Zero

When Igor wasn't annoying me on Thursday he was telling me a story of how zero came to be. "One theory of zero's origins" Igor explained "is that merchants and traders counted using pebbles placed in the sand. Pebbles were put in a row of sand to represent a quantity of something and as subtractions occurred the pebbles would be taken away and so there would not be just an empty space but rather a faint depression in the sand which reminded one what had there." Only when he said it sounded all magical and mystical as if Omar Sharif was telling me the meaning of life or doing the book on tape of the Alchemist.

What brought up Igor's allegorical, mathematical and sandy tale about nothing is that I had told Igor the story of my mother's charm bracelet that I told you and how there had once been a symbol on her bracelet that signified: a connection between my mother and me, proof that she was my mother and that I was her daughter and that she loved me. "So, it is not the pain of what never was. But it is rather the pain of being reminded of what you had and lost." As soon as he said it I knew he was right. "And so," Igor continued, "you stay away from your mother in order to not be reminded of what you lost."

See there was a time when I loved my mother. I remember it. It was a time of pink fuzzy robes and her hair was still brown. It was when there wasn't quite so much vodka and there was me telling her how much I loved her and how I wanted to die before her because I never wanted to know a time without her and then a trauma came. A big and bad trauma came and after the trauma I had severe PTSD and there were nightmares every night. Big nightmares. The kind of nightmares that showed up every night and made me terrified of sleep for years. One night the man who had chased me with a knife in waking life had again entered my dream world and instead of just coming after me he went after my doll, her name was "Happy". He had taken Happy from me. I woke up terrified and unable to determine what was real and what was a dream as Happy was not in my bed. He had taken her, I thought as I couldn't see she had fallen under the bed, and that, to my young and terrified mind, meant he might really be in the house.

I began to scream and cry and beg my mother to come to me. "Happy is gone. Please come." My mother didn't come. My screams grew louder and my tears turned to terror. No word came from my parent's bedroom room except hearing my father say to my mother, " If you go to her I will leave you." That was the moment I no longer loved my mother. My heart turned off and I have never been able to love her since. One might say that "Happy" was literally and metaphorically taken from me that night.

Yes, I suppose all my venom should and could have gone towards my father and yet it seemed worse or more cruel to have had the impulse to go to a crying child and then let someone else talk you out of it than not to have it at all. I know that may not make sense but yet the feeling remains.

Decades later I find that I still feel zero for my mother. I wish I felt nothing instead. Zero hurts more.