The Rome Prophecy

19

We are below ground.

In the womb of the earth.

Mother’s womb.

When I am frightened down here, Mother comforts me. When I am filled with panic, She brings me special peace. It enters my lungs and calms me. Makes me see things differently.

And when She punishes me, I understand that it is for my own good .

I know that the pain I suffer is necessary.

Necessary to ensure so I keep the secret.

But I wish it would stop.

When I am fasting, the hunger gnaws inside my gut like a rat in the carcass of a cow, but that pain is nothing to the fires of humiliation that burn in my soul.

Mother says She will cure me. She will rid me of my anguish.

Whatever the price.

Whatever the pain and humiliation.

She says I should remember that it hurts Her more than it hurts me .

I will never forget.

She says that if I did better, if I earned Her trust, then She wouldn’t have to do these things to me. Wouldn’t need to teach me Her lessons.

I tell Her I am trying.

I am trying very hard to learn.

But then She laughs at me.

Not a nice laugh.

Not the laugh a mother should share with a daughter.

She stares into my eyes and tells me She has Her doubts.

Says She wonders if I am worth it.

Worth all the effort that She puts in.

I am frightened.

She puts Her face close to mine and She tells me that She knows what I’m doing.

Knows that I am letting ‘the others’ in.

She laughs again.

The not-very-nice laugh.

I try to look away, but She grabs my face and forces me to look at Her. She says that She knows about them and will find them and punish them as well.

She will trap them and make them all one.

Make them all Hers.

I tell Mother there are no others.

But She knows.

Mother beats me again.

She sticks cloth in my mouth so I can’t scream. So ‘the others’ can’t hear me.

Then She teaches me Her lessons.

And when She’s done, She leaves me.

Alone.

In the dark.

Underground.

In the safety of Her womb.