Letters From the Past

I need to get this down before my next and last treatment. I'm a nineteen year old male, my name doesn't matter. I'm writing this down only as a reminder to myself, so if I'm reading this, it's because I've lost my mind.

I've spent most of my life with a physiological problem, 'or so it seemed.' I was born during the last world war, and remember, as a child, playing in the rubble of bombed out houses. It must have been about the late forties or early fifties, maybe. I remember telling a friend that I'd found something exciting, and that I needed his help to get it out. He came with me, but we still couldn't move it because it was just too big and too heavy for us. So he had the idea of going home to get his mum and dad to come and help us. They only had a quick look at it, but they told us to move away and not to touch it.

Other people turned up and took over, next thing I know soldiers had turned up and tried to move everybody well out of the way. There were lots of other people who were also interested in what was going on down their street, and came to see.

I remember my older sister saying she didn't care what the soldiers said. She was going to see what it was all about, and ran out of our house with me chasing behind her. When I eventually got to the end of the street, there were a lot of other people just standing around watching the soldiers.

There was a flash, then a big bang, I was blown off my feet and landed against the wall behind me. I hurt all over, and when I stood up, everybody else had all gone. I remember the silence, the smoke, then the world seem to explode in sound.

First it was just the sound of a baby crying, it sounded like it was so far away. Then came the screams for help, and the shouts from people running towards the smoke and devastation. I couldn't understand where all the buildings had gone. I shouted for my mum and dad, I wanted to ask them why every thing was so flat now. When they didn't answer, I called for my sister, but she didn't answer either, so I started out to look for them.

I'd found, what I thought looked like my sister's dress, but her dress didn't have any red it it just yellow and white spots. I quickly dismissed it because this was a red one with dots when I picked it up.

That's when I saw her, her face laying on the ground among some rubble, I ran toward her to see if she was okay. Someone beat me to her, picked her up then dropped her. Someone screamed, they wouldn't stop screaming, I watched her head rolling down the brick rubble and across the pavement and ending in the gutter.

I fought against people trying to take my sister's head out of my hands, I had to make sure she was okay.

After that I don't remember what happened, until I came to in hospital crying for my parents and my sister. I was told by a nurse cleaning the blood off me, that I wouldn't stop screaming and a doctor had to give me something to make me sleep.

Some time later, this man came to see me, he said that he was sorry. But they'd found the bodies of my mother and father under the rubble where I'd found my sister's head. I think I lost it completely then, it just reminded me of my sisters head in my hands.

Doctors again, had to give me something to calm me down, but it didn't work for long. I was then passed from one person to another, trying to get me to talk about what had happened. I ended up in child care, a children's home where I was sent to see yet another doctor.

He was a real old man, he didn't seem to know what to do with me. He just had me laying down, quietly on this couch in his office. I'll never forget that couch, it was broken, or so I thought then because it only had one arm.

It was long and green, a really dark green with light green highlights.

"How are you feeling now," he'd ask me every time I had to go and see him. Even though I hadn't talked to him for such a long time. Often he'd let me fall asleep in his office, and when I woke up, I'd feel a bit better about things in general.

He'd asked me, 'when I first met him,' if he could try something that might help. I nodded and he took out an old looking pocket watch, and let it swing from it's chain in front of me. All I had to do, was to count the number of swings it made and see if I could see what the etched writing said on it. I tried, I really tried, but for some reason I'd just fall asleep again.

A deep and dreamless sleep, I know now, that he'd hypnotized me, and now just said a word that put me under again. Although, I did feel better afterwards, and slept a deep and dreamless sleep. It was just that I'd wake up dribbling down the side of my face, with a stale salty taste in my mouth.

I think I'd been seeing him for about a year, to a year and half maybe, when it all came crashing down around my shoulders. He took a heart attack and died while I was still under in his office, I was told about it when I eventually came around later. About year later, that's when the dreams started, I was about nine or ten years old at the time. They were really weird repetitive dreams too, involving people with purple skin and no faces.

I 'literally' mean, they had no faces, they just had this spitting, toothless opening, where the mouth would have been. Every now and again, after that I just seem to space out, and stare off, and become catatonic.

Because of that, I was then introduced to yet another doctor, who told me that because my last doctor had suffered a heart attack, while I was still under. The effect of that hypnoses, seemed to still be effecting me in some way.

I had to let her hypnotize me too, she said she would try and undo his work. She also said, she needed to find out what my ''trip word, or key word,'' was in order of undoing what he had done.

I found it strange that she would say such a thing, ''What he had done." what had he done? he was only treating me the same she was doing, so why did she make it sound as if he had done something bad. I asked the mother back at the children's home, we called her mother because she was the one in charge of us all.

She gave me a funny look, and said something about him being under suspicion for the way he was treating children. He was a doctor, he was suppose to treat children, wasn't he, I thought.

She didn't say what she meant by it, and I couldn't think of anything bad he could have done, except getting me to feel better for a little while when I woke up. But this hospital doctor, said that I'd have to stay with them for a while. Because I'd had a mental breakdown and I needed to get the proper treatment to get better. She told me that once she'd found out what had been happening to me, I'd be okay, and allowed to go back home.

Apparently, It was so bad, that I had to be sectioned there for a while because of the blackout's and the things I did during them.

All of this was still unknown to me, they wouldn't tell me what things I was did during the blackouts. One moment I was doing one thing, the next, I was else where not knowing how I got there or what I'd done. That's when dreams started up again, only this time they were a lot more graphic in nature.

The older I got, and the more I learned, the more I understood what my dreams were about. The purple, faceless man was still prominent. But it was now joined by other's with busts for eyes, and a slit for their mouth's. As the years past, I'd become accustomed to my dreams, even to a 'limited effect,' the way other people regarded me.

Though that might have more to do with the fact I'd become somewhat of a reclusive, of sorts. It was basically how I spent my teenage years with only one exception. I reacted violently, 'very violently,' if anybody touched my bag. It was the bag I kept with that piece of red cloth of my sister's dress in, they soon learned not to touch it. Other than that, I accepted my condition like an epileptic accepts their condition when they know nothing can be done to stop it.

I was sixteen, when we discovered what phrase that old doctors used, the one that he used to put me under. A friend of mine unwittingly said it once, and I just keeled over, he wouldn't talk to me after that, said I was sick. So I ended up back in hospital I for yet more treatment. It seemed that what ever had been done to me, couldn't be undone, 'changed yes,' but not undone.

I found this out when, at the age of twenty-four, and the day after my wedding, my new wife wanted a divorce. It was the first time I'd ever slept with anyone, she said I woke her up and was doing things to her she didn't want me to do. I denied everything of course, I even told her I couldn't help what I did when I was asleep.

"How can you do things like that when you're asleep," she accused.

I don't know why or how, but some how I knew she was telling me the truth, that I had done something to her. I hadn't told her anything about what had happened to me in the past, when I was younger. She only knew that I was brought up in a children's home, and that's all. I simply packed a small bag of things, and moved out to give us both some space to think.

And think I did, It took me a few days to come around to the idea, it's not exactly like it was something I liked to talking about. It always reminded me of my lost parents and my sister, plus all the problems I'd had since then. It was simply something I really didn't want to talk about, but I needed to let her know everything, 'warts and all.'

It was the best day of my life when she agreed to listen me my tale of woe. I was waiting for her when she got home from work, I made us dinner, then after we just sat and I told her everything.

When I'd finished, I was so certain that she'd just get up, look at me disgustedly, and walk out the door never to seen me again. I was terrified to loose her, I loved her with my heart and soul, I just couldn't stand the thought of loosing her. The look she did give me though, wasn't one of disgust, pity, loathing, hatred, or any of those things.

She had tears in her eyes, I pleaded with her to forgive me, told her I'd never do it again if she didn't leave me. She didn't say anything at first, she was too choked up, she just looked at me with tears rolling down her cheeks. Then she came at me and wrapped her arms around my neck and held me tight.

She held me tighter than I thought she was capable of, and cried on my shoulder.

"I love you... I love you... I love you," she cried against my neck.

I was too over joyed to hear her say she loved me, to realize that I too was also crying. That was the first time since the death of my family that I felt truly loved. It wasn't the same kind of love I'd known from my mum and dad, or even my sister. But it was stronger, deeper and more everlasting, and I returned it all, and more back to her.

I couldn't be any happier, I had a wife that knew everything about me, and still loved and wanted to live with me. I made an appointment with my psychologist and my wife wanted me to take her along too. It was suggested by her, 'the doctor,' that she embeds a safe word in my subconscious under hypnosis. So if I was to bother my wife again, she could say this word and I'd simply stop doing what ever I was doing.

I remember thinking, 'could it be that easy,' If so I was all for it, I looked at my wife and asked her if she'd be happy with that. She was worried about it, wanted to know about it, and if it was safe with everything else I'd been through. The doctor assured us both, that if anything was to go wrong, she'd be able to remove the word so I wouldn't be affected by it any more.

I heartily agreed instantly, "if it would stop me bothering, or hurting my wife, it's worth the risk," I said.

My lovely wife was a little more cautious until I was put under. The word was installed, only the doctor and my wife knew what that was, and then we were sent back home to see if it worked. I can only assume it had worked, my wife never complained again about it, and over time, we became "sexually adventurous." I was in my mid thirties when we had our twin boys, six year's later we had a girl. From the first time I held my little girl in my arms, she reminded me so much of my sister. That I would often have a tears in my eyes whenever I looked at her. My wife, my beautiful wife, 'the little mare,' had me thinking she was going to name our daughter after her mother. I didn't mind one bit, her mother was a very nice lady.

But come the day of the christening, when we were all stood by the font with the priest.

That little, beautiful minx of a wife, told the priest she'd changed her mind, and that she now wanted to name our daughter after my sister. Tears rolled down my face, holding my daughter whilst she was christened and the love I felt in my heart for my wife went beyond mere words.

I wonder in my later years, If I'd remember that day getting home from work, and finding that young girl waiting by the front door for me. The shock I had seeing my sister again, and running to her, hugging her tightly, and crying on her shoulder telling her how much I'd missed her. The only difference between the two was the missing yellow poker dot dress, she'd been wearing the last time I'd had seen her.

Then hearing in my daughter voice, "are you alright daddy," she says making me feel like a fool but loving it anyway. Non the less, I still felt the presence of my sister's soul in the body of my daughter.