Enigma by Papirini

It had always, always been a great mystery to me.

"Look at her, always studying."
"Such a wierd girl, and crazy too!"
"Doesn't she do anything else besides that?"

For many years, I never understood the drive behind my obsession. It was always just a natural thing.

"Honey...."

But one day, when I was eleven...

"I need to tell you something very important, Ami."

My whole life changed.

"I think you need to sit down."

There were several moments where my life had changed forever. This had been one of them.

"Ami......you are....."

ENIGMA

by papirini

Part 1: Realization

"Ami!"

The blue-haired girl turned around at the sound of the high-pitched shout. She gave a smile as she saw who was coming towards her down the hall of the school.

"Usagi."
"Hey there!" Usagi ran up to her, her face red from running. "I've been looking all over for you."

It was noon, and the rays of the sun emanated into the hallway, lighting up the faces of the two girls. Usagi had a large smile on her face as she approached.

"You going to come to my house tonight?" Usagi clapped her hands. “We’re going to have a party for your birthday, though…you look pretty tired from last night’s battle.”
"...Actually...I…."
"Study school?"

Ami slowly shook her head. The look of surprise on Usagi's face was palpable, the shadows highlighting faint scars from previous battles.

“Not coming…?”
"No...I'm going away for the weekend. I’m visiting someone."

------------------------

I have a photographic memory.

"Come on, honey. Say 'mommy'."

I remember how it became. I was only about one or two at the time. It was them my mother noticed something wrong with me.

"...Ami?"

I had been a fast developer as a baby. I could identify things before I was a year old, and I talked and walked early. But then one day.....

"Ami....Are you okay? Ami!"

...I just stopped. As my mother said to me once, it was as if I had suddenly gone deaf - I didn't pay attention to her at all. My mother thought it was a fever at first, but the doctor said I was fine.

"Ami! Why won't you answer me?!"

We had been a happy family before. Before I became silent.

------------------------

"New International, now boarding Flight 12, non-stop plane to Sapporo. Non-stop."
"You be careful, Ami." Ami's mother looked at the doors of the gate. "Remember what I told you."
"I know, mother."
“You don’t have to go, you know.” A look of concern came into Ami’s mother’s eyes. “I’m worried about you. Your father’s a bitter man to me.”
“I’ll be fine, mother.”

The two women touched heads. Ami rubbed her hands onto her mother’s shoulders before taking up her suitcase. She took several turns back towards her mother before going down the ramp into the plane.

“Hello!” The flight attendant’s seemingly fake smile made Ami uncomfortable. “Take a seat and have a good flight.”

With a quick nod, Ami quickly eyed a seat near the window. There was no one in the preceding rows, which, for Ami, was perfect. Quickly, she put her case up in the overhead compartment and sat down, hugging her knees tightly.

“Thank you for flying Nippon Local Air Express.” Ami looked outside at the hangar, easily zoning out of reality as she stared at the airplanes and the concrete ground. “This flight will last approximately three hours nonstop…”

------------------------

They said I should be committed at the age of two and a half.

“We can’t diagnose it,” The doctor looked at me as my eyes strayed all over the room. “It’s developmental, but there’s nothing we can do about it. She will never learn to write or speak, or if she has, she never again will function normally. This is how the future will be for her - silent. There’s no cure for this demonic possession.”

My mother looked tired, tired and upset. I can remember seeing the dark circles under her eyes as I glanced around the room. Before this, the doctor had tried a Shinto exorcism on me to no avail.

“There’s a hospital in Ginza that treats children like this.” My father sat in a corner, listening as the doctor spoke. “It specializes in taking care of them, so that-“
“Are you saying I cannot take care of my child?”

At this, my mother stood up, her voice angry. I remember my father standing up at this as well.

“Anza.”
“I am a pediatrician.” My mother began to yell at the doctor. “I’ve been in practice for three years. I studied in America. I know full well what’s in Ginza - a mental institution. Are you saying that I am incapable of taking care of my child, that she should be a ward of the state? I know how they operate.”
“Anza, no.” At this, my father grabbed her shoulder. “He is just giving us facts.”
“Don’t touch me, Nobuyuki.” My mother pushed him away. “I don’t believe either of you. You’d both put my baby away in an asylum before she’s even 36 months old.”

There was a huge argument between the doctor, my mother and my father; it laster for two hours. In the end, I went home with my parents. To me, that doctor visit was the beginning of the end for their six year marriage.

-------------------------

The flight was finished faster than Ami had expected. The time had gone by faster than she thought.

“Thank you again for flying Nippon Local Air Express.” She quickly got off the plane. “We hope you decide to fly us again.”

Sapporo was a city foreign to Ami. She knew nothing of its people, of its ways or of its streets. People speaking Japanese and Russian passed by her. In such a new setting, Ami wanted to shrink into nothing, to get away from the unfamiliar people. She was afraid of people in general, especially if they were strangers.

Taxi…. Her feet involuntarily marched to an unheard four-beat rhythm, her left foot going over cracks of the sidewalk outside of the airport.. Have to find a taxi…or a bus….or something….

She looked up from the ground, surveying her surroundings nervously. There were many taxis to choose from, and several buses. She knew where to go, but did not know how to get there.

“Hey!”
“STOP!!!!”

Ami was suddenly jolted out of her thoughts by a shout. She turned to see several airport security officers tackling a man dressed in white. They took out sticks and began to beat him, blood spurting onto the sidewalk from the assailed.

Wow…. Ami stared in surprise not at the scene itself, but at the blood on the ground. Its like a Jackson Pollack painting. The drip technique he used back in the 1950’s with industrial paint. Just like the one in the museum my mom took me too when I was a child-

“Ma’am?”

Ami’s head jerked around. A man with a mustache had tapped her on the shoulder.

“E….” Ami was suddenly paralyzed with fear at the sight of this strange man, and she stiffened. “E...Excuse me…”
“You’re Ami, yes?” The mention of her name, and the smile on the man’s face helped Ami to relax. “You’ve gotten big…Don’t worry. I’m a friend of the family; you probably don’t remember me. Your father asked me to pick you up.”

---------------------------

My mother looked everywhere for a diagnosis.

“We’re sorry,” they always said. “We can’t diagnose her. We don’t know what problem this is. She may have to be committed when she is older.”

After that first doctor visit, ,my mother dedicated my early years to finding a diagnosis. She quit her private practice and went all over Japan, taking me to every psychologist she could find. In the end, she had little money left, and nothing to show for it except for no certain future for me.

“Why don’t you stop painting,” my mother shouted at my father one night. “Stop painting and get a steady job? We won’t be able to afford an apartment here with all of the traveling you do that drains our money.”

My father was a painter all of his life. He traveled around the world showing his work off, though he did not earn a lot of money to support a family. Our apartment, the old one in Yokohama, was a studio; it was filled with his paintings and art tables.

“What about your family?” My father took offense at the thought of giving up his trade, and it was in his voice. I remember sitting on the couch, looking at my parents. “Can’t they help us?”
“I will not live on handouts!” My mother took up his paints. “This is shameful. Instead of leaving for months at a time, stay here and help us!”
“Help us.”

That was me. I echoed what my mother and father said; I did not talk on my own, nor did I talk intelligently. One doctor compared my talking to listening to garbled radio static.

“DON’T tell me how to live.” My father became very angry. “And in return, I will not tell you how to raise your daughter.”
“She is our daughter.”
“She’s your problem, not mine. You’re her mother, you’re the one who brought her into this world, the one who noticed what was going on. She won’t even talk to me! But that’s how it always is; worldly woman brings forth her own downfall.”
“How dare you!” My mother shouted so loud that the neighbors eventually called the police that night. “To imply our daughter is the way she is because of me!”
“Because of me….”

With that, she threw the paints to the floor, making a mess, and in fright I made noises as I ran off into the bathroom to get away. I knew full well what they were fighting over.

-------------------------

Ami sat in the back of the car, looking at the scenery as it rushed by. The trees and buildings of the city blurred together into lines of greys, browns, reds and greens.

“So, I hear you’re doing well in school.” The man smiled to Ami through the rearview mirror. “You got another 500 on the practice exam.”
“Yes. It was hard.”

Ami hugged her knees nervously as the buildings gave way to meadows and mountains. She caught herself, however, before she began rocking back and forth.

“I was worried I wouldn’t get a perfect score.”
“…Are you all right?”

The man looked concerned at this. Ami met his eyes, then looked down.

“No, I….I’m fine.”
“…Ami.” The smile on the man’s face saddened. “Your father was very happy to hear you were coming to his house for your birthday. For the past several days, all he could talk about was you…how proud of you he is.”

Ami gave a sigh. The greens and blues blurred, and shot across her eyes like atoms.

“Please don’t tell my father this….” The Seville drove on. “But I don’t truly believe that sometimes.”

--------------------------

I was not well-liked by my peers as a child, just like now. Only, it hurt more as a child. At first, I was in a school in Juuban - the only kindergarten that would take me in because of my ‘problems’, so pronounced - yet undiagnosable and untreatable.

“Hey! Stupid!” I felt someone hit me. “Stupid Ami!”

I made a noise and flapped my arms angrily. I was four at the time, and the children in kindergarten made fun of me all of the time, I’d scream every time they hit me, because I didn’t like how it felt. The kids noticed the strange habits I had - I only wore blue cotton, and ate tuna sandwiches with orange in my milk - and made fun of me for them.

“Oooh, look!” I remember watching them as they squashed my sandwich. “Stupid! Tuna breath! Book worm!”

I gave another noise, and they’d copy me and make noises after me. There was one girl in particular who was very mean. She was my height, and she had beady, Aryan eyes and a head of maize. Most of the time, I didn’t do anything. This one time, however, I just kind of….snapped...

“RaaaaAAAAAAAAH!”

I remember it well. We were outside, crossing the street to the school on a trip. After she did that, I went after this one kid who had pushed me and stomped on my lunch. I pushed her right into the street, right in front of the teacher. I hit her so hard, his head and face hit the curb, and she was bleeding and crying, her light hair and cheek soaked red.

“AMI!” I remember the teacher spanking me hard the minute she came up to me. “I’m going to call your mother! You know better than to push!”

When they called my mother, she came in enraged and yelled at the teacher and the mother of the girl. I felt bad because the girl I pushed ended up in the hospital and had to get stitches on her cheek, but I hated her too at the same time. She always laughed at me, and pushed me around, and never got in trouble because her father was a famous writer or something like that. So I was glad, especially when later, her father took her out of the school, but also confused. She sat next to me that day my mother took me out of the school, looking at my mother with fright.

“You’ll punish my girl for fighting back,” my mother shouted. “But you won’t punish that little brat for starting the fight. Because my girl is handicapped its automatically my fault! This is wrong!”

I had always knew I was the problem, but this is the first time it ever occurred to me that, perhaps, it was not all me. Perhaps it was the others, perhaps there was a reason outside myself….but as days went by, and I was picked on still, the thought that I was not to blame vanished. I couldn’t stay in the kindergarten.

So I was home taught for a year before my mother allowed me back into a regular school, and it was not in Juuban or Yokohama, but in Shibuya. During that time, I began to read the autobiography of Newton and his theories on math. I read everything I could get my hands on, even things I couldn’t understand. I had been reading since before I was silent, but I began reading intensely that year. Soon, I had taught myself how to read three languages besides Japanese: Russian, Chinese, English. But still, I did not talk normally.

------------------------

It was another hour before the car finally drove up to the small log cabin. The road had been bumpy, and to Ami, this trip had taken an eternity.

“Do you need help with your suitcase?”
“No….”

Ami felt more comfortable around this man than before. She could tell he was a friend; few people knew exactly where her father’s studio was. Not even her mother knew; whenever her father wrote to Ami, he used the address of his father, who lived in downtown Sapporo and was full-blooded Ainu.

“Your father’s waiting for you.” The man motioned towards the house. “I can go before you if you wish.”
“I’ll be fine…”

Ami felt her stomach twist into millions of knots as she approached the door of the cabin. Every step she took sounded like the beat of a drum, a drum being hit in tune for a sacrifice. Finally, she reached the door, and reluctantly knocked on it.

“….Hello?”

It took several minutes for the voice to reach the door. It opened, and Ami nearly choked on her saliva. There he was, his hair thinned and whitened by stress and age, his figure thinner than what she remembered it to be when she last saw him, his trademark glasses still on his face. The moment his eyes came upon her, his expression brightened, and the next thing Ami knew, she was in a slightly uncomfortable embrace.

“My beautiful Ami.” He rubbed her back. “Happy birthday.”

Part 2: Acceptance

It would be another six months after I was pulled out of school before my father and mother’s relationship finally fell apart with a resounding crash.

“Damn you and your presumptuousness!”

My mother was throwing things at my father, screaming and shouting. By this time, she had gone back to work, but money was still tight because my father had not cut down on his expenses. Finally, the last straw was when my father was charged by the government with fraud - being a part of a scheme to illegally sell fakes of other people’s paintings with another artist and his agent. He had to declare us bankrupt, and was ready to sell me to fund his defense.

“You would SELL my baby?!” My mother was screaming. “Get out! GET OUT!”

I was hiding in the bedroom as the fight broke out. I had been reading my father’s art history book, and heard things crashing. I was scared as I heard them fight as never before.

“This is my fucking apartment!” My father was screaming back. “I paid for it.”
“You don’t have any money to pay for it! That’s why you’d sell my daughter, right?” My mother took her wedding ring off and threw it at his face. “You monster, you bastard…you sellout. Criminal.”
“Whatever, Anza.” My father turned and began walking. “Everything I did was for you. I can’t help your daughter’s dense. But….you’re on your own now, I guess. Good luck.”
“Daughter’s dense…..”

I never felt more afraid than when I saw my mother’s face that night. It was lit by the neon lights, and was haloed like a devil’s. With a scream, she took up a vase and threw it as his head do hard that several shards remain embedded in his head to this day. He gave a scream as he bled, and with a curse was out of my life save for postcards.

It was that night, too, I said my first clear sentences in over four years.

“Daddy. Don’t leave me. I’m sorry.”

-------------------------

The dinner table was set for two for the dinner party. The main entrée was the tuna sandwiches cut in half and Diet Coke, but Ami ate in silence.

“Do you like the presents I got you?” Her father looked up at her. “I figured you would like to read about Euler and Fermat.”
“Yes, dad.” Ami looked down at her sandwich. “I like the books. Actually, I’m doing a project for math to recreate Fermat’s Last Theorem. X to the number n plus y to the number n equals z to the number n to simplify it. If I do it successfully…”Ami paused. “I might get the scholarship to Germany.”
“To do pediatrics?” Her father swallowed down the last of his sandwich. “Ami, I think you would make a better mathematician. If you’re simplifying something like that…..a generation ago, they taught us that they’d never figure out that formula. And you’re going to simplify it. Just…..”

There was a silence at this. Finally after a moment, the pent up thoughts within Ami burst forth before she could control herself.

“Dad, do you love me?”

The look on her father’s face was full of shock. It was apparent that he had not expected such a question.

“Ami…”
“Dad.” Ami stood up this time. “All my life, I had people whom I thought were close to me - friends and even family - tell me I wasn’t good enough.”
“Ami, please-“
“Then I became smart.” There was a hint of anger in her voice. “And all of a sudden, I was their darling. So much pressure, and if I did wrong I was back to being the dense one. So many people in my life who put the pressure on me…I love my studies, but the perfection….I don’t have it. You know I don’t. I remember what you told my mother that night you left. And now, ten years later….Tell me…..is this love you profess for me a lie?”

-------------------

It was really all my fault.

After that night, I improved drastically. I talked normally, I walked normally, and many of my idiosyncrasies disappeared. I spent more time with my mother making cookies and food for friends. After a while, calling it miraculous, my mother deemed me able to go back to school, and I was in classes with normal kids.

But I knew I wasn’t normal. I had something wrong with me, and a lot of the kids sensed it too. I still got picked on, sometimes viciously. I spoke five languages by this time, but it didn’t help when people were throwing things at you, tripping you in class, sticking gum in your hair. I knew it was me who broke my family up; that was bad enough. Being made fun of for whatever had caused it was even worse.

The more I was picked on, the more I dived into my studies. I came to see my schoolwork as my only escape; textbooks don’t throw hamburgers at you, and pencils don’t laugh at you. I studied every day, during recess, during lunch, as much as I could so I didn’t have to deal with the mean people. My grades reflected my obsession to escape; I was a straight A student.

“You’re very smart, Ami.” One day in fourth grade, my teacher brought me aside. “I’m going to recommend you go into the accelerated classes. You’re extremely smart, and I think these classes will simply slow you down.”
“Really?”

So that’s how it went; I went to advanced placement, the most advanced in Tokyo. But I still got picked on, this time for being so smart. I was a teacher’s pet to everyone, and people stole my homework from me. I still had no friends.

At that point, a lot of things emerged about my health. I was allergic to a lot of things - chocolate, pollen, regular milk, chicken, certain papers and smells, dogs and cats. I had bowel problems, and had to have glasses when I was five. So my mother, still wary of what had happened in the past and believing that these problems were related to the dark age of my life, decided to bring me to a specialist when she had enough money.

“Now,” I remember him well. He was an American with a soft voice, a very nice man. “I want you to raise your hand when you hear a beeping sound. After that, I just want to ask your mother a few questions.”
“Will I be able to do my homework after?”
“Of course you will.” He gently pat me on the head. I winced. “Do you like me doing that?”
“No.” I shook my head violently. “I do not like people touching me a lot.”

She took me to a place near New York City called the State University in Stony Brook, where, when I turned eleven, I finally learned what was wrong with me. At the time, and even today, Stony Brook was the world’s foremost institute in regards to research on a disorder called autism.

---------------------

“…..No, Ami.”

A few tears streaked down Ami’s face. She turned away from her father and slumped to the floor.

“I….” She sniffed. “I’m r-really s-sorry…..”
“Ami….”

She felt her father’s arms slip around her, and she began to cry into his chest though his shirt was scratchy and she did not like most people hugging her. She felt her father breath in deeply.

“I love you.” He tilted her head up towards her. “You are my daughter. How can I not?”
“But y-you called me ‘dense’.”
“I never meant it.” The words visibly stung her father. “Ami, anything I said….anything I said about you to your mother….that was not how I truly felt. It was hard for me. I never understood what was wrong with you, I never cared to learn.”

He sucked in another breath. From the corner of her eye, Ami saw the wooden floor of the cottage.

“I was ill-tempered and frustrated at myself.” Ami thought she saw tiny atoms shooting across the planks, and she almost zoned out as her father spoke. “I did many things to you, to Anza - to your mother. It was….when I spoke, you never spoke. It was like a wall, made of steel, and I couldn’t break through. I was powerless to stop whatever held you. And as years passed, I wanted to get away from it.” He wiped his mouth. “I used your mother, I used you. I used a lot of people. And I paid the price. I had to sell almost everything I had to pay off the people I had swindled.”
“You were going to sell me.”
“And I was a fool to think I could get away with it.” Ami’s father looked down. “But I have always loved you, and even now, I don’t deserve you. If you can forgive me, let go of the past…..but the truth is, I don’t expect it. I don’t deserve that either.”

With that, Ami buried her head into her father’s chest once more. It was too much emotion for one night, especially for her.

---------------------

Things began to change in junior high. I never knew just how much my luck would change, though, until it came in the most unlikely form.

“Meow.”
“Hmm?”

I was transferred when I was fourteen, after seven years in Shibuya, to another school. This time, it was back in Juuban, where my mother had moved to take a position at one of the local hospitals. Almost immediately, my reputation preceded me.

“You’re the smart girl from Shibuya, right?” Many people sneered at me as I walked down the hall. “Why’d you leave? Were you too dumb?”
“What a snob.” People would turn their noses at me. “Your mom’s rich, right? What are you doing here when you can afford a private school?”
“Maybe she thinks she’s too good for us,” people would whisper behind me. “Maybe she’s just here to show off.”

I was always sad when I came home. I knew what was wrong with me now - I was autistic. It was preventing me from interacting properly, and there was little to help me build confidence in myself in anything outside of schoolwork. I began to swim on a regular basis, but though I felt comfortable there, I did not join any team. I was afraid they’d reject me for being too smart, an irony - to be the retarded genius. I was flawed, not good enough for people, and I still had no friends. Many times I cried myself to sleep thinking about my father, and my mother, and of all of the things that were my fault.

As such, I went even deeper into my studies, and was noticed more for it. My practice of staying late to study in elementary school was modified as I got older. As soon as I was old enough to take advantage, I had gone to the after school programs every day in Shibuya, and they had cram schools and exam practice sites that were similar to those in my old district. In fact, I was going to one that had recently opened up near my house the day I saw the cat.

“Meow.” The next thing I knew, there was a big ball of black fur in my arms. On its forehead was a yellow mark, strangely shaped like a crescent moon. “Meeeow.”

I stiffened at first; I was allergic to cats. The last time we had a cat, I had broken out in a horrible rash, and so my mother forbade pets in our apartment. But after a few seconds, I somehow felt comfortable around the cat. It seemed nice enough, and I understood that it wanted to be petted.

“Oh, what a cute kitten!” I found it odd that I had not broken out in a rash of any type, but regardless I didn’t let this one to the cat; I knew it would sense that. “And you have a strange little mark on your head…”
“Luuuuuna!!!!”

The next thing I knew, I found myself staring back into a pair of eyes that totally took me aback. They were eyes I remembered all too well from long ago - beady Aryan eyes. There was her hair, still maize, but longer, far longer, and in ponytails. The scar on her cheek from stitches, faint, but I could see it.

And she wore the colors and uniform of my new school.

“DOH!” I stared in horror as she gave a sheepish laugh. “I’m sorry. My cat’s crazy. You’ll have to forgive her invading your space. Oh, hey….you’re the new super smart girl at our school - Ami Mizuno, right?”

I felt sick to my stomach. I was unsure of what to say. What could I say? What if she remembered me? How would she react?

“…..Hi….” My answer came out in a squeak. “I…..I’m sorry…..this is your cat?”
“Yup!” Instantly, her hand was out. “Sorry. How rude of me not to introduce myself! My name is Usagi Tsukino. But….I was right, you’re Ami Mizuno. Right?”

The more I looked at her, the more I began to understand. Her manner told me the truth.

“Yes….”
“You’re not snobby like people say you are!” They shook hands. “You just seem really nervous. But that’s ok! You seem nice either way. Do you want to go to the arcade?”

She didn’t remember. I gave a sigh of relief. Perhaps, I reasoned to myself, this wouldn’t be such a bad idea. If she didn’t remember now, she would probably never remember. Perhaps we could be friends.

“…Of course. I’d love to.”

-------------------------

The morning came fast for Ami, and the next thing she knew she was standing outside of the cottage with her father, waiting for her ride to take her back to Sapporo.

“Ami….” Suddenly, Ami’s father went into his pocket. “There is something I want to give you…”

Ami’s eyes widened at what he pulled out. It was a pair of small, somewhat rudimentary porcelain statues, little more than four inches high. They looked very old, as bits of the face on one of them looked cracked, but they were otherwise both in perfect condition.

“This was my very first work.” Ami stared at it in shock. “I made it in art class when I was twelve. I want you to have it…”
“I can’t take it.” Ami quickly shook her head. “No, I can’t.”
“Please.” He put the statues in her hand. “The assignment my teacher had given us was to give one of these statues to a friend. I had no friends as a boy; perhaps you have more luck. Please, I insist.”

Ami looked down at the statues. It surprised her how her father had kept them all these years. What surprised her more was what each looked like. One had blonde hair; the other had blue.

“Dad, where did you get the hair color…”
“The sun and the sky.” The sound of an oncoming car interrupted Ami’s thoughts. “Your ride is here. Now, back to your mother.”
“….Thank you.”

With a quick hug, Ami then left her father. She took one final look back before getting into the car. Then, with a grunt and a roar, the Seville drove off, leaving Ami’s father by himself.

-------------------

What can I say now?

I have good friends. I have a special life. I have many things others in my condition do not have. I know my parents both love me. I should feel lucky. Sometimes I don’t, but I should. My life changed forever when I met Usagi. One of the people from my past…..

It had always been a mystery to me, what was wrong with me, what made people hate me. I’ve come to realize that it is not all me - it is others, who see what I have, and do not like it. Instead, they use their power to put others down, and I feel sorry for them. Part of it is me, though, part of it being what I put on myself.

I am much better than I was before. I have a lot more confidence, a lot more happiness. I’m not ashamed of my condition anymore; that’s just how life dealt my hand. None of my friends know of my being autistic, but even if they did…I know in my heart they wouldn’t leave me. That’s how lucky I am now.

And this morning, I gave Usagi that little blonde statue. She doesn’t know I gave it to her; I hid it on her dresser. But I know she’ll find it.

Its just my way of saying thank you.


FINIS