viernes, 10 de abril de 2009

Just Playback, Delete and Rewind – Part II


I have seen in so many movies how people watch a little film of their lives just before dying and I have always wondered which parts of my story I would remember.

My mother used to tell me to look at the bright side to whatever problem I would have and give it a smile from ear to ear.

So, if I ever get to die, I think I would bring up my happiest memories. Like when my classmate’s father died, poor girl, but she cannot deny how fun it was!

One of my friends and I went to the funeral and everything; three months later we found her at the mall and he asked her: “Hi, sweetie! It’s been so long! How’s your Dad doing?”

Then, he realizes that he had screwed it all up and trying to rectify his stupidity he continues: “Is the gentleman... still... dead?”

I bet I would remember this stuff; it makes me laugh all the time! Or when I dressed like a woman for the first time and entered to the men’s bathroom at a hospital. Awkward!

Life has its moments; I have to admit that since I told everyone in my family that I was a transvestite, things have been a little bit harder, but here I am, still looking at the bright side.

Everyone in my family thought I was going through some kind of temporary phase when I started playing with dolls; no one said anything bad about me. The same situation happened when I used to paint my toenails, instead of watching violent cartoons. Finally, when I asked for pink make up and a beautiful vermilion dress, my whole family realized how “brain damaged” I was and my father couldn’t wait to kick me out of the house.

The bright side tells me to look at it: I moved in with the coolest cheerleader I have ever met, but the negative events that came out so fast, make me think some crap.

I met her one day at church; this cheerleader asked me if I would like to join the mime group, she said I had lovely eyes, the required body and other hundred compliments. She obviously liked me but the only reason why I accepted her invitation was the free make up!

God loves everyone, He created us all and we should thank Him for letting us live. But why should I praise Him for making me born like this wreckage I am? Nobody has ever told me a good reason to do it or I have not search enough... but that is not the point!

God, I mean, this ghost everyone seems to have heard of at least one time, is not perfect or he did not do his best when he molded the ceramic jar I call my body.

I’m not sure if He exists at all. There are people in Africa starving to death and even His own sons and daughters are being killed when they preach about their Lord around the World, while my pastor’s hoodlum daughter consumes drugs! Why would any deity aloud all of this!?

Could someone reply to this!? I guess not.

Eventually, the cheerleader got to know how I felt about myself, my genre claustrophobia; she knew I was a woman chained inside a guy’s body. At first, she got angry with me because she found it out while she meticulously read my diary, but a few hours later, she sent me an e-mail encouraging me to leave our religion in order to be who I really was and if she would have to go with me, she would do it.

Since that moment, I knew that she was one of those people that you would protect no matter what. I still have that letter and I still weep when I read it.

Inside jokes, restricted chats and thousands of minutes alone taught us new meanings to typical questions. Soon, we became “Cheer” and “Mime”; everyone confused us as a couple and one afternoon she almost kissed me, I wanted to give her a shot but at the end I could not do it and we never try it again.

Anyway, the mime group became a nice place to find some friends; we ordered a pizza after every practice and prepared an excellent performance. We even gave a sneak pick on YouTube and the video got lots of positive reviews from family and people from other churches. We were definitely ready for the great night.

No one foretold that more than three hundred people would come to this Christian activity; we were very enthusiastic because almost of all them wanted to watch us! A mime group had never been that successful before!

However, a manifold choir singed and then our group walked in the scenario. The lights pointed at us, we were all wearing dark maroon pants, azure glowing shirts, carmine ties and golden feather epaulets. I would be lying if I say that I was not nervous at all, but something kept telling me to stop being afraid of be myself and, as my mother would say, I looked at the audience smiling from ear to ear. That was the first time I ever got to use make up without being despised.

The DJ did a hand gesture and played our song, three of the mimes hopped in front of me, drawing gallant lines with their dazzling white gloves. Next, two girls and one boy joined me to form a rock band with invisible instruments, while Cheer pretended to be a groupie who game me an imaginary blowjob for a few seconds. One person or two left the place after that, but most people laughed corruptly. We wanted to shock everyone and we were making it!

I could recognize some mimes from other congregations; they were clearly envying our synchrony and feeling really amazed when they confirmed we were as superb as we were on the Internet.

Finally, Cheer and I danced onto the center of the ring painted on the stage, the music slowed down and we executed some ballet moves. I had never been that happy in my entire life!

We did a remarkable job, every step was specifically positioned and the crowd praised our passion! It is safe to say that none of us did anything to ruin it and that the pastor’s little girl threw our work away all by herself, along with my honor, joy and even part of my identity.

“STOP THIS SATANIC PARTY RIGHT NOW!” she yelled, nobody shouts at Church but the preacher’s daughter, who is seldom here, seemed to be forgiven as she invaded our zone.

“What did you say, miss?” I furiously asked, while everyone in the rows of seats exclaimed dramatic sentences in unison.

“Someone detain this devilish act! I can’t believe my father granted a homosexual in this holy activity!”

“Wait a second! I am not gay!” (This is the truth, because even when all of my neighbours see me as a boy, on the inside i am a girl who likes guys).

“No, you’re worse than that. This young man dresses like a lady! I saw him wearing a tiny skirt, tall heels and unsuitable underwear for his masculine anatomy, just forty minutes ago. He and his female partisan thought they were alone at the girl’s vestry... If it wasn’t for me, everyone in this church would’ve never noticed this sloppy sin. This will teach you to respect me as I deserve” then she stroke a pose to give me a bitchy smirk.

Contrary to my stoop silent reaction, Cheer was not as bewildered as I was, in fact, she slapped the tattletale child! No one in the crowd did anything, she really deserved that.

“HOW DARE YOU TO HIT ME LIKE THAT!?”

“Well, I did it and I am not sorry. Just because you’re rejected from every group that exists in this country, that doesn’t give you the right to divulge someone’s life...” my best friend replied “And yes, Mime doesn’t feels like a man. So, what!? We were going to make it public tonight, but this little hypocrite and drug addict spread the word first. Now, if anyone in those series of steps is going to mess with us because of my friend’s sexuality, you should start with this stray kid and her stupid problems with cocaine and weed”.

These kinds of things are the ones that get my attention, like a giant halt to wonder how God can let one of His sons lost his happiness. There is no god.

My lungs were about to explode, not even the car accident Cheer and I were going to have the next night hurt that much. I could not breathe or talk, the only word that got out of my mouth was “NO”; my eyes were in pain for all the tears I cried, some of my friends were more scared than I was when I crashed the stage trembling. The darkness took me, I was dazed.

The pastor’s daughter ran away and the lights were turned off. Unexpectedly, everyone watching did a standing ovation; they thought everything was part of the show; my life had turned into a play.

The grandest accomplishment I have ever reached and I did not witness it. I wish I could have filmed the whole thing.

“WAKE UP!” Cheer screamed frightened while I was still dizzy, I tried to open my eyes slowly. After some attempts, my view was completely clarified and I remembered everything: my boyfriend found out that I was a guy and when I came home to pack up my things and leave the city, someone knocked me out!

My arms and legs were tied to the chair I was sitting on, my lips were stick with gray tape and there he was. At first, I could not recognize him; maybe I was so freaked out that I focus my attetion on Cheer’s injuries. She was lying in the floor with blood stains all over her clothes; her wheelchair was almost destroyed and completely useless. I heard her whispering my name but everytime she tried to continue with a phrase, the guy would slam her with his baton.

“What the hell are you doing!?” I yelled.

The guy was so fearful that he dropped his metallic expandable stick when I spoke, his pupils were moving weird and his face was marked with inflamed veins. He was wearing a sleeveless perspirated white shirt and dark blue jeans with several parts ripped.

“You’re AWAKE!” he replied as he intermittently smiled and made mad face.

I was not possible; he was in prison, far from my friend and me. After he threw us into the cliff in the car accdident, Cheer knew that I could profit that chance to disappear; the police would think that he had murdered me and my friend would affirm that.

At that moment, our bodies were upside down, her legs were violently stucked against wrinkled metal from the car itself, her brain was overloaded with blood and my head was still reeling, the idea of a new life as a girl seemed to be perfect.

Besides, he was obviously going to have a trial for making us fall there, but his father was obcenely rich and he would have paid anything to take him out of jail. By faking my death, we had found a manner to keep away the man who wanted to kill us, forever or we thought so...

“How did you get to us?” I asked pale.

“Does it matter?” he argued as he picked his weapon and pointed me with it at the distance “Is that so damn important!?”

“I am... I’m sorry, dude...” I answered sobbing.

“Save those false tears, they won’t do any differense now... Or will they erase every memory of me sucking pricks when I was seizured!? It’s too late. Your weeping won’t give me all the time I loose, it won’t return my virginity back and definately won’t revive my sister either...” he said while he was aproching to me.

He was not doing anything unpredictable, we ruined his life and he was going to slay us, especially me, after all, according to the newspapers, internet and people from my old church: I was already dead.

“Any famous last words you’d like to share?” he questioned as he stained my face with my agonizing friend’s blood by pushing his baton against one of my cheeks.

“Yes...” I pointed out defiantly “I’m sorry about your sister, but sooner or later, everyone would discover that the pastor’s DAUGHTER was a drug addict and it’s not my fault that she committed suicide right after the show, she wasn’t strong enough to deal with her problems and I had nothing to do with that. She had issues and you know it… I’m also sorry about your mom; I heard that she suffered a heart attack when she saw your sister hanging inside her room!” I exclaimed scared “I’ve got an advice I’d advise you to take: Everything what you felt that was wrong, is wrong again; killing us will only complicate things even more and you’ll be arrested for second time… You can do better than that. Don’t you believe in God? Don’t you believe in forgiveness? Open your eyes and see what you have become!”

I would never try to convince someone about something using a lie… However, I had to do an exception and it worked… Our kidnapper fell on his knees, crying, claiming for God’s help and regretting all these things that he did to us. But he did not stop there, his temperament increased like flames on gas!

He stood up screaming and beating the furniture, walls and lamps. There were ornaments, dishes and pieces of broken electrical appliances everywhere. As I was tided up to the chair, I let myself crash the ground, so I could grab one of those sharp objects and cut my hindrances!

The preacher’s son was smashing things in the kitchen when I went to check if Cheer was still alive. She had lost big amounts of blood, but if I moved swift, I could take her to the hospital! All I had to be was very careful.

Have you heard of internal displacements which are transmitted to big distances in the shape of waves? They can be of low intensity or they can be devastating. You probably have, must people name them as earthquakes. I call them bad luck and, when I opened the door of the apartment carrying Cheer, I had an accurate dreadful fortune.

The young unhinged man came running to the living room and tripped over one of the suitcases I had left unfinished when he arrived. Quick as flash, I put down my wounded friend and straightaway searched a crystal shard, pitifully, he got up first and tackled me out to the corridor.

“SOMEBODY HELP ME!” I desperately shouted, but nobody appeared.

We were lying down the old wooden floor, fighting, he was on top of me, trying to snatch the piece of broken glass I was holding, and I was making the effort to stab him with it.

“LET ME GO!” I yelled when I got to stick the crystal in his left arm.

The kidnapper had to release me; I almost stumbled attempting to flee, my freedom was shown to me through the oriel window at the end of the path, all I had to do was cover a couple meters and down the stairs at the end!

Cheer! I had to take her with me! But if I went back for her, the pastor’s son would catch me again! Damn… I had to return, climb the three steps I had downed and rescue her.

It was too late, not just for her and not just for me, we where all going to Hell. Mirthfully for the abductor, he achieved to launch us like a rocket through the window, rupturing every glass panel. Our bodies fell swirling, we wanted to slay each other but when we knew both of our lives were going to end, none of us dared to let go the other.

As simple as that, when we experience the anticipation of some specific pain or danger, we tend to do anything to escape or help us fight against it. Some may leave their pride and others their egocentrism, even when that means to become an insignificant ice cube among icebergs. What really matters is to be safe, to feel protected, to have the certainty that someone loves us and will miss us in case that we would vanish from Earth.

A couple minutes earlier I would have compared Jesus to a fairy tale and, by the end of that very second, my soul was contrite and disposed to kneel before Him. I wanted to go to Heaven, I had chosen to believe.

It was time to crash against the ground, to scatter my brains all over the paving and to welcome my fate. But just before that happened, a film began to project inside my head.

Out of nowhere, the happiest memories of my life came up. I remembered my days at school when I was popular, the first time I blew myself a kiss through a mirror with my brand new cherry lipstick, the moment I met Cheer and my performance with the Mime group at church.

My eyes were closed; I was happy and smiling from ear to ear. I had died, but my soul would live forever.