The Void

A short departure from my usual fare . . .

In that vague space between consciousness and sleep, disjointed images once slipped in and out of my mind's eye like old carousel slides, whitewashed and spotted from exposure. Each lingered only a moment before morphing into the next, as I spiraled backward in time. Back to the days when my hair was blonde and baby fine, turned-up nose a spot of clay on my face, toddler legs exploring the art of balance. Still smaller I shrank, to the size of a speck, floating in a void as black and empty as space, where I could reach out and touch . . . nothing. Inside me was the same. I thought, perhaps this is the place where I began. Before feelings, before touch, before knowledge. Before I knew the brilliant glare of the sun in my eyes.

It scared me, these 60 seconds I call The Void. Not only the first time, but every time. It would find me on the hazy fringes of slumber, until my racing heart would rouse me. In my adolescence, I'd lie awake, puzzling and fretting that it was a sign of something broken deep inside my brain – another reminder of my seemingly endless quirks. As a teen, I didn't like being alone in that space yet felt driven in search of answers. What was The Void? Could I get stuck there? Was there some deeper meaning?

Lured by the mystery, I prodded myself, Do it. Go back there and see. I dare you.

Now, with the wisdom of living half a century, I see The Void as a beginning and an end in itself. A black hole that opened up for me as a refuge. A place I invented when I desperately needed somewhere else to be. At three, I was molested. I recall being bare and exposed, made to lay back on a couch in the shadows of a den with drapes drawn while a pubescent boy with freckles and a white t-shirt talked softly to me, lowered his mouth on me, did things that left me feeling strange. Not quite good, not quite bad – that came later.

He was the son of a grandmotherly babysitter whom my parents trusted. A son too old to be playing doctor, too engaged in intimate, grown-up acts to claim a childlike curiosity about anatomy, too calculated and covert to make the excuse of not knowing any better.

I still remember. Do you know I do?

I carried my secret for seventeen years. By then I had tired of telling myself, Hey, no big deal. With a stone face, I confided in a high school friend, and though she showed the shock and empathy I needed, I could see she doubted that memories from a three-year-old could be so intact. I was certain my mother felt the same way when I later gathered the courage – and belligerence – to tell her. To be fair, I only gave her the abridged version, the one that tiptoed around the details, the only one my wounded soul felt strong enough to part with. Would she sit in judgment? Look what you did. Look what you let happen. Or would a more careful exposition make her cry? I shouldered enough guilt for both of us, and I might have cried too. Because the truth is, I could no more describe what happened in adult terms than I could vocalize them at three. When I tried, the grueling effort of description disintegrated into a lumpy cancer in my throat.

My shame faded with time and acceptance, and The Void has not called for me in many years. Now when I remember the shadowy den, instead of succumbing to the dark space I become an unyielding force keeping vigil on my three-year-old self. Guarding the perimeter for someone who looks like a friend but is not. Who begs for trust but speaks lies. I am not afraid to stand in his way, not ashamed of who I am or who I was then. I embrace my three-year-old self the way I wish someone could have back then; and I rock her close to my heart, dry her tears, tell her how good and worthy she is. And I dare him to come back.
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