“What is wrong with you?”
“What is wrong with you?”
I read each page and then light it and place it in the bucket, I continue to do this. The flames that are being generated out of the small bucket soon get quite high. The me that I am watching am takes a break of the burning to make sure that the flames do not take over the bucket. It looks like smoke enters my eyes and I look up into the sky and the smoke makes my eyes tear up. But it was an excuse, I start to cry. I continue to burn the pages until they are all gone.
I start to think that I know what this exercise is about. Oh how wrong I am!
The next scene appears and this one completely confuses me. I have parked my car in the school car park and I get out and move around the left passenger side door. Jordy gets out of the car, he looks so cute and grown up dressed in his school uniform. We both look washed out. I am not dressed in my work clothes and Jordy keeps on looking at my face.
“What is wrong with you?”
My heart aches as I watch this scene start to fade.
“What is wrong with you?”
I stop rocking as I see the head lights of the train and then I look down onto the tracks. There is a flicker across my face it is so quick that if you were not watching you would’ve missed it. I stop the scene with my fingers and I rewind and pause that the moment I look down on the track. It was only an instant but it was there, the split second where I contemplated simply stepping off the platform into the path of the train.
“What is wrong with you?”
I am standing in front of a huge table that has a glass table top. I wave my hand across the surface and the screen comes alive. It is an interactive table and the screen is the size of a large LCD TV. Instinctively I know how to use this device and I let my hands fly over the screen. I look up and the screen contents also appear on the wall in front of me.
The screen flickers as all these different scenes appear like a movie on fast forward. Something inside is directing me to the bottom of the question that was posed earlier to me. Some of the scenes are puzzling but they are all gone in a flash.
“What is wrong with you?”
My hand hovers over one of the scenes and the flickering stops. I stretch my thumb and index finger and the scene size increases. There I am walking down a darken alley, the person I am walking with is fuzzy and I can’t quite make out who I am with, but I don’t think that this is important, as I remember this event well. The expression that I am showing on my face is one of utter disbelief, as I am walking along my eyes are watching someone intently. The expression of disbelief quickly changes to dejection and this me in this scene takes one last look at what I was staring at and turns the corner and heads in the opposite direction.
I am walking, but I see myself turn and take on last look, the me that I am watching shakes her head turns back around and walks down the street. There are is no sound in the scenes that I am watching. What I don’t understand is why I feel the need to revisit this memory.
My body language in this scene is of a person that has been beaten down. My shoulders are slumped, my hands are in my pockets, my head is down and my face clearly shows all the raw emotions that I was feeling. The scene starts to fade and the screen goes back to the flicker of memories.
“What is wrong with you?”
Before I am given any time to process what I saw the flickering stops at the next scene. I am looking down on myself and this time I am standing in my back yard and I have a bucket in front of me with a whole stack of papers in my arms and a lighter.
I read each page and then light it and place it in the bucket, I continue to do this. The flames that are being generated out of the small bucket soon get quite high. The me that I am watching am takes a break of the burning to make sure that the flames do not take over the bucket. It looks like smoke enters my eyes and I look up into the sky and the smoke makes my eyes tear up. But it was an excuse, I start to cry. I continue to burn the pages until they are all gone.
Again the scene comes to an end and screen starts to flicker.
“What is wrong with you?”
I start to think that I know what this exercise is about. Oh how wrong I am!
The next scene appears and this one completely confuses me. I have parked my car in the school car park and I get out and move around the left passenger side door. Jordy gets out of the car, he looks so cute and grown up dressed in his school uniform. We both look washed out. I am not dressed in my work clothes and Jordy keeps on looking at my face.
I walk him to before school care building and I enter, the “camera” does not follow me into the building so I can’t see what is happening. Soon you can see me walking out of the door and I actually suck in my breath as I see the expression on my face it is shocking. I would never have expected to see that on my face. I am walking slowly back to my car and as I am making my way the me that I am watching looks back at the building and all you can see is this huge window with Jordy’s little head appearing just in the middle of the window.
You can see the words Jordy is saying “Mummy, Mummy, Mummy” and you can also clearly see the tears running down his small beautiful face.
I continue to walk back to the car and I get in and drive away. The scene again fades away, slowly and my heart is aching and the screen starts to flicker.
“What is wrong with you?”
The scene that takes the focus now is very short and confusing. I am in the twins room and I am dressing Lilly for Child Care, you can tell that it is a weekend day I as I dressed for work and the room is dark.
The expression on my face has me very puzzled, I knew that I wore my heart on my sleeve but I did not guess that the whole world could see how much turmoil and pain I was carrying. Lilly must have suspected something as she reaches her little hand out and runs her hand up my arm until she reaches my face, where she pats my cheek with her hand. The Mari I am watching stops what she is doing and looks into Lilly’s eyes and smiles.
My heart aches as I watch this scene start to fade.
“What is wrong with you?”
The next scene that takes centre stage is with me and Rylie. We are lying on my bed, I am facing him and he is lying on his back. He has his little arms around my head but he will not look into my eyes. You can see that he is talking to me and I am watching him intently.
He lifts his little leg and flicks it a few times, he repeats the same thing all the while talking to me. Whilst my face is smiling at my little boy, my eyes are showing a completely different emotion, sadness.
The scene fades again.
“What is wrong with you?”
The next scene that stops in front of me is a little weird. In this scene I am standing at the train station platform waiting for the train to come. My head phones are in my ears and I am looking around at the cars, people and patiently waiting for the train to come. I look at the gate and I notice closing, you can see me rocking back and forwards on my feet looking intently for the train.
I stop rocking as I see the head lights of the train and then I look down onto the tracks. There is a flicker across my face it is so quick that if you were not watching you would’ve missed it. I stop the scene with my fingers and I rewind and pause that the moment I look down on the track. It was only an instant but it was there, the split second where I contemplated simply stepping off the platform into the path of the train.
I flick my fingers and the screen returns to the flickering.
“What is wrong with you?”
The next scene that appears is a split screen, one shows my mobile phone and the other shows my face. On my mobile phone screen you see the words “You are being silly”, “What are you talking about”, “This is madness” and “Why would you ever think of doing that to yourself”
On the second screen you can see my face showing the devastation and the tears just start streaming down my face.
The screen slowly fades and this time the table goes blank. It seems as though there is nothing more for me to watch. However I still do not know what the answer is to this question:
“What is wrong with you?”
