The Garish Palace Of My Past

It got me young. I was fine before. I was slightly anxious at times, but otherwise fine. I was cherubic and especially vulnerable when it happened, making the assault feel particularly cruel and calculated.

I can picture it in my mind’s eye like a lucid dream. The scene remains more pristine in the palace of my past than it actually was in real time.

It snuck up on me that one sunny afternoon on the small grassy hill. The lengths and ends of my hair lifted gently off my neck as warm winds swept past. The other children chattered around me, clapping their hands in unison as tree branches shook above us, clapping too. Birds chirped. The grass cradled us gently. I was smiling, looking up at the summer sun that winked at me playfully through the branches. At the time, I believed Mother Nature herself smiled sweetly upon us — her little creatures. In hindsight, I realize she was grimacing.

They couldn’t have seen it coming, nor could I. How could I? There was no way I could’ve identified it at such a young age, and the adults didn’t either for quite a long time. 

Disease ravaged my body and mind that day, and then discarded me onto a freezing foreign landscape for years to come. It replicated itself many times over. It started scratching, gnawing away at the perimeter of my brain matter, secreting poison onto my cerebellum that leaked into my cerebrospinal fluid, infecting me entirely. Every crack and orifice was enveloped in it, leaking further still onto every aspect of my existence.

Clouds moved in closer, blocking out the sun. I stiffened, sitting as still as I possibly could, holding my breath. Like prey, I felt it before it struck. 

Quickly, I became feverish. The other children’s voices grew muffled, a low hum drowned out by my racing, irregular heartbeat. I was sweating profusely, yet I felt cold as ice. Reality grew fuzzy. My vision blurred both from dizziness and droplets of sweat that were caught in my lashes. This wasn’t a panic attack - I knew that right away. It was something much more surreal and psychedelic than anything I had previously experienced.

For years after that, I screamed for help. I terrified people around me. They gawked. Some tried to smile curtly and tell me lies. Others looked away out of embarrassment. I clawed at the confines of my nightmarish reality, which was occurring inside of my own person; wailing, begging for relief from a horror that I still struggle to put into words and can barely comprehend to this day.