My earliest memory is when I was three years old. It was a wintry evening, and I was alone on the swing.
My hands and feet were cold and my feet were cold. But my mother would scold me if I went home now.
I want my grandmother to come and pick me up, and since this is the park I always come to, I am sure she will recognize me.
Sooner or later, I won’t know if I’m swinging in the wind or on a swing.
I grew up abused by my mother.
I spilled my drink, walked with a slight stutter, or laughed out loud. I was immediately chastised for such things.
She would beat me until she was satisfied, stab me in the buttocks with safety pins, and put me in a water bath in the winter.
They made me smoke cigarettes and used my back as an ashtray, skipped meals, and wouldn’t let me in the house.
My mother seemed pleased as she raised her fist at me.
My father turned a blind eye.
Beside me, who made mistakes and was scolded and kicked by my mother many times, my father was eating while watching TV.
When he finished, he told me to listen to mother.
The only one who helped me was my grandmother. She tended to my chastisement wounds and slept on the futon with me.
I once had my grandmother kicked by my mother for defending me. When I saw that, I cried in horror.
I thought my grandmother would scold me for being kicked because of you.
More than that, I thought she would hate me already, and I was choking with fear.
When we both went back to my room, I cried and put a compress on my grandmother’s leg and told her that I was fine with the beat, that I was fine.
More than anything, I was afraid that my grandmother would hate me.
She hugged me and cried. Then we slept together on the futon.
I was probably around five years old. When I woke up in the middle of the night, my grandmother, who was supposed to be sleeping next to me, was not there.
I thought she must have gone to the restroom, so I just kept my eyes closed.
But she didn’t come back after a while.
I wondered if my mother had done something to her, so I quickly got up and looked outside the sliding door.
I heard nothing. I opened the sliding door so as not to make any noise, and went out to look for my grandmother.
In the pitch-dark house, I was careful not to bump into anything. If she found out, she would hit me again.
She was not in the bathroom, the kitchen, or the living room.
I wondered if perhaps she had left without me, and tried to go through the living room to the front door to check my shoes.
The curtains of the window facing the garden were slightly open.
It looked like someone was standing outside, so I peeked through the crack.
There was my grandmother. She was standing there with a blank expression on her face.
Thank God, she hadn’t left me. My heart filled with relief, and I went to open the curtains.
I immediately thought better of it. Something was wrong, something was different from my grandmother. I had never seen my grandmother that creepy.
She was holding the head of a dog. It was a light brown color with a lolling tongue.
It was probably a medium-sized dog, but it would have been hard to cut its head off.
The dog’s head, the body lying at my feet, and my grandmother were all stained red.
My grandmother stood there for a while, and then she took the dog by the torso and head and went away.
I must have seen something I shouldn’t have. I returned to my futon with a shiver and prayed to God to bring my grandmother back.
When I woke up, my grandmother was sleeping next to me.
I kept staring at her without waking her up, thinking what if she was not back to normal, but she woke up.
She said, “Good morning, are you hungry?”
Oh, thank God. I felt relieved and replied, “Yes, I’m hungry.
I decided not to pay attention to the fishy smell wafting from my grandmother.
I began to see things like foxes, raccoons, and dogs wandering around the house.
My father and mother didn’t seem to notice them, so I assumed that I was the only one who could see them.
When I told my grandmother about it one day, she looked very happy.
She asked me, “What are the animals doing ? I told her the truth.
“It was clinging to my father and mother and that they both felt very bad when it was attached to them.”
My mother screams a lot more at night. She also looks blue during the day. Apparently, she can’t sleep much.
Since my mother’s health began to deteriorate, the chastisement has decreased considerably, but she must be frustrated.
She would blaze me with a lighter flame all over my body, and she would stick several sharpened pencil leads in the palm of my hand.
From that time on, my grandmother told me not to go in and out of the front door.
I never asked why, my beloved grandmother insisted.
My grandmother and I put our shoes on the kitchen door in the back of the house and began to enter and leave the house from there.
The house was starting to smell like animals. The smell seemed to be particularly strong from my father and mother.
Both of them used to be neat and tidy, but now they are becoming less and less concerned about their appearance.
Their fingernails are long and black stuffed inside. Their clothes are somewhat dirty. They don’t use chopsticks.
My father started talking to himself.
I tried to hear what he was saying, so I quietly approached him from behind, but I couldn’t hear him.
My father smells very bad. I don’t know if it is the smell of an animal or the smell of excrement in his underwear.
My mother makes a screeching sound. She swings a kitchen knife into the air.
Come to think of it, I haven’t been chastised recently. I guess my mother doesn’t see me anymore.
When I was seven years old, people from city hall and the hospital came and took my father and mother away.
My grandmother bowed her head to say hello, but when everyone left, she looked back at me and smiled.
I smiled too. It was just me and my favorite grandmother, and I was no longer afraid of anything.
When I was 13 years old, my grandmother had a stroke that left her crippled.
All the beasts in the house were now clinging to her.
When I told her this, she sighed and muttered, “They must have come back to me.”
Two years later, my grandmother passed away, slowly dementia.
Her whole body was covered with unexplained eczema and urticaria, and she kept scratching herself as she passed away.
The body was autopsied and the cause of death was asphyxiation due to the swelling of her throat caused by the urticaria.
I was told that the unexplained eczema and urticaria were caused by an allergy to animals.
I had never owned an animal, but I replied that I understood.
I still live in that house. I still go in and out of the kitchen door.
I can see the beasts and my grandmother, who has become like an animal.
I never asked her what she had done, but I am sure she was doing it for my sake.
Whatever her appearance, I am happy that my grandmother is with me. That alone makes me happy.
