I will probably never be able to thank the people I really want to, for this award.

Like Michael, Judy,

Minori, Anisha… they’d think I was being presumptuous… they probably don’t even like me
and helped me out only out of pity anyway….

I had played it cool the previous day when I got the call that I was nominated and decided not to
write a winning speech – I’m sure that would have seemed presumptuous too…..me ,
standing there, taking out a thank you speech note from my pocket to read from, with a
flousrish, no less – who the hell is he, thinking he can win against veterans and people who
are much better than him anyway.

Even though I did win in the end.

“I am so thankful for this award and thoroughly want to thank my parents, and my sponsor, Major
Villera…and everyone else who supported me on my journey – Anisha, the whole crew –
thanks a ton.”

At least that’s what I think I said….

The rest of the evening, I don’t even remember who I talked to…everyone important just ignored me
anyway.

Feral child

Something is happening to other people all the time. But time stays still for me, and when it doesn’t,
multiple things happen all at once and I cannot remember much of it because it’s all a blur. It
is all a drug trip. I cop out on life when it happens and whine the rest of the time that it
doesn’t happen enough.

“MOM, voicemail AGAIN? How is Joi? Are you still seeing him? You do know you give me anxiety by
not picking up the phone…………… it ain’t my fucking fault I can’t be there.”

Ugh, the language. I sent her a text...

“Mind your language, Maylene. You wouldn’t talk like this if I was there with you. You sound like a
12 year old boy from the streets.” I threw the phone onto my bed and sat down on the floor,
not believing any of this was happening…everything was unpleasant for me lately, and I
wanted to die.

I really do not know what to do with certain memories. Most serve no purpose. I’m so miserable
now that when I look back on good memories, 10, 20 years ago some part of it takes an ugly
turn and lets me know the beast inside me was always ready to burst like it eventually did.
Did I ever feel happiness? Or only ever anxiety?

Some of them are so vivid, it hurts my head.

The day I met Maylene and we were driving home together, she had slid her hand under my
sweater, the iciness of her skin seemed to be something she generated. I had jumped
because why was this kid so much at ease with me, a near total stranger?

This is a big mistake.

She freaks me out.

She looked up at me, nestling closer as I settled back in, still vexed, the cold from her gradually
coming down to level with my temperature. Then I yelled at the driver. "Why aren't we
there yet? We've been on the road, like, 10 hours!" I could get pretty cranky sometimes
even without anyone trying. "We're at xxx now, so xxx is, let's see… 45 minutes away or so?"
This guy was literally killing me with his kindness, although all I did the whole trip was grill
him about the condition of his car (a month old Chevy), the fowl air (it could smell the
autumn leaves lining the roads going at 60kmph). Only the pleasant weight pressed against
my jacket and clinging to my shirt stopped me going all-out-berserk.

To say that I’d fought against pulling out a cigarette at this point in the story would probably make
me look like I had all sorts of bad habits - a short fuse AND smokes? Haha, maybe, but it was
true. I was dying for a smoke and dreaming about bloody rampages even though it was the
pleasantest October day, everything about which hit me with full force - me being immune
to it all.

I couldn’t believe I’d become a mother. It was like every human feeling was fighting for dominance
inside me, as they wrestled, pounding against the sides of my head. I thoroughly miss that
feeling. I’m such a blank nowadays.

"Mama, I have chocolate left, would you like some?" I had said yes.

Who tf is mama, I don’t like this, any part of this, it’s a mistake, dear lord, what have I done?

She sat up straight and over to her black and blue backpack that rested against her side of the car
door and pulled out a Bournville I'd bought her this morning.

"Thanks," I muttered. She offered me a generous piece of it and proceeded to help herself to the
remaining half. I couldn't bring myself to caress my new daughter's head, much as I wanted
to.

I was like a child savoring and savoring and savoring a toy she just bought, waiting desperately to
relish it once it gets home. I tried so hard not to look at her big button eyes so I won't lose
the novelty and amazement of their brilliance. I also avoided looking, because a sick part of
me kept telling me I might have to bash her head into pulp if I turned around and saw not a
5-year old girl but a demonic entity smiling its damned smile, or an alien with green slimy
tentacles erupting from it.

"I will adopt a child, a girl someday," I used to quip some years earlier, but mostly only to emphasise
on how different I was from other people my age. That statement which quickly became a
fetishistic obsession with highlighting my humanitarian merits would lose its glamour when I
actually directed my attention to the hypothetical child in question. So I never thought about
it that much, and now I almost did not know what to do about this child who was clearly
pacifying her new, out of control mother....with chocolate!?

Mother!
Oh God!

I pulled on the cap on my hoodie and decided to continue the rest of the journey peaceably.

"We're there. Is there some byway you want me to drive you through, ma'am?" The cabbie, I noticed
for the first time, was actually wearing a police cap. Sheesh, the pretension. His eyes crinkled
as he smiled at us. I handed him the fare. Wearing my duffel and then helping Maylene put
on her backpack; her hands clean despite having finished chocolate just moments ago. Why
couldn’t you be a normal kid and smear your whole hands and face with chocolate? You just
had a gigantic piece of chocolate bar.

We got off and started walking the road in an unsure direction, hand in unsure hand. It was a new
house for me, too, but I wasn't very concerned about that. Right now, both of us, I figured,
needed food.

"Will my bedroom be very far away from yours, Mama?"

"Um, how about you sleep with me the first few days, hmm?"

I kind of felt a little better walked aimlessly the rest of the day, hands swinging, only stopping
wherever there was any yummy street food, skipping puddles, and walking down where we
had no business being, or were sure our house wouldn't be in. Maybe it was the new town
that did it. One thing was for sure, I was no longer confused

For a while, anyway..