A Thousand Hours

My newborn mind could not measure time by months or weeks or days. Not even by hours. Without the reassuring comfort of Mama, every second was an agony. And there passed nearly four million of those agonies before my life would change.

To write of those agonies would take me years. For you to read them would take a thousand hours. I will not soliloquize them. I confess this is not for your sake, but for mine.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I have told you already that I had given up. But giving up does not put an end to agony, not while you are still alive. It only ends if you die.

Against my will, some inscrutable force compelled me to accept the bottle anew. I began to grow once more, and my bleating regained its strength.

Yet my despair remained. I continued to turn away from the strangers, all hope now lost that one might be Mama.

I had been altered.

I had become a lamb forever lost. What is forever? All I can tell you is that it is not over yet.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

And there was more. I had no way of knowing, then, that I was being prepared. I was being prepared as a sacrifice to the Common Good: Restorative for the loss of another child, and for Mama’s future.

Only an unblemished lamb is acceptable, as only a perfect sacrifice is acceptable to God (or to the Common Good). How could they have known that I was blemished? I had no bruises, no bleeding wounds.

They believed I was unblemished.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

So a time came, after those thousand hours, when I saw the faces of two strangers, faces which would eventually become familiar. Eventually. But not for another thousand hours.

In those faces was a joyous expression, as if they were witnessing a miracle. I knew this expression, because I had seen it on Mama’s face in that meteoric moment. But I could not perceive any new miracle. I was terrified. Terrified! One of the faces had garish, painted lips and a strong, sickly sweet smell. The other was not quite so offensive, but I was panic-stricken as they drew so close that I could not turn away. I wanted to turn away! They wanted me to smile. Could they not see that I had lost Mama? Could they not even manage to express their condolences? What could possibly make them think I had anything to smile about?

I felt so helpless, so powerless, so unprotected! All I had was my bleating, and it drowned out everything else. I bleated until consciousness mercifully left me.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

When I awoke, I was in an unfamiliar place with offensive smells and peculiar sounds. I was terrified all over again, and started my desperate bleating. The face with the garish lips and sickly smell appeared, and my bleating grew louder still. She laughed. She laughed!

What new hell was this?