Culpa

All my life I’ve been praised as a good kid. My childhood was filled with comments such as “Such a polite boy!” when I held a door open for my grandmother. “Way to go bud!” My dad said when he witnessed my act of kindness. My mom would often cuddle me telling me I was her ‘baby’. I’ve always held onto the illusion that I would never change. I would be the same bright-eyed bushy-tailed kid until my death. An illusion that started to show its cracks when I reached my teenage years. The world that had seemed so full of life and wonder began to look bleak. I saw the dark side of the human condition through a grungy, stained lens. My developing brain betrayed me. Rather than seeing the bright side, I began to surround myself with the dark, hiding away in solitude while the world burned outside my window.

My dad lost his job, we couldn’t afford the house, so we had to take up residence in the one of the more unsightly neighborhoods. I would often lie awake at night listening to the couple next door getting into heated fights about god-knows what. My childhood innocence was fading. It was at this moment in my life I found out my uncle, someone I loved dearly with all my heart, was addicted to smack. After hearing about how he would steal from my grandmother and his own brothers to fuel his addiction, I found it hard to trust anyone. Everything changed from then on. My parents divorced, my mother left for the city while my dad stayed in the country. Despite losing control of my life, I maintained my good-nature. I kept my head held high, got a job, got money for college, and made a living. To pay off my college dues, I became a townie. Shaking down drug dealers and cuffing baddies. My years of continued studies in Criminal Psychology and a decent service record landed me a job in the FBI. I had reached the top.

I was working a case in an old Midwestern city, investigating the random disappearances of a few of the locals. My team and I had undergone dozens of interviews, interrogations, and witness testimonies to no avail. Our first day had been a nightmare, families and friends were scared for their loved ones who had completely vanished in the night. Needless to say, I returned to my hotel very late that night. So much so that I decided to sleep out in the car. It was the perfect setting for it too. The nighttime rain was pattering down on my windows, as if singing a lullaby for me personally, Simon and Garfunkel began to play on the radio, and the leather seats began to feel like a king-sized bed. I nestled my head against my seat, The last thing I saw before drifting off into my own ethereal wonderland was the clock on my dashboard striking midnight.

My visit to wonderland was short lived as my brain became agitated by the sudden absence of my lullaby. The tapping of the rain which bled into my dreams had gone completely silent. I opened my eyes to find my windshield still peppered with droplets. At this point, I was sure my mind was playing tricks on me. I shook myself to near lucidity, only to find the silence persisting. It wasn’t even as if I had gone deaf. The silence felt almost unnatural, as if all the noise had been sucked out of the car. The radio that once played my favorite songs had gone silent. I pressed the button, hoping the disk was just scratched, only to find the bright blue clock counting down the time of the song. I began to panic. Had I gone deaf? Was I dreaming? So many thoughts that ran through my mind when the silence was finally broken.
For a split second, I could feel a wave of relief wash over my body. A short-lived comfort as I realized what the noise was: Static, coming straight from the radio. I checked the dash to find it flashing with random letters and numbers. The static began to speak to me, not literally, as if it was a foreign language that I had known all along. As if it was transmitting data directly into my brain. It evoked memories from my past, even ones I shouldn’t be able to remember. I saw myself exiting my mother’s womb, my first birthday, my first day of school, my wedding, my wife’s birth, and memories I would rather forget.