eyes off him.
but this time, when you hear the dull sound of a glass breaking against the floor followed by your father's insults who yells atrocities you do not yet understand, only the fury that resounds with intensity between the chaos of the walls, you mark a pause, you turn around, forgets the football excitement, the love for your big brother.
“C’mon, Rin.”
big brother takes you by the shoulders with a gentleness all his own. even when big brother destroys the opponent team, he still possesses a certain elegance in all the dreams he destroys.
when you walk away from sorrow, tears, cries, pain…
“Onii-chan…”
you think about it a lot. lately, after visiting grandma's grave, you think about it every day. you already know that to live is to exist in heavy pain. it's only when you play football with big brother that the world seems lighter and more bearable. you're not yet seven years old, soon in September, but you don't see the benefit of living if it's just getting used to suffering whose owns an entire collection of shapes.
“Wouldn’t the world be better off if I wasn’t here?”
tonight, the sky has not yet set. the sun does not flee the moon yet, and the heaviness of the summer heat no longer smothers his tiny body in a suffocating hug. a pack of birds sometimes comes to break the bluish unity of the world, and it seems impossible to be alone anymore. in those moments, where time seems suspended, it would be easy to live. these peaceful moments which give the impression of balance, of hope that tomorrow the sky will be as beautiful, the birds as united. that tomorrow is yours, no longer belonging to monsters with vicious fingers and long horrifying nails taking you into the abysses.
your older brother's eye color is different from yours. people have a habit of confusing, saying that your eyes represent the only identical trait that you share. in reality, this is not true. you have nothing to do with big brother, not even the eyes. big brother has green eyes; yours blend into a shade between green and blue, without ever defining themselves; teal, your mom called it once. your eyes have a clarity and brightness that big brother does not have. if you look too long into his eyes, you could almost perceive the looming blackness of his glow.
big brother takes you gently by the shoulders, in a seriousness that he has always known how to adopt, regardless of his age. he was born serious, diligent, assiduous; with constant calm, as if he could not be shaken by the world, touched by the atrocities of it, as solid as an oak tree. then, despite your disturbing question, big brother doesn't blink. he takes you gently by the shoulders, you can only focus on the green of his squinted eyes, the depth of his tiny pupil.
“If I told you that I was the only one here that cared about you...”
he watches your reaction before continuing, tightens his grip on your shoulder so that you stay among the cruel world you sometimes unconsciously flee – head in the clouds, mind in dreams, lost in toys, in infinite imagination, in the pain which seems deathless.
“Rin. If I told you that I was the only one who really loved you, would it make you sad?”
big brother loves you. someone in this terrible world loves you. the hero loves you. and he will always protect you. among all the suffering that the world inflicts on the puppets that you all are, big brother brings sweetness, tenderness; he loves. then, nothing seems to be able to hurt you anymore.
“If only Onii-san loves me…”
big brother told you a few days ago that he wanted to play football with you. that you both would be the best in the world; big brother first, as always, and you, just behind, second. it suits you, it's happiness incarnate. you thought big brother was telling you that to please you, to drive away nightmares. but your big brother loves you; in all the absurdity of the world, someone loves you; finally someone to live for and with.
“I would be the happiest. Onii-san, it makes me so happy!”
you cling to his neck. you feel the ball falling at your feet. you'll pick it up later, you'll go chasing after your dream that big brother and you share after.
for now, you enjoy at its fullest. you have found a reason to live, sufficient to bear the pain always present on your body, the invisible dirt that resides; yesterday, the lady asked you what you wanted to become later. you replied; I don't know. the truth is that you didn't want to, you couldn't think about later. as if the sadness will last forever. now, you know; you're seven years old soon, and small moments of happiness crystallize nightmares, as you can finally dream of tomorrow, envision it.
the future you couldn’t even imagine a few seconds before is now all about big brother and football.
growing up, you remember very little of your childhood. only big brother playing football, ice creams that you share, the violence of neon lights, the feeling of the ball under your feet, under your kicks, the pencil against the notebook, the small but firm hand in your hair, coming to caress your forehead.
then, big brother leaves and the world seems to be on the verge of collapse without you really knowing why. the future remains clear but murky; and every step you take without big brother's presence remains threatened by fierce-looking shadows with hazy outlines.
you sometimes sleep in big brother's bed because you're sure yours is haunted by the ghost of the house. this one had a name, but you forgot it. since big brother left, you all have been living in silence. only the sound of your foot hitting the ball resonates. you love the round, full sound of contact between your body and the ball. it makes you live hoping for tomorrow.
you cling. you can't physically hold on to big brother's sleeve anymore, but he never leaves your mind. you no longer remember your childhood, but that, you are sure of it; practically all your life you have lived only for him. your existence boils down to football. otherwise, you are nothing.
(you become all only rape, violence and screaming. and it destroys you, so you avoid thinking about the terrible stories that made you play football. you run, you take the ball, you run until your lungs explode against your chest, until you can almost feel the ice cream against your tongue, until you can convince yourself that that big brother is by your side again, in his armor, in his invincible strength and flawless protection).
sometimes the memories come back like an electroshock, and you're not sure if they're nightmares or memories or thoughts from another life. you concentrate so that the images that your mind plays become more precise, enough for you to differentiate the real from the unreal, but that only digs your own grave.
even if these stories were truly undeniable, you will never have the strength to face it all.
to avoid drowning in the hazy past, you obsess over the future.
the gentleman you see now does not wear glasses, and does not play with a pen between his fingers. he wears a tight tie, and advises you to take antidepressants. apparently, from the little you've confided in him, you suffer from anxiety and depression. as it's not normal to go to sleep in big brother's bed, to call him a thousand times only with the will to get his answering machine and hear his voice, to wear the same perfume as him in the illusion of his presence, to play until your body collapses, to rub his skin until it was red with pain, ready to be torn from its own body.
you shrug your shoulders, answer that it's the stress of the upcoming matches. the gentleman still gives you a prescription, three pills a day, and no matter what he may advise you, the neon lights in this room are definitively more pleasant than those of your memories.
it's snowing, and your executioner is dead.
you don't remember his name, he was banned for a long time, the walls of the house evacuated him.
we tell you the news after you're back from training, in the middle of dinner, between two and three mouthfuls of pork ribs, between television commercials. it only lasts three seconds; afterward, you all force yourself to forget his existence and everything that implies his acts passed, accomplished and unforgettable.
he died drinking the last drop of his alcohol, in the filth of his one-bedroom apartment, and that should make you happy but you feel disconnected from this world, as if your soul finally detached itself from your body never again come back to yourself.
ridiculous, ridiculous. you fly over the world you never belonged to. and you confuse dreams and nightmares without ever recognizing reality because you know that you have never experienced anything. you're not alive, you never were. you never fully existed in this world, excluded from the beauty of it (how long big brother has been gone?), the world is a big joke at which you have decided not to laugh.
while trying to get you a glass of water in the kitchen, you see your mother crying over the sink. she holds an old photo tightly in her hand which she crumples under the pressure of her grip. she wipes her tears with the blurred face of your executioner.
the world doesn't really make any sense.
you put on your shoes, you take the ball, you leave.
you dribble against the invisible monsters, and you wonder if you will ever be able to love. you can't stand being touched; you fight with all the other teammates who try to celebrate each of your goals. you don't remember the engine that keeps you going, what drives you to play?
shit.
big brother is calling you. your phone vibrates in your pocket, and you've almost forgotten the fine features of his face. you remember he looked like a hero, somehow. you don’t look alike at all, despite of everyone has been thinking and saying.
“Rin?”
you remember.
“Onii-chan.”
you break.
the next day, big brother comes back and as if the world wasn't cruel enough, he decides to shake up the whole meaning of your life, putting upside down the whole sense of your existence.
the man you saw isn’t your big brother. while your big brother gave you a dream worth fighting (living), the man you saw just destroyed all the hopes to not crumble.
why do you play football?
you started football at six years old, almost at seven, a few days before the beginning of September. you don't remember that time; only incessant noise, chaos, suffering. it comes from all the cracks; easily takes possession of the little being that you were, takes over your entire damaged bones. you're only six years old, but the world seems crazy enough that you don't have the strength to keep up with its madness.
why do you play football?
once, you shared a dream with the only person who dared to love you. in all hateful monstrosities, love comes through; it almost heals the greatest pain, feeling like you can breath again without being suffocated.
why do you play football?
you play to be with your big brother. and it may be a deranged reason to live, but it keeps you going. it pushes you to football, it forces you to be the best with your playing and on the field, the only survivor; the one that destroy instead of being the one who can be broken. you play, it's your only way to see the possible glam of future. otherwise, the monsters will catch up with you, will grab you by the neck, forcing you to face the deepness of the abysses, taking you back to hell.
and when you hit the ball, the world went quiet.
but ever since big brother told you to quit football, the world only has been a fusion of noise.
you have no more brother, no more dream, no more future. and you think of the imminent that you no longer see, of the later thought of for so long, the foundations of which have just clashed once again with the cruelty of the world that is stabbing right back at you.
the truth is that you have nothing left except the pills you refuse to take, except the deceiving trophies that no longer mean anything.
if you quit football, then you return to the very essence of your being.
you’re six-year-old again and forever. just another victim of the perverse violence of the world that overtakes and surpasses you, leaving you broken and lost, with an insurmountable fracture, invisible wound with fatal depth you do not yet understand.
you say you never cry and cried but you were born drowning.
wondering every day when will be the last.
now, why do you play football?
you can’t quit, or it will be the end of you; then, to hold on, to exist still and again, you need another reason. it will also be an insane one; crazier, thus irrational, it will allow you to snatch yourself with more bite, more claw. if you used to play for love, in the confident hope of creating a wonderful tomorrow; now, you only play for hate, in the twisted hope of destroying what was dearest to you.
it's okay.
the world is cruel, you can no longer hoping to live next to its threats and outside of its blows. you must dress in your best costume; tonight, and the day after that, and even for later, you too must become the executioner who destroys and breaks.