“You’re special,” the mistress of the House had said the first time he came. “Don’t fear. We will help you. We’ll give you all the joy and love and goodness in this world.”
Young Elias, clod in rags, with eyes swollen and bruises all over his tiny body, had been frightened of the fat lovely woman, of the friendly children around him, of the enormous house. Everything had been too horrible. Even in his bed, his first bed, soft, scented and clean, he had been crying, hearing howls and screams, seeing hands hitting him, tasting blood in his mouth. He flinched from touch; he hated people. Those early days, he had been uncontrollable.
“He’s special,” he had often heard people say.
The House had been tenderhearted to him. Little by little, he learned to face, if not forget, the nightmares of his past: the leaking roof of their hovel, his baby sister starving and crying to death, his mother hanging on a tree with a red cord around her neck, his gambler and drunkard father spanking and kicking him. His past had eventually shriveled, leaving his once corroded heart polished, though now and then, the rust inclined to reappear and scatter.
He was forsaken, but the House had taught him society. The smiles of the people, once ugly and too appalling for him, had gently metamorphosed him into a complete human, someone who was loved and capable of loving, not just an empty creature whose soul was trapped in a bottle. He had been grateful. Grateful, too, that the House had sent him to school, to new communities, to the world outside the great gardens and high fences, where loneliness and frustration plagued him again. But he had been healed, he could not let the hurts touch him again.
Then one day, he had suddenly disliked living in the House, sensing things were just too good and charity pitiable. So into the big city he ran off. And incredibly, life had been kinder to him. He got a job, lived in his own apartment, and experienced a love so sweet and true. And he had been more grateful.
Yet, during some friendless nights, when memories lurked and then pranced, tears dampened his pillows. He could not run from his fears, could not lie to his heart. He could not entirely forget the horrors of his childhood. He had forgiven his father, even his helpless mother and the neighbors who had forsaken him. But forgiving is not always forgetting; even after several years, when he had thought he had matured and moved on, the memories still involuntarily churned his heart and mind.
That was why his head had always ached. But God gave him Halie; she had relieved him. She had been his angel, and she had always been there for him. Although recently, he sensed that she had been slowly slipping away from him….
To be continued....
Image courtesy of The Upbeat Dad!
