The colors of a rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are missing on the faces of people going by
They may be shaking hands, sayin’ “how’d you do”
But none of it really means “I love you”

I was born in May, somewhere between the 2nd and the 10th. I can’t exactly tell you when; my parents never thought of keeping a family record. And, I suppose, they must have been really busy after that because it took them two years to just let my grandmother know they had a baby. Exactly five minutes before they left me under her care and fled the city. Or tried...

I never knew if they were stupid, delusional or just high when they decided it – I guess the top three – because, first, you don’t just leave Magdad City. That’s not how things work around here. The high-rise walls surrounding us are there to ensure that fact. The second big issue I have with their decision was my grandmother. She wasn’t the kind of person who had a strong maternal streak - or anything remotely close to what people would call a filial instinct. She already screwed up my father, there was no reason she changed her habits with me. But I won’t throw the first stone here; I mean, I don’t think I am any better in that area myself, so that would be incredibly hypocritical of me if I did. I came to the belief that life had just been unfair with her. And for my parents, I suppose nature was the one to blame.

I don’t keep lots of memories of my time with them; just flashes, here and there, popping-up in my mind sometimes when I am about to fall asleep. Some dark humid room with something warm next to me. A glowing galaxy hologram floating above my head… And the smell of concrete, old wood and cherry syrup, the kind of perfume you get when you burn a fruit candle. On top of those hazes, I only have one clear memory. My mother’s shoes. Some ten year old fancy sandals with worn-out heels. The leather was so damaged you could barely see the original crimson varnish. Next to them, my father’s dark-nailed toes were sticking out of a pair of flip-flops, both facing the pink-but-now-grey fur slippers protecting my grandmother’s fat feet. Obviously, I was on the floor while they were talking, very quickly and quietly. A hush-hush threshold conversation. I couldn’t really hear or understand what they were saying, except this single question from my grandmother, the reason for this memory to stick around:

“When’s the kid’s birthday?”

“He is born the day of the Butterflies Blossom…” answered a sleepy but soft voice. I think it was my mother’s even if I didn’t get what she meant by that. Butterflies don’t blossom… My grandmother didn’t hold back her contemptuous laugh.

For the longest time, I didn’t think much of those words. Just that they were silly. Somewhat poetic, maybe, but overall idiotic. Yet, I ended up being bound to them in ways that the notion of fate became an understatement. Though it took me so long to unravel the essence of that expression, I even think it is ridiculous. Would I have cared a little bit more, things might have been different. Back then, I was certain that it just was an expression of her maternal love, yet growing up, I couldn’t help but deem my parents to be dumber than a box of rocks. Just the fact they believed that stealing from their boss was the best way to bring them a shiny life could have granted them the throne of Moron Town.

Unfortunately, their fame only led them into a wall. Literally. A 130 miles per hour failure. That’s what it takes to waste all your loot on drugs and drive an Arrow Speeder, loaded on shrooms like a stuffed turkey. They wanted to see what was behind the Great Walls… and they ended up passing over to the other side.

Like I said: the brainless top three; unhinged, stupid and high. And what was the end of their story became the beginning of mine.

After that, my grandmother didn’t give a crap about my life. Not that she really cared before either. She let me stay at her place and fed me, not because she wanted too or felt obligated. I think it was more like an involuntary consequence of her hoarding complex. I remember how her apartment was filled to the ceiling with junk. Things that she barely used and just garnered because she couldn’t bring herself to discard it or differentiate what was worth keeping or not.

You wouldn’t believe the things I found while living there. Objects that made no sense to me, even now. And do not have me start with the arrangement. My bedroom had two bunk beds - while my father was a single child - and a freaking unplugged stove in front of the window. But no cupboard or wardrobe… So, since the beds were covered up by cartons of magazines and coupons, I was putting my clothes in the oven...

In the living room, books were piled up on the floor, catching dust and mold, because the library shelves were occupied by those horrid decoration items that people give you when they don’t know your taste but still try to display acceptable social manners. You know: bibelots…

Collectible plates, dolls, snow balls, magnets, crystal trees and other potpourris that force your nose to take sick days every time you attempt to smell them. Weird animals made of seashells, bio-plastic icons of places you will never go and other crap that humans create as mementos when you want to state you did something and want a reward for it. There were also tons of candles and puff pastry photo frames with their sample picture still in it, so honeyed in their design I could have caught diabetes just by looking at it.

I think there even was a miniature model of an Arca spaceship, hidden behind her collection of porcelain chibi dogs wearing hats and clothes…

She had them all. All those useless stuff she collected from the streets or got through telemarketing coupons. Because of course no one really gave them to her, unless they were trying to make a statement. And every day when I would go in the living, I would look at them. The dolls and the freaking porcelain dogs staring at me with their empty eyes, smirking in their miserable existence, because they knew perfectly well that I was no better than them…

I was the masterpiece of a trash collection, with a full room to myself to be in display. A meaningless object in a sea of other insignificant bibelots, on a trial period, waiting to see if one day, I would be put on the shelves with the rest of them or placed with the regular trash.

And the more I was staying in that place, the more I felt that I might not even fit the required criteria for the trash can. Yet, I was maintained to my post, probably because if I had died, the price of my funeral wouldn’t have been worth the riddance. So ignoring me was probably the cheapest and easiest solution.

I was about three years old when it completely occurred to me that I was an eyesore for her. It was just after she made me stop wearing diapers because it burned a hole in her budget. I was sitting in the middle of the living room, watching TV, when I felt the urge to pee. I told my grandmother I needed to go on my pot but couldn’t find it. She didn’t answer and switched the TV to another channel.

I waited next to her, silently, that she finished her show, shaking while the pain started to grow in my belly, trying so much to act like a grown up and not let it go. I was told by my neighbors: “You’re all grown up now. You have to hold on”. So I did. I tried to hold on, and tried, and tried, so hard that tears showed up. Praying deep inside that the show would end quickly, that the urge would vanish if I put my focus on anything else but my bladder.

Sometimes, it works… when you’re lucky. But I wasn’t.

I peed myself, in front of her, bursting into tears. I felt so ashamed, so miserable. And she was fixing the TV post without saying a word or looking at me. She just raised the volume to cover my cries.

But the worst came when the show ended. She stood up, turned the TV and lights off and went to bed, letting me alone in the darkness of the living room. In my child mind, I thought I was grounded. So I stayed there and slept on the floor in my dirty clothes. The next morning, when she woke up, I followed her in the kitchen but stopped at the edge of the entrance. A well tamed animal. I observed her boiling water for her coffee, trying to make myself comfortable in my itching pants. When she finally sat and started to eat, I waited a bit longer before asking her if I was still punished. She stared at me, surprised, and said: “You’re talking to me?”

I will be honest. In a way, she was one of the most interesting psychiatric cases I have ever interacted with in my life. And I met a bunch of cracked pots. She thought her son was a total failure and my mother an airhead whose only achievements were having learned how to tie shoes and giving birth to me. Somehow, I ended up thinking that she should have failed the latter.

Because living with my grandmother – my last living relative – wasn’t only humiliating; it was miserable. She never beat me, she never raised her voice. She just lived her life, like if I was part of the wall, and if I dared to make her notice my presence, she always gave me that look you normally reserve to an overloaded trash bin that you are too lazy to take out. I was a dark spot on her bank book and she couldn’t stand it, as much as I could not stand her.

Therefore, once I finally learned how to use my legs and my brain correctly, I crossed the frame of the entrance door and stepped out of the building, in hope to find an escape out there.