“Closely observing my curious behavior is a woman with piercing, green eyes and long, frizzy hair. Her pale hands tap rhythmically on a blank, white notepad. She asks me to share my thoughts even though she knows I won’t.”
As I sit on the dull gray chair, the distant drone of an old AC stops every so often. Just beyond the small, barred window is a cat that scavenges on the littered pavement. Staring at the glossy tile floor, the blurry reflection of deja vu stares back at me. I look away. Closely observing my curious behavior is a woman with piercing, green eyes and long, frizzy hair. Her pale hands tap rhythmically on a blank, white notepad. She asks me to share my thoughts even though she knows I won’t. I can’t. I look down. Down to the secluded darkness that isolates me from the rest of reality. The girl. The sweet, innocent girl who was taken away from me. The girl with the small, doughy hands, hopelessly crying for help. Papa, Papa. Over and over again. Papa, Papa. But time has run out. Now, the woman with the pale hands comforts me. She tells me that I’m different, that it wasn’t my fault. That I couldn’t control what happened to the girl. Papa, Papa. The woman gives me a picture. A man. I recognize him. Papa, Papa. I hear the girl shouting my name, but I can’t do anything. This man in the picture, he killed her. Who is he? Who is the man who took the girl with the small, doughy hands away from me?
“You.”
