trauma does not exist part 5

Bedtime came early in that household. but that was as it should be. children need their sleep and adults need their peace.

I imagine she put up a fight each evening. toddlers do even when you can plainly see they’re tired. but they fuss and fight and refuse until you’re pushed to your brink and drag them there kicking and screaming. the difference here is she wasn’t your average toddler. she was docile. compliant. she did as she was told. shouldn’t her nightly rebellions have been a sign that something was terribly wrong. oh well. kids these days.

was she scared to go to bed at night? is that why she fought sleep so hard? she didn’t like the monsters under the bed, or at her door. she was scared of her dreams, her nightmares, and the other inexplicable things that happened in the night.

or was she ready for it. when she trudged off to bed, did she do so with a kind of stiff upper lip. was there even then in that tiny body a certain resignation of the will. because she already knew it would happen and she could do nothing to stop it and nor would anyone else.

questions linger. was it every night, or just a chosen few. how did he choose those few. did she do anything to inspire those nocturnal visits. or was being small and existing enough.

did she tell anyone. perhaps. but the odds were stacked against her. no one believes children. we only half pay attention to their babbling nonsense. children live in a world of their own magical design and so they will often say the strangest things. she would have been no different. a bit precocious, perhaps, but nothing that couldn’t be explained away by her having caught a glimpse of mature television content and interspersing her tales with what she saw.

besides, she was far from a reliable narrator. she spoke frequently of an imaginary friend. she can often be heard prattling away at this Terry teaching her (or him?) this and that. reprimanding Terry in the tones that were most familiar to her. caustic, hurting words that she yearned to visit upon someone else the way they were visited upon her. because no one so low existed, she had had to invent an inferior upon whom she could exercise that small bit of meanness.

a happy little girl is what they want to remember. all these decades later, she finds herself at a distinct disadvantage. we recall so little of those early years. that means they get to craft the story, they get to make the memories, they get to fabricate Truth. what you remember is not even addendum. it is worse. it is childhood fancy, rainbow-hued smoke and air and other weightless things. you are not to be believed, then or now. and so you learn not to believe yourself. then or now.