The resultant concoction of emotions had overwhelmed me. My
shame for starters was horrendous. But I had also seen a man’s face rise in my
chest. The image was as clear as a photograph and I was later to learn that I
had experienced a somatic memory. This means a body part has stored the memory
rather than the brain alone.
 |
| My somatic memory of a man's face in my chest |
The Comatose State
With this odd experience, I had felt sullied and guilty for some reason. Being only 4, I didn’t realize it
wasn’t normal. I explained the vision to representing Mum’s disdain for me
after what I had done to Eve. I had become like the weirdo on the bus that Mum
often spurned and deemed a threat to her beloved daughters. No longer was I welcome in her
cottage. I had become like an outsider.
I believed this for almost five decades, for I didn’t know
who the man was. But the answer would be found in Eve’s state, which was
comatose.
This abridged excerpt from my book Mirror Image Shattered explains.
“I entered the cottage to see Mum holding an
unconscious Eve in her arms. I could tell Eve was not simply asleep, but unconscious. Eve
looked waxy white, her eyelids sunken and
her body flaccid. I had never seen such
inertia within anyone before, let alone in my twin who normally could never sit
still.
Her sleep was not normal. It was almost like death.
It was then that I saw a man’s face rise in my chest.
With this I experienced deep shame and a sullied feeling.
For years after, I hated seeing Eve sleeping in that position. I would get this strange notion that she was vulnerable and that her body wasn’t hers anymore.
Years later, my toy pantos would feature a blonde doll in a
supine position apparently unconscious, while the other toys did and said things. I would feel unsettled at the sight of her, yet I couldn’t look away.”
Who was the man that I saw in my chest when I saw Eve
unconscious? Years later, I would be gleaning my so-called novels after
discovering they held clues to the day Eve cut her face. Recurrent elements of
broken glass, disfigured faces, blood and characters fleeing north to a hideout
had proved the case. How hadn’t I noticed this whilst I was writing? It
appeared traumatic events stored in my subconscious had seeped into the
plotlines of my stories without my awareness.
No longer would I see my novels as novels, but documents
that held clues to my childhood trauma.
So, I have been feverishly gleaning my novels, noting
down scenes that held relevance to Eve’s accident. It is then that I discover
another element in my final novel, Nadia
that had nothing to do with that day.
I am about to identify the man whom I had seen in my chest.
And I am about to discover the day Eve cut her face
forms the porthole to a terrible truth about my toddlerhood.
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