Die Slowly || p.mochi

IX: Hallucination

 

"A hallucination can be many things, Jimin. It can be your grief. A grief that tears your heart apart. It can be a secret, a secret you've hidden away in your heart forever." Maybelle gently grasped his other hand too. " It can be guilt too. A guilt that eats away your existence. So tell me. Is it  the grief, the secret, or the guilt?"  

"it's all three". 

*********************************************

The grief.

"Maybe it was my bad luck that followed me all the way here. And that bad luck consumed Catherine too.  It was my grief. and it was my bad fortune. And it spread out from me, and took her too." Jimin stopped at this. He had been talking for the last two hours. And to Maybelle, it had seemed like an eternity. 

Maybelle wiped her streaming eyes, and clicked off the recorder. She shifted her weight in her chair and felt pins and needles in her left leg. She hadn't moved an inch in the last two hours and her legs were now frozen in protest. It was her weekly session with Jimin and he had told her about his past crime.

 Jimin sighed sadly, his face oozed remorse and grief and his eyes were dry but heavy. He was pale as the wall behind him and he was still looking out of the window, He had neither looked at Maybelle, nor had he cried, whilst he had talked in the past hours. 

"I can't run from myself, Dr. Belle. It's what I am. Or maybe I should say, it's what I've been made into, I've rarely ever seen love or affection, and whenever I've stumbled across it, my past has destroyed it. Down to the last bit...."  he said, and long last, tears poured from his eyes. Tears of grief streamed out and fell down his cheeks in glistening drops.  

"Jimin-- I... I don't know what to say", Maybelle struggled to keep her own tears from flowing.  "What about your parents? Didn't they ever come here to see you at all? Or check on you in all these years?"

Jimin shook his head. "Only once, and that was the day I was brought here. They talked to the manager, and I wasn't allowed to see them. They came, signed some papers, and went away.  I haven't heard from them ever since. As far as my father's concerned, I'm just a disgrace to his family. He doesn't want a son like me." Jimin wiped his eyes, " They threw me in here to hide their shame. " 

Maybelle sat there transfixed, unsure of what to say.  

"If I was to talk to them, tell them it wasn't your fault..."

Jimin looked up. "You- You think it wasn't my fault?"

Maybelle smiled slightly. "Were you in your senses when it happened?"

Jimin shook his head slowly.

"Were you aware and in complete control of your actions?" Maybelle tilted her head to the side.

Jimin shook his head again.

"Then explain to me, how was it your fault?"

Jimin shrugged. "If i wasn't like...this. If i hadn't gone to her hostel..." 

Maybelle shook her head and leaned forward. " Our biggest mistake is when we start blaming ourselves. We've never been taught to forgive ourselves. We're raised this way, we're taught to blame ourselves for every small thing that goes wrong in our life, and wallow in its fear and grief. We keep wondering if things would have been different if we had acted some other way. But the truth is, it would still happen the same way it did, regardless of our changed decision or our actions."