The Oracle’s Tale - Part 3

(Beep. Music fades in).

I’m so tired. But at this point, I wear exhaustion like a second skin. In fact, it fits me better than my actual skin. It’s just gotten to that point. The point where I might not technically be broken, but I feel broken. And I don't know what the difference is. Perception is a powerful thing. An untold power. Or a power we like to remain blissfully ignorant of.

(Pause). Is this helping? Is any of this helping? I don’t know. Can anyone hear me?”

(Music fades out. Beep. New music fades in)

Mom would drag me to church a lot as a kid. But now that I'm an adult who lives on my own, her power over me still lingers. Seriously she can’t make me, but I still go. And I still go through the motions like an ardent believer. I still know all the prayers and the more common hymns.

I even know some bible passages off the top of my head. Not verbatim but kind of close. Like there’s this one passage in chapter four of Luke’s gospel that I remember because it felt relevant, for lack of a better word. At this point in the gospel, Jesus is standing in the Synagogue, and he is saying a bunch of things and one of them was that a prophet will never be accepted in their native lands. Now, I’m paraphrasing wildly but not out of disrespect. This is just what my brain has turned that passage into. Reduced it to through obsession. It’s like when you say a word a bunch of times and suddenly it doesn’t feel like a word anymore.

That passage hit so close to home that I couldn’t help but pick it apart until I was left with this vague scrap of all that was. Now, sure, I’m not a prophet, but I’m not normal, either. That’s hard enough, but as I was starting to realize this, I was being torn into two different directions. I was the granddaughter of an ardent believer but the daughter of a proud skeptic. And I didn’t know what I needed to believe. Or who I wanted to believe.

I just knew I had to talk to him.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

In terms of starting this conversation, some of the groundwork had already been laid out for me. My teacher’s asthma attack had become public knowledge out of necessity, which in hindsight might not have really helped my case.

It might have only helped by saving me time. With her already knowing, I could cut straight to the chase and I did. I told my mom about the dream, about the word lungs being screamed at me over and over again, and how I wandered into her classroom at just the right moment. It felt like the whole story took forever, but really, it couldn’t have been more than a minute or so. I was just so scared. I, I wanted it to be over.

And then it wasn't. At first, my mom said nothing. She only stared at me. I imagine she was debating whether to cry or smack me. And as a third option, she could have always called her father and berated him for filling my head with these ideas. None of that would have really helped me, but I don’t think that was her point.

From what I could gather from her expression and her well-established opinions, she was leaning towards her third option only to remember how long it had been since I’d last seen him and how turned off I had been from his tales. Those calculations might have worked in my favor, somewhat. That’s just speculation, though.

At this point, I thought she was going to ask me to repeat myself, but she didn't. I thought she might strike me, and knowing her, she might have considered it.

Instead, she stood up and walked towards the kitchen counter.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

“I have an idea,” Mom said. “I’m going to write a series of five numbers on this paper and hide it in my bedroom, if you can tell me what the five numbers are, we’ll go see your grandpa. But if you can’t. Well, then you clearly aren't psychic, right?”

Without waiting for me to agree, she took her scrap of paper and went about hiding it. There was no attempt to comfort me or help me deal with the intense weight I clearly thought I was under. And while that’s not great, this has always been our dynamic. I’d learned how to cope by then.

(Music fades out. Beep. New music fades in)

Can I toss something out there? I mean, I’ve done that a lot, but I can’t help it. Do you think there are other people like me out there? I don’t really care how loose of a definition you want to use in that context, but do you think there’s anyone else who sees things they aren’t meant to see and hear things they aren’t meant to hear?

I don’t think any of the public psychics are real largely because I don’t understand how they wouldn’t be running from this. Why isn’t that your first reaction? Why are you not panicking? You are getting thrown into hundreds of fights that aren’t yours and maybe can’t be won. I mean, I can’t even handle my own life. How are they able to handle everyone else’s? I don’t understand. I can’t understand.

(Pause)

Was Pythia faking it, you think? Or did she not have a choice? I mean, I don’t have a choice. Hence all the other choices I have made since then.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

I did dream that night, but I didn’t see five numbers. Only the question. “Are you stupid?” Over and over again in a silent but very real scream.  Louder than anything that had come before.

The next day, I woke up entirely on my own accord and walked into the kitchen where my mother stood at the stove over a pan of eggs. No one else was up yet, but with that window of tranquility being very short and fleeting, she diligently worked to make the most of it with an uncharacteristically frantic energy.

And so, my question was far from appreciated.

“Why did you call me stupid?” I asked loudly, though I didn’t understand why I was phrasing it that way.

At that, my mom whipped her head around. Her messy hair bounced as she went while the rest of the world came to a halt. Panic filled her eyes. Her chest heaved as her heart strained to go on beating despite the vice I was holding it in.

Because, yes, that’s what she had written. Out of anger and frustration that she couldn’t escape her father’s delusions and that they were engulfing her child and provoking this child to utter truly disgusting lies, she wrote that down. Frustration led her to write that question onto that scrap of paper that was supposedly bearing a string of numbers. And many would have considered that a cruel betrayal of my trust. But I was never meant to see it. And she quickly came to her senses moments after leaving the room.

So instead of hiding it, she ripped the paper to shreds, confident I would never bring it up. After all, this wasn’t real, and there would be no scrap of paper for me to find if I wanted to keep pretending. But to be sure, she flushed the pieces she created down the toilet, eliminating the last bits of evidence there was.

So why was I bringing it up again?

(Music fades out. Beep.)