4. Ring

1971, Miami, Everglades

When Steven was in the fourth grade, his parents suddenly started locking themselves in the kitchen and discussing something in half-whispers. In the evenings, the boy tried to eavesdrop on their conversations, but he could only catch snippets of phrases:

– ...He might hate us for this. How do you think he will take it? – his mother would say.

– Stop talking nonsense, – his father would get irritated.

At some point, Steven grew tired of listening and would fall asleep, while frightening and anxious images formed in the recesses of his mind. Memory would vividly recall moments when his father promised to send him to a children's home or boarding school. "How will he take it?" – his mother's worried voice would reach him.

Months passed, and Steven noticed that his mother was gaining weight. An adult would immediately understand that a woman is pregnant, but in their home, just like in most American families, discussing childbirth was not common. To be precise, in the Miller family, as in many other American families, no questions were particularly discussed, especially with a child. Lauren never talked with her son, only asked or ordered. The idea of telling a fairy tale or just chatting about trivial things seemed unreal. A child is an unreasonable creature; communicating with him as an adult is like reasoning with a dog, hoping for an answer. Any complex or uncomfortable topics were simply avoided. If the boy ever asked an awkward question, he would usually be sent to his room.

A few weeks before the expected due date, the gynecologist strongly recommended Lauren to go on bed rest, leaving Daniel and Steven almost alone for a whole month. This fact worried both of them.

On Miller Senior's daughter's birthday, he invited friends over. What started as a celebration of the new addition to the family gradually turned into binge drinking with short breaks for work. Steven diligently went to school and then tried to hang out late in the courtyards. In general, he hoped that Daniel would forget about his existence. This was happening until one of the friends reminded the father about the boy, and then demonstrative diary checks with a stern poking of the son's nose into the filled pages were arranged.

Loren returned with a newborn daughter wrapped in a pink swaddling envelope. At home, she was met by a haggard and long-unwashed Steven in a school uniform permeated with cigarette smoke. The woman decided that this smell stuck to him because of her husband's friends, who smoked one cigarette after another without leaving the kitchen or opening the windows. However, a little later, she began finding empty cigarette packs in the son's backpack and jacket pockets. Who at ten years old wasn't indulging in cigarettes? At this age, they didn't start smoking fully; usually, it was limited to collected cigarette butts in the yard. Where did the child get money for cigarettes?

Several times Loren gave her son a hard time about smoking, but it never yielded the desired result. Steven promised to quit, went for a walk, and returned in clothes reeking of cheap cigarettes.

The woman had no choice but to accept it. After all, it wasn't such a terrible sin. Lauren had plenty to keep her busy. Now she had her long-awaited daughter, whom she intended to dedicate her life to. In Cathy, she saw herself, finally deciding to become a real mother. When they brought the tiny girl, weighing three kilograms, for her first feeding, Lauren's eyes sparkled with tears. She intended to raise little Cathy not at all like she had been raised in the village. Suddenly, she wanted her daughter never to hear from anyone that a girl's sole purpose in life was a successful marriage. It was different with her son. In Steven, the woman invariably saw the husband she had never loved. He didn't become a desired or, on the contrary, accidental child - he was conceived simply because it was necessary and expected.

Steven, it seemed, didn't notice the arrival of little Cathy at all. Several times he approached his mother to look at his sister, but at that moment, the girl needed her diapers changed, and in the presence of the boy, Lauren didn't want to do that. She always tried to get her son out of the room. After a couple of such attempts, Steven understood: his mother didn't want him to interact with the baby unnecessarily, and from then on, he tried to avoid her.

He didn't intend to be jealous of his sister to their parents, nor did he try to smother her at night or "accidentally" drop her when taking her out of the stroller after a walk. It's unknown where Lauren got such thoughts, but she was sure that her son would try to kill the girl. Steven, on the other hand, was more concerned about his own life and personal problems. He worried about the pimples on his face, the lack of friends, and any kind of respect from his classmates. The arrival of his sister was the last thing on his mind. This event was like something you see on a movie screen.

From Steven Miller's testimony:

We had a good relationship. She was much younger than me, so we never really talked much, but the relationship was always smooth and calm. My parents didn't demand that I spend time with her, and I didn't, but if something was needed, I would do it.

Meanwhile, Lauren was convinced that something terrible was about to happen with her son, much worse than a couple of smoked cigarettes. And soon she got her answer. A couple of weeks before her husband's payday, the woman once again planned to pawn her favorite ring to make ends meet until then, but she couldn't find it. For an hour straight, she frantically searched the apartment, often peeking into her son's room. Steven sat at the table diligently doing his math homework. Every time she burst into the kids' room, she noticed some new things that she didn't remember buying. A horse figurine, a new book, and other little things – she would never give money for any of that to her son. Eventually, Lauren put two and two together and realized who took the jewelry.

Like a fury, she stormed into his room, grabbed him by the shoulders, and started shaking him, accusing him of theft and shouting insults.

"Did you steal from your mother?! Your own mother? What are we going to do now? What did you spend the money on? Tell me!"

The son tried to defend himself and denied his guilt, but it was all in vain. Lauren, exhausted from caring for her newborn daughter, from financial troubles, and from irritation towards her husband, unleashed all the accumulated negativity on her son. For the first time in his life. Steven might have expected something like this from his father, but not from his mother, not from his mother, not from...

Mother did not immediately notice that he was convulsing and unresponsive to external stimuli. Out of inertia, she delivered another slap to her son, but as she withdrew her hand, she was horrified. A sharp tremor ran through the child's body, his gaze froze, and his hands remained bent over his head, as if in the game "Sea Rages One," when the command "freeze" was given. The mother tried to lower her son's convulsed hands, but they wouldn't bend. It seemed like all the muscles in the boy's body decided to tense up and freeze forever.

After about twenty minutes, Steven's convulsions stopped, but the stupor remained. He continued sitting on the chair with his hands raised and bent at the elbows, and his eyes seemed monstrously empty. Lauren herself was paralyzed with fear. At first, she thought he was pretending, but two hours passed, and the boy still hadn't moved. The woman looked into her son's glazed eyes and suddenly realized that he could remain frozen like this forever.

He remained in this horrifying state for several hours, which Eugen Bleuler and Emil Kraepelin called catatonic stupor. The mother attacked her son so suddenly that his body interpreted it as a signal for immediate action and... activated absolutely all muscles. Every cell in his body was seized by convulsions, and his brain preferred to hide the reality from the boy, deeming it too terrifying to perceive. The child's consciousness was trapped in his own thoughts. For several hours, he was left alone with his fears, with no chance of escaping this trap, repeatedly experiencing the darkest nightmares. Instantly, Steven's brain materialized all his hidden fantasies, with each subsequent one being more dreadful than the last.

Would you like to find yourself in a room where wishes are instantly fulfilled? With just one condition: all your wishes come true. Every single one. Have you ever, in a fit of anger, wished for the death of your loved ones? Not even once? Or for your apartment to burn down completely? Or for your children never to be born? In the immortal works of the Strugatsky brothers, such a room turned into the most terrifying torture chamber. A similar depiction of hell is presented by Orwell in his novel "1984," describing Room 101. There is no greater curse than being left alone with oneself, trapped in a web of one's own fantasies intertwined with fears.

In the classic variant, catatonic stupor can last up to several days. The patient can freeze anywhere and in the most uncomfortable position. Even a very strong person is unlikely to be able to change the position of someone in a state of catatonia - to lower raised arms or legs. Rather, their bones will be broken than their muscles relaxed. If the frozen person is laid on a bed, they will remain in the same pose as they were standing, meaning their head will remain suspended, a few centimeters above the mattress - the so-called air pillow syndrome. If a healthy person tries to perform this trick, their neck will start to hurt after just a few minutes. According to some data, this condition can occur with epilepsy and cranial-brain injuries, but the most likely causes of stupor are schizophrenia and schizoid (schizotypal) personality disorder.

Lauren was on the verge of hysteria when her husband returned. Upon learning what had happened, the man heavily sank into a chair and informed her that he had taken the jewelry to the pawnshop a week ago.

"So, all the money should be in one place, you simply can't trust anything to anyone. You could have killed our son over your trinkets," the man said calmly, smoothing out the tablecloth.

It wasn't until midnight that Steven woke up. At first, his eyelids started twitching, then gradually his facial expressions returned. The boy suddenly lowered his hands and began looking around. His body ached as if he had just run a marathon, and then did a hundred push-ups.

"I didn't take your ring," he said quietly and without any emotion when he saw his mother.

Lauren nodded and went to her room. She couldn't find anything to say to her son.