A Life to Live and a Name To Be Called By

Chapter 1

Aurora had been given two things as she came into this world: a life to live and a name to be called by. The woman wanted nothing to do with her. The man also wasn't particularly fond of her when he first saw her disfigured face—the face of a newborn who knows what's waiting for it—but he had a feeling she might come in handy. So he ordered the woman to bring her into their hostile home and take care of her until the girl would be old enough to take care of herself. Reluctantly, the woman complied.

Time went by, and the baby turned three. By then, she was old enough to comprehend her misfortune, yet too young to understand the meaning of life, and, more importantly, the meaning of death. Little Aurora was scared all the time, but there was no one to hold her, to stroke her black silky hair, to kiss her, to comfort her and tell her it's all going to be alright. As long as she kept quiet, they didn't bother her too much. The few times she dared to cry, though, had cost her gravely: her food and her one-eyed, one-legged miserable-looking, stained teddy bear. After that horrendous experience, she promised to never cry again or ask for anything as long as they let her keep her Teddy. Even the hunger hadn't bothered her so much when her Teddy wasn't by her side. He was all she had in this world and she couldn't fall asleep without him. When Teddy was away, the complete darkness in her room would take the form of evil monsters, of invisible claws only waiting for her to close her eyes so they could cut her open. But when Teddy was there, lying beside her on the big ripped pillow on the floor and sharing the blanket with her, the darkness was her friend again; its soft layers of blackness stroking her young face, carrying the singing wind and the tenderness of the smiling moon from the open barred window and wiping away the mute secret tears coming out of her eyes. With Teddy, she could see how beautiful the darkness really was; how it swallowed all the noises of the day, all the screaming; how clean everything looked when it was dark, how kind and quiet. Sometimes, she would hold Teddy real tight and ask the darkness, the nice darkness, to take her with him. As far away as possible from this place, from these people.

The house was always dirty, she was always dirty, and she needed it to be clean; she needed to be clean, so badly. Indifference was the answer. Indifference meant survival. That much she knew. It wasn't easy, though. During those long hours, in which she had been sitting somewhere inside the closed small county-side house, hearing them scream at each other, or on the front porch, or even on the dry, yellow grass which stretched from the wooden porch to the steel barred gate, she would practice. She would stare at the filthy soles of her feet and the unattended nails, which made her seem like a small animal rather than the little toddler that she was. She would stare at the junk-covered floor of her room, which was actually their storage room; she would stare at the piles of old newspapers which were scattered on the dusty wall-to-wall brown carpet covering the floor of the small living room; she would stare at the television set, with its sellotaped antennas; she would stare at the peeling yellowish flower-patterned tappet, at the empty bottles of whiskey and beer on the crooked table, at the always full ashtray, and close her eyes. Then, she would concentrate very hard and try to turn them all into nothing in her head. The first stage was to stare at them until they stopped making any sense to her; until they turned into a blurry mixture of images and colors. Then, with a blink of the eye, they would be gone, just like that. Only then, when she was surrounded by beautiful nothingness, could she fill it with trees, flowers, blossoms of all possible colors, skies, birds, sunshine, shimmering flying lights and kind hands, not the evil claws from her nightmares. Hands that would lead her through the house; hands that would follow the exact path of the soft rays of sunlight which somehow managed to penetrate through the closed shutters, guiding her to the locked window, to the open world, waiting for her, outside.

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Little Aurora’s training had payed off. She was indifferent when the man stamped his big feet; she was indifferent to his shouts, to his threats to kill the woman, to the woman's screams and cries, to seeing the woman being shoved against the kitchen table or wall, over and over again; she was indifferent to the blood streaming down the woman's face, to the dishes which would sometimes be thrown onto the floor, right beside her.

Little Aurora was like a ghost. She had become so good at staring soundlessly at the nothingness she had created, the man and the woman would sometimes forget she was even there. Luckily for her, the man had taken all of his anger out on the woman, but he never laid a hand on Aurora. Neither of them did. She had been spared, for some reason. Although Aurora hated the woman, hated them both, she didn't like seeing the man hit her. Somewhere, deep inside, she felt something that resembled empathy towards the woman; the same woman who had wanted nothing to do with her; the same woman who had told her how much she loathed her when it was just the two of them, blaming Aurora for binding her in an eternal bondage to the man, whom she hated even more than she hated her own daughter.

Not a day went by in which the woman hadn't emitted grunts and snorts, complaining about the hassle involved in caring for such a spoiled, evil girl like Aurora. Not wanting to be in any future debt towards the bitter woman, Aurora had tried her best to grow up as quickly as possible. She wasn't even two years old when she had potty-trained herself after reluctantly observing the man and the woman in the bathroom—they never bothered to close the door. She had no other choice—it was either teaching herself how to use the little plastic toilet in the bathroom or being punished by not having her diapers changed for hours on end, her own stench unbearable to smell.

At the age of three, Aurora started to dress herself, all on her own. She also learned to brush her teeth. She saw it on some commercial in the television—she was peeking at it from under the kitchen table as the two of them sat on the sofa with their cigarettes, watching their shows.

At the age of four, Aurora learned how to wash herself. She had been given permission to wash herself daily as long as she showered in less than five minutes. The thrusting of shoes against the closed door of the bathroom had been the man's subtle way to remind her that shower time was over. He was the one who had to pay the fucking water bills, he called from the sofa, his usual post-workday place. Aurora didn't mind the short shower, though; at least she could now wash herself on a daily basis. That was progress. Before that, when the woman had been in charge, she usually washed her only once in two weeks, and it was very hard staying clean in this house. As far as Aurora could tell, it had never been cleaned.

At the age of five, Aurora learned how to speak. She could understand everything the man and the woman said as early as the age of three or so, but she didn't dare to speak with them. Other than them, there was no one else around, so she never spoke. The first word she had ever learned was “bitch.” This was followed by “fuck” and “whore.” The words “Daddy” and “Mommy” had never been heard in this cursed house, nor did the word “love.” But, somehow, Aurora knew that the words she had thus far heard were bad, were evil. She had known it long before she could fully understand their meaning. She didn't want to hear these words; she didn't want to say them out loud.

The house, which she refused to call her own, was orphaned from books, toys, and games. All there was, were old newspapers, scattered crossword puzzle books, and a television set. Thanks to the television set, the “words and pictures emitter,” Aurora could expand her vocabulary dramatically. Words like “deal,” “best price,” “shop,” and “enjoy,” had become very familiar to her. Every day, she learned new words and these new words, enabled her to classify all of her thoughts and give each image, each notion, each feeling, their own name. At night, she would name in her heart all the good names she had learned thus far, so she won't forget. She would think about the dark skies, silently naming them “high sleep.” She would think about the faraway stars, which had received the name “gold high.” Aurora's moon was “white balloon” and her teddy was “Arturo” or “friend.” But her secret language had been hiding inside of her, never daring to leave her mouth. She didn’t want them to tarnish it. She needed this language to remain all hers, to remain pure and clean. Time and time again, Aurora heard the man and the woman as they mocked her, saying how stupid and slow she was; how she was a useless piece of shit that doesn’t understand a single thing. When they weren't looking, she would allow herself to smile determinedly, reminding herself how important it was for them to continue thinking this way. Her survival relied on her ability to deceit. 

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