Chapter 21.5: Children's hell

Those 80's musical notes that created echoes of the love between Luz and her mother, lasted long enough for the dark being to capture the melodies filtered through her heart and pour them over all her hairs, like notes on a score.

Why do you think it ever occurred to anyone to sing a lullaby to a baby?

Babies are a summary of their parents' inspiration, just as songs are a synthesis of their creators' inspiration.

No, songs are not entirely human inventions. Without the wind, man would never have begun to create music.

The wind and something in man's soul composed the most beautiful songs mankind will ever hear again.

Those hairs that cover the body of the dark being turn out to be something like the wind. These hairs are the ones that will replace the wind in the impossible dream.

By the way, if this dream hurts me so much, besides being impossible, it must be forbidden.

If I didn't mention this possibility before, it was because I didn't see it coming until now.

She is thinking the worst of her parents having as a musical background the lullaby she always wanted her mother or her father, better both together, to sing to her to dream beautifully.

However, her lullabies were the songs of Guns and Roses, Nirvana, NKOTB, STYX, Hadaway, Paula Abdul, etc.

Now those same melodies were filtered through her heartbeats; that is, the fire dragons absorbed and released the wind trapped in the inspiration of the composers of all of little Luz's lullabies.

Rock, grunge, ballad, techno and rock ballads (among other genres) are mainly feeding the new air for the dream.

What will the dark being gain by offering its hair as new air currents?

Does the winter that is about to arrive not affect it?

Or could it be that Luz's soul is already so frozen that not even the winter can petrify it anymore?

The fact that the dark being has part of what will constitute the great dream; already makes it clear that it is nailed in the soul of our protagonist.

And since this being is the one that will give what will replace the wind, then I must suppose that this same being is the part of Luz's soul that joined with the wind to produce the next most beautiful melody that she does not hear yet, but that lives inside every baby that comes into this world.

Although it is not maintained in everyone over time, the wind is always looking for a way to rid part of its air of the inspiration with which that human being was made and has caged part of itself.

For me, the wind plans to be more than just the gallant protagonist of a novel that has not yet begun.

So, even if Luz cannot do it alone, she will have to be able to because the wind will not come to save her from herself.

Especially now that the dark being has obtained the snapshot of her gaze.

In this new world her gaze is composed of two fireflies that at this very moment take flight directly to the concentric circles that lie on the face of the dark being.

The only thing I can see of the new world with what I would call, not to be too blunt, "Sexual Eye" are transparent shadows just like the ones Luz saw when Alexis' father struggled with her (if you can call it that, it was obvious she didn't stand a chance).

Just water, water; that's exactly what Luz needs, even though she has been medicated, she still has a fever and doesn't seem to show any signs of coming down.

Maybe that is why, in this new world, the shadows will be transparent.

Where does that leave the dark being in the new world?

The shadows are black and represent in this world the god of dreams, or that was the conclusion reached by the 8-year-old Light, who is about to turn 9 years old.

Anyway, as we are inside her mind, everything she believes in is real.

Doesn't an 8 year old girl want to dream anymore?

In any case, this decision to stop dreaming must not have lasted long. It is obvious that she has created a whole world about my pain and the warmth she has been able to absorb from her mother by means of the concentric circles on the body of the dark being.

However, if she can transgress such strict parameters about the creation of worlds, for example: the color of dreams or transforming fairies into zombies; it means that she stopped dreaming a long time ago... SHE HAS LONG SINCE CALCULATED EVERY STEP OF EVERYTHING THAT INTERESTS HER FROM THE OUTSIDE.

Just like a writer, the one who transgresses any parameter for a reason.

It's no longer the heart through feelings, now it's the mind through reason.

"A reasoning is the direction or the path you must follow so that you find the pieces of the goal you want to accomplish, that's what I did."

The father's words resonate as would the words of the lord of the heavens.

These were the first words the father said to his son when he returned home after a year to celebrate the fact that he had secured a piece of land as an inheritance from his mother.

At that moment all little Luz thought was: "The few hours you were here, just like mom, you were just replicating the bad luck of having a trio of women (the mother, Luz and the very little whiny Flavia) so whiny. You got what you wanted away from us and now you are smiling, but I know that when you feel part of this family again, you are going to disown your women again.

How lucky Esteban is to be so innocent and naive. He is as close to mom, as I was, and then he will know as much as I do that it will hurt him, maybe even more than it did me

When he already starts to walk alone, away from us, away from his mother's warmth; he will understand more about this world that makes up stories about itself.

Oh, Esteban, when he grows up he will know that the reasoning of this reality and its variants are made of snow that so thoroughly soaks in....

I bet, Dad, it got to your soul.

Will Esteban be just like you, Dad, when he knows what loneliness is when he gets away from your stalwart women?

I hope that psychology book isn't right."

Luz could see the difference between her mother and her father, even if her father told her that her mother was bad.

Luz's mother was full of warmth and that did not allow her to create any judgment of her own. The worst part was that much of that warmth did not come from herself.

What made her smile the most and her sad eyes the most beautiful were those aromas she could never resist: "Well, hijita, I don't think you'll mind if you just eat a piece of cake. You just play and I need more sweet little warmth, you understand right?"

Luz would have understood if she wasn't, perhaps even better than her mother at the time (and that's already saying a lot), too good at seeing past the smiles and taking good pictures of the looks of everyone around her.

Her mother had taught her a fondness for psychology and the human mind in all its aspects; but it never crossed her mind that her daughter could grasp everything as fast as a state-of-the-art computer (in those days her mother had no idea of the existence of any machine beyond the blender).

An artificial cold and heat (for the most part) mixed those two thoughts (the father's and the mother's).

Of course, that thought of the father was what she heard in a vision while sleeping.

Her mother sees images of her visions in the dream, instead Luz can only hear what those involved in the dream say.

However, before knowing the names of her parents, she had considered that only as a product of the fears of a foolish child, as she considered herself, as she considered all children.

Now things had changed, she considered that dream as an auditory vision. While her mother considered it a harsh reality: Her mother was more concerned about Luz's father's sadness than about her own or her daughters' sadness.

If she made the decision to work while the father was away, it was because Marisa insisted on it in a way that only a true friend does.

Although being able to buy more candy was a big factor in the mother's decision to work.

When Luz saw that inscription on the piano, the echoes of love (or something that wants to become love) made from the concentric circles stop and no longer emit any echoes of love.

All the sparks gather into a single whirlpool and begin to emerge from the black shadow of the dark being. From a yellow (somewhat orange) color it turns to a light blue tone and pulls me back, straight into the dark being.

Believe me it is better to feel cold or hot because feeling both simultaneously results in a half-closed cycle of death.

And the cycle is not supposed to repeat itself?

The whirlpool envelops me and I realize that it forms my cat figure and I go round and round in the process of going backwards.

I feel something hard and heavy, as if I am carrying a dead body. Now there is the echo of that piano gnawing at my strength.

"What are you doing here?

For Christ's sake, what's wrong with you, calm down, calm down now..."

That was the first time Luz lost control of herself.

The housekeeper managed to make the girl Margot's mother go to look for Luz in the kitchen. You see, children love candy, why is that?

However, when Luz arrived she was playing the piano in a horrifying way and that would attract the attention of the lady of the house. She didn't want the girl or her to get in trouble, so she tried to separate Luz's fingers from the keyboard; but the girl gave no sign of hearing anything and didn't look anywhere else but at the inscription on the piano.

The housekeeper out of desperation when she heard the scream of the lady slapped Luz.However, the girl did not react so she slapped her again and this time the girl woke up, but not in the way she would have wished or expected.

"By Christ you looked possessed, my beautiful girl.

Forgive me, please tell your mother to go to the market and that my sister will give her some ointments for free to cover those cat marks I have left on you.

I have no justification, but your eyes looked possessed....

The best thing is for you to go out the door where my little dog Seorgia comes in.

Run girl, run!"

Luz felt her cheek burning, but that was the last thing she cared about when she saw Flavia and Esteban, 6 and 4 years old respectively, playing with colored balls on the grass disguised as harlequins.

She went out the housekeeper's doggy door, but went no further, just sat by the door.

Her brothers did not see her because they were surrounded by other children who were not dressed as harlequins.

Flavia was trying to juggle with the colored balls to impress those little girls with colored pigtails, without any loose hair around and little dresses that she had only seen in the magazines that her mother's sister brought to tempt her sister to buy for her.

The mother always fell for it and Flavia was the happiest of the three because of it.

She and Flavia were alike in the sense that they both wanted to be part of the little society that surrounded them, although Flavia was better at it than Luz.

Esteban didn't need to pretend anything, friends came very easily to him. To maintain the friends was the complicated thing, but Esteban (perhaps he already sensed that the words made him more prone to fall in the insecurity) took another exit, the exit of the children: Soccer.

A group of kids pulled Esteban and he started playing with that group of kids. His brother didn't play well, but the other kids were worse; so it was no big deal.

"In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king."

Anyway, Luz resembled Esteban in the tactic of play as a bridge to socialization, and incidentally also to get home sleepy and sleepy.

Luz and Esteban were a total mess, while Flavia liked order very much. She would complain that she could not stand the mess that Luz and Esteban left in the living room.

Flavia was the one who helped her mother clean up the mess of her other two siblings. The questionable thing for her mother was that she did it on her own.

No one was forcing her. But Flavia hated sports, unlike her two brothers. She was more of a talker than a player.

Luz wanted to go with her brother and the kids, but she felt she was too old for such things. Besides, her brother wanted his space for sure.

She wished she could go back to 4 years old and live out her blissful ignorance through play. Luz saw more happiness in the group that moved their feet than in the group that moved their lips.

Actually, looking at most of the adult attendees (and everywhere she has seen adults); they were just talking and talking, just like Flavia.

In short, Flavia's mind was growing faster than her body.

Luz had already tasted Esteban's way and Flavia's way. Esteban's when she was less than 6 years old and now she was on the path that Flavia was just exploring, that of words.

Suddenly, one of the children throws the ball beyond the wall that surrounds the house like a wall.

"Damn, there lives that witch lady."

The oldest of the children, by about two years, was the most worried because he knew the neighbor beyond the wall very well and was sure they would never see the ball again.

One of the girls laughed at the children's misfortune and approached the oldest of them.

"I can tell my cat to fetch it."

The boy laughed and the rest also continued the teasing.

"What don't you know that cats have claws with which they can poke a ball?

Too many Disney princesses has eaten your brain."

My brother looked at him with wide eyes, Luz was sure he was thinking, "It's not just my father, it's not just in my house, everywhere boys talk bad to girls."

Although that conclusion could be wrong because one of the boys put a head on Esteban when he wanted to approach the older boy.

Simultaneously, the girls who stayed behind with Flavia were pinching her shoulders and neck. Flavia was biting her lip to endure the pain, while admiring the rose-shaped jewel the older girl was wearing around her neck.

Both Flavia and Esteban were too young to know which way to go: the way of words or the way of movement. The best thing, Luz thought, was for her to put an end to these discreet tortures against her siblings.

"You fool, don't you know that Margot's mother is a patron of the child genius who has just been on the news and in the newspaper.

My mom told me and ordered her to build a chip that would work as a patch for balloons or balls. I can put this modern patch on my cat's nail and since she is agile she will fetch your ball.

When your ball hits the ground all the scratches my cat has given to your ball will become replicas of the patch and it will re-inflate.

How did your ignorant eye look?"

The older boy shook his head, but still agreed to let the girl's female cat climb between the wall and the trees.

As she approached the children, Luz felt just like a cat: stealthy and careful when near humans.

Cats could go from roof to roof, they were the only domestic and earthly animals that loved trees as much as she did. Of course, as long as they didn't pay attention to the height or think about possible accidents.

The best thing to do when performing reckless acts or acts that we consider dangerous is not to think more than necessary.

She pulled the ears of a couple of children and picked up her brother who was glassy-eyed, but he wasn't going to cry. Perhaps, now that he was about to turn 5, the age of knowledge was going to infect him like a plague.

The boys gave her dirty looks, but she ignored them and walked over to the group of girls to give two of them a couple of slaps. Flavia, however, did not react as quietly as Esteban.

"What are you doing?

Why are you ruining me?"

Flavia shouted at Luz without looking away from her new friends (or so she thought) asking for forgiveness with her eyes.

"Look at his face, Mila, I think your cat already did his job of leaving a mark, but the patches are still missing."

All the children laughed at Luz and she remembered what had happened in the housekeeper's room.

Luz touches her cheek and the palm of her hand is stained with droplets of blood. She began to hear a chorus of cats out of tune in her head and, before she looked like a demon, she ran off climbing the same tree that the cat crossed the wall surrounding the house.

"Look, she looks just like your cat, a wild one."

Margot was watching next to her mother (as were much of the guests), but she turned away from her to yell at Mila to shut up.

An immense relief and happiness washed over Luz. A little girl was standing up for her. A girl her own age.

"How dare you say she looks like my kitty?

My cat is fine, that one over there is nothing but an alley cat, just like yours."

Luz felt sorry for Mila. If that girl had picked up a helpless little animal from the street, she must not have had such a heart of stone (or rather a diama's heart).

However, if that situation was repeated constantly, she could change her heart from flesh to diamond.

She had a documentary about the treatment of a 9 year old (the age she was going to be at midnight) who suffered from a mental illness that Luz did not remember the name of, but she called it: "Super sadness excess".

The treatment consisted in that the girl was going to feed different animals, that was her responsibility.

As the days, months and years went by, the girl managed to have a special connection with all the animals and she no longer fed them out of obligation, everything was of her own conviction.

Conclusion: Animals cure the super excess of sadness in children.

I would never have been able to watch that video if it weren't for the fact that her very young nanny cares more about taking care of her two little brothers than about her.

Although sometimes she cared more about a certain curly-haired boy and they did the same things she hated her parents doing in front of her and her siblings because they all slept in the same bed.

They were no longer, now she was the babysitter.

Luz's mother had to think more about work than putting away the books, videos and documentaries she watched when it was her break time.

"What's going on here?"

Margot's mother inquired as she approached and saw Luz at the top of the tree.

"No... madam, the child is looking for inspiration in nature, it is always like that, but I assure you that our theater will be a good entertainment..."

Margot's mother ordered Luz's nanny's aunt to take her down and she asked Luz sweetly, but the troubled girl was dumbfounded by the beauty of yet another wall surrounding Margot's house.

There were many children with their pets, dogs and cats, each one with their owners playing and having fun. All accompanied by the warmth of the sun, the coolness of the wind blowing and the shade of the trees to keep out the sun's rays.

"The teacher says that excessive sun rays damage the skin in the long run. Super excess sadness damages the mind and my mom doesn't look happy to always have queque dinner.

Could it be that all excesses are bad?

And if I want an excess of hugs and kisses, is that also harmful?"

Luz climbed down from the tree to reach the grass on the ground, ignoring her nanny's aunt's request.

As soon as she reached the ground she ran like never before, as far as she could remember.

She wanted excess of all that peace and quiet that emanated from the park adjacent to Margot's house, beyond any walls.

As she felt all that freedom, she watched the kitten nimbly climbing from tree to tree.

They are the only land animals that can stop touching the ground and shorten the distance from the sky to them.

Luz was going to imitate her and climb the trees, but there is always an adult who cuts off her childish inspiration.

"Hey, you little girl, stop in the name of Christ."

Luz turned in fright to see the man who had tapped her shoulder. She felt the weight of his oppressive stare, as well as that of the rest of the children who stopped the fun with their pets.

"Keep playing children, there's nothing to see here."

That man was wearing a habit and carrying a brown paperback book in his hands. Luz would rather look at the grass than at him or anyone accusing her of anything inside Margot's house.

How many will dream like a caseta like that?

"Your nanny's aunt asked me to tell you about good manners. I'm going to bless the child Margot, but first I must get a couple of books found in that house."

He points his finger at a huge hut a few yards from here, that must have been "The Witch's House". Luz guessed it because she sees a hairless woman with the child's ball in her hands. She heads towards the huge hut.

"This land belongs to that woman."

Luz was overcome with a certain panic, the tranquility and peace was so short-lived that it seemed like a dream to her. When she looked around, no one was running. The children were sitting or walking thoughtfully, while their pets struggled to draw their attention back to play and joy.

But would it be too late?

"This land was holy ground, but we sold it to a good friend of ours, the girl Margot's mom. Well, we sold half to her because the other half went to a lady who...I don't know her, but I need my books.

Would you like to give me the pleasure, little miss, of accompanying and chatting with this old priest?"

Luz showed him a sad smile without taking her eyes off the trees and let him take her by the hand to go to the cabin.

"And that cabin, has that lady just built it?"

The father shook his head and clutched to his chest the brown book with a cross on the cover that he held in his other hand.

"No, it used to be a church, but the lady has turned it into a hut. I can hardly recognize our church..."

Luz was very struck by the priest's last words.

"Our church?

Isn't church for kids to get their sleepless nights back and not get dark circles under their eyes?"

Luz had only seen church in movies her father watched. There the adults paid attention and the children slept.

Luz surmised that, since sleep is needed for the growth hormone to kick in, the church served to bore the children so they would rather go to the dream world.

For the adults, church serves to... be more adult, or so Luz thought.

She knew very well that with all the problems that can happen in a single house, it is most likely that no child can sleep a wink all night long.

That was her case and she was sure that all families resembled hers.

"What imagination?

But who told you that?

Whoever did is in error, in church a representative of God passes on the word of our Lord to adults, like your parents for example."

The priest had stopped and squatted down to talk in a very serious way with little Luz. What he had said was all an insolence that only happened because she was a child and her imagination was very funny.

"The word of God?

But if nature doesn't speak or does it?

Words are of humans.

Besides it's not God, it's gods."

Luz observed that the father's wrinkles became more pronounced due to his concern for Luz's lack of knowledge about the God of the church.

"No, there is only one God, the father of Christ.

He created all the wonders you see, he created you."

The priest's eyes had a special sparkle that gave him life, he adored convincing atheists to believe in God.

"No, I was created by my dad and mom. They were created by the sky, the sky sent the seeds of life, those transparent droplets, to the earth and this together with the wind made magic.

Well, actually, it's a longer story; but adults don't believe me, only I believe it and that's why it works for me.

You are believed by many and that's why your story is world famous, isn't it?"

The priest opened his eyes wide and squeezed his bible even tighter so as not to lose his patience with a little girl.

Luz never understood why the teachers insisted that world history, the history of the nation or that book called the Bible should be taken as true.

Why that should be more true than their stories about the origins of certain issues and things around them.

Her father always told her that one should not believe in anyone or anything, especially if she have not grasped it with any of her senses.

Once a parishioner knocked on the door of the house to speak to the father of God, but he was too angry at that moment because the mother did not look very happy with her birthday cake.

"Because you are not going to screw up the life of a person who is lazy. I work, I am not a criminal, nor a drug addict or alcoholic who is in need of salvation.

Also, I'm not stupid, the only thing you see in me is a bank, but I'm not stupid.

I believe in what I see, hear, touch and feel here and now.

The only time that matters to me is the time I create for myself.

God does not take money, God gives you the tools to get the money or whatever you want to get.

Nature is God because it gives me food"

A second later, the father spit a piece of the apple he was eating in the parishioner's face to, according to him, try to calm down.

Although the truth is that that day, after he closed the door in the face of the parishioners, he did not continue to have much patience (sorry if I am not so exact, but the violent scenes increase my discomfort when narrating).

"That story is not just any story, it is the Bible, it was written by the apostles of Christ, the son of God.

The Bible is the only truth and you must accept it, but it is not your fault.

Are your parents atheists?

The teacher had made them read and summarize the Bible starting this year and Luz had understood enough of that book to know that what it said there was not the truth that she wanted to believe.

"Am I to consider it true that Eva was to blame for us being expelled from paradise?

Do I have to believe that a brother hit another brother for an ugly feeling?

Am I to believe that only men can make their mark on the world?

Do I have to believe that all women are like my mother?

Am I to believe that all men are like my father?

Since she couldn't give her opinion in the religion teacher's class, she could at least talk to this stranger who wasn't going to report her to the administration because of her big mouth.

"Enough is enough, my girl..."

Luz groaned a little when the priest touched her cheeks with the palms of his hands.

"Who did that to you?

You have to walk faster

The priest gave Luz her book and carried her to the cabin.

"It's just a couple of scratches, but it won't leave a mark.

Pray to God to forgive you for your foolishness and your lack of faith..."

Luz wasn't paying attention to him, she just wanted to see if that book was another volume of the Bible. I hoped that it would have different drawings than those of the volumes of the Bible that were in school.

And no, in that Bible there were no pictures, they were just words. Then he thought:

"That's what priests do, to talk, talk and talk.

The church should be paradise for adults, but for children there is only abounding sleep product of sadness for what lives around.

The church is hell for children."

The priest had the same eyes as her father and the same look, dazed, calculating and attentive, very attentive to seem sweet, serious or neutral.

Each look has its moment and is aimed at a type of person.

For children they were sweet words.

And, like Luz's father, the priest talked, talked, and always talked about the same topics.

The word of God, now that she had found a photo of this priest with other colleagues, seemed to Luz like the echo of a childhood nightmare.