Vivisection

(set: $loops to 0)(set: $ending_ready to false)At the end of the pier, where we can finally see the ocean through the fog, he turns and says with a smile, (transition: "dissolve")+(click:"with a smile,")["You're so mysterious.] (transition: "dissolve")+(click:"mysterious.")[I feel like I don't know anything about you.] (transition: "dissolve")+(click:"I don't know anything about you.")[So what [[tragic backstory]] are you hiding?"]

(set: $loops to $loops +1)(set: $sa_seen to true)(if: $loops >= 8 and $sa_seen is true and $lb_seen is true and $ir_seen is true and $c_seen is true)[(set: $ending_ready to true)]David, I had told a friend hesitantly, had made me do things. Things I categorically did not want to do. Through cajoling mostly. But a few times, by holding me in place. (if: $ending_ready is false)[$languagebarrier[[[I'm not certain she's even listening.-> Language Barrier]]]](else: )[I'm not certain she's even listening.] She's looking elsewhere, which is always a pretty good indication of her inattention, watching a child stumble across the astroturf below. But then she says, without turning to look at me, "There's no point in digging up something from that long ago. Adolescence is tough for teenage boys. (if: $ending_ready is false)[$condescension[[[We have to be lenient with them. -> Condescension]]]](else: )[We have to be lenient with them.] It's hard for them to control themselves." (if: $ending_ready is false)[$internalizedracism[[[Who do you think you are, she doesn't say. -> Internalized Racism]]]](else: )[Who do you think you are, she doesn't say.] Don't stir up trouble, she doesn't say. I don't. (if: $ending_ready is true)[[I smile.]]

(set: $loops to $loops +1)(set: $lb_seen to true)(if: $loops >= 8 and $sa_seen is true and $lb_seen is true and $ir_seen is true and $c_seen is true)[(set: $ending_ready to true)]The neighbors whispered about me, about how I must be challenged in some way, with my halting sentences and slow uncomprehending blinks. I was filled to bursting with poetry they could not have understood a word of. I grew up overseas and, for that, my mother will always blame herself. In order to give me back as much of what she stole from me as she could, she provided me with all the resources she could think of so that English could still be my native language. No one else around me spoke English as a native language. I was attending private lessons with British tutors as early as the age of three. I began my formal education at a school ostensibly for the children of American missionaries, but which had mostly been taken over by the children of locals who also wanted their children to learn how to speak English. These other children spoke English only begrudgingly and when left to their own devices, happily gave up in favor of being able to chatter away with each other in their native tongue. I was told not to make friends with these other children; (if: $ending_ready is false)[$internalizedracism[[[they would only drag me down out of envy. -> Internalized Racism]]]](else: )[they would only drag me down out of envy.] I gained a reputation for having the best grades in the whole school. I also gained a reputation for being the least approachable kid in the whole school. I didn't know how to speak to my peers. I didn't know how to speak to my family. I didn't know how to speak to 99% of the people around me. I got into the habit of talking to myself out loud to fill the silence. When you're eighteen, my mother assured me, you'll be able to go back home and it will be like you never left. You'll be just like everyone else your age and (if: $ending_ready is false)[$condescension[[[no one will be able to tell that you didn't grow up there. -> Condescension]]]](else: )[no one will be able to tell that you didn't grow up there.] (if: $ending_ready is false)[$sexualassault[[[You'll be able to marry a nice white boy and live the dream I never got to live. -> Sexual Assault]]]](else: )[You'll be able to marry a nice white boy and live the dream I never got to live.] Doesn't that sound nice? (if: $ending_ready is true)[[I smile.]]

(set: $loops to $loops +1)(set: $ir_seen to true)(if: $loops >= 8 and $sa_seen is true and $lb_seen is true and $ir_seen is true and $c_seen is true)[(set: $ending_ready to true)]My mother is proud that she brought me up right, (if: $ending_ready is false)[$languagebarrier[[[keeping me from the evil influences of my peers. -> Language Barrier]]]](else: )[keeping me from the evil influences of my peers.] That she and I are nothing like the others of our race; we alone are the good ones. But even we have much to learn from white people, who are inherently pure of heart and morally upstanding. Those who are not must have been unfortunate enough to have fallen under the corruptive sway of someone from our race. It is difficult to question a constant that has been there every step of the way: at five, at ten, at sixteen, at twenty-one, at thirty. The lesson that has wormed its way marrow-deep to become certainty: that everyone who looks like you is morally bankrupt; and the inadvertent lesson that comes with the lack of a very specific cognitive dissonance: statistics hold that (if: $ending_ready is false)[$condescension[[[you must therefore also be morally bankrupt.-> Condescension]]]](else: )[you must therefore also be morally bankrupt.] (if: $ending_ready is false)[$sexualassault[[[I have been waiting my whole life for a white person to save me from myself. -> Sexual Assault]]]](else: )[I have been waiting my whole life for a white person to save me from myself.] (if: $ending_ready is true)[[I smile.]]

(set: $loops to $loops +1)(set: $c_seen to true)(if: $loops >= 8 and $sa_seen is true and $lb_seen is true and $ir_seen is true and $c_seen is true)[(set: $ending_ready to true)]Seven good, moral people, whose morals are better than mine, who teach me all the ways in which my morals are wrong. It's simple mathematics. Seven people can't all be wrong. It's healthy debate amongst friends, friendly teasing at its worst and least edifying. They engage with each other in the same way. It's all normal. I'm the one who's weird. I'm the one who's wrong. Who's broken. I need to smile and hide how wrong I am. Because there is something wrong with me. There has to be, to explain the continual discontent, the constant hurt, the anger. What sort of person is always so angry at their friends? Their generous friends who buy them chocolates and video games, teach them all the enlightened ways of living (if: $ending_ready is false)[$internalizedracism[[[to replace the backwards things they learned growing up elsewhere, -> Internalized Racism]]]](else: )[to replace the backwards things they learned growing up elsewhere,] are endlessly patient with their incorrect ways of thinking, always questioning, always training them to be able to defend every last innocuous opinion, isn't it cute the way her mind works, her funny little mind? That damn sponge. It's an in-joke now, to be brought up on occasion for chuckles all round, just like how she thinks she knows psychology, (if: $ending_ready is false)[$sexualassault[[[the funny story about her face covered in come,-> Sexual Assault]]] ](else: )[the funny story about her face covered in come,] how she waits at red lights before crossing. Isn't she so quaint? Imagine insisting that sponges need to be squeezed dry after use. Imagine hallucinating the smell of something moldering inside the pores when it smells exactly the same as a fresh sponge. Imagine getting so worked up at being smiled at and patted on the head and told she's wrong, she's wrong, she's always wrong. They know best, my friends. And they're (if: $ending_ready is false)[$languagebarrier[[[kind enough to be my friends. -> Language Barrier]]]](else: )[kind enough to be my friends.] To humor me. To teach me how I should think. (if: $ending_ready is true)[[I smile.]]

(replace:?sidebar)[(icon-restart:"⟲")] (enchant: ?link, (t8n-arrive: "fade"))

I look out over the grey, churning waves. (transition: "dissolve")+(click:"grey, churning waves.")[It takes fifteen hours by plane to fly over those waves and reach the place where I grew up.] (transition: "dissolve")+(click:"grew up.")[Where [[I became me.]]]

Written by masca2e in Twine 2.10.0, using Harlowe 3.3.9. Background image modified from: (link-rerun: "Palangos tiltas - panoramio.jpg")[(open-url: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palangos_tiltas_-_panoramio.jpg")] by (link-rerun: "Guntars Mednis")[(open-url: "https://web.archive.org/web/20161102232917/http://www.panoramio.com/user/2650719?with_photo_id=98029133")], licensed under (link-rerun: "CC BY-SA 3.0")[(open-url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en")].

"Well," I say. (set: $languagebarrier to (text-color:purple+black)+(hover-style:(color:purple))) $languagebarrier[[An inability to communicate with anyone around me for the first eighteen years of my life.-> Language Barrier]] (set: $sexualassault to (text-color:red+black)+(hover-style:(color:red))) $sexualassault[[Getting sexually assaulted in the name of love and entitlement. -> Sexual Assault]] (set: $internalizedracism to (text-color:yellow+black)+(hover-style:(color:yellow))) $internalizedracism[[A lifetime of being told by my own family that our kind are irredeemably evil. -> Internalized Racism]] (set: $condescension to (text-color:green+black)+(hover-style:(color:green))) $condescension[[The complete annihilation of my self-esteem by my friends. -> Condescension]]

"Not much to tell, really." |credits)[(transition: "dissolve")[(align:"==>")+(box:"X=")[[[^^Credits^^ -> Credits]]]]] (live: 5s)[ (show: ?credits) (stop:) ]