I’ll never understand people’s fascination with knowing the future. What satisfaction comes from walking a pre-determined path? I want nothing to do with the future, it just has a habit of finding me.
I guess I should make some attempt to explain who I am and why I am here, walking among you. And no, that’s not the snub of a famous person. I doubt you’ll believe any of this story and that’s the only reason I’m telling it here.
First off, I’m not human. Well not in the same sense that you are. I look like you, talk like you, move like you. But if the urge took me, I could leap into another form and slink off somewhere out of sight. Rather convenient for escaping the paparazzi don’t you think?
As for what I am? Well… My parents are both divine entities, formerly existing as Aztec gods. But as that civilization dwindled, their fame and power did as well. But life doesn’t randomly wink out of existence. My mother is Oxomoco, once a goddess who presided over astrology and the creation of the oh so famous calendars. Her meeting with my father was a fling. A bit of lust they sated for a few weeks. Until my mother’s chance reading of the stars told her she was pregnant with a daughter. My father? My father is Camaxtli, once a god of fate, of war and hunting. A jealous man who murdered his 400 sons so they’d have no chance of ascending to his place. And yes, I did say 400. It was fear of my father’s temper and history that made my mother flee. She concealed her pregnancy for nine months and then dumped me at a small South American orphanage. I really believe she thought she was protecting my life.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that my childhood was one spent in poverty. I shared one room with a dirty floor and no electricity with a dozen other children. As an infant my cries were rarely answered and so somehow my brain learned that the attempt was pointless. I fell silent. I spent my developmental years without attention or education. I spent them silent, not even growing an attachment to the other orphans. I’m not sure what age I was when the flood came, only that it came. Floodwaters rose from the river the orphanage stood by and a mudslide took out the building itself.
By all reasonable accounts, I should have died that day. Instead I washed up further down the river, deep into uninhabited parts of the jungle. When I woke up from that disaster, I first realized my vision had split. I had started to see the future, even if it wasn’t how I understood it at the time.
I don’t see one path of the future as some rare gifted do, but every path. I don’t see one future, but every possible future, every outcome from every possible decision spiraling out into eternity. An endless and daunting maze of possibilities. But as a child alone in the forest, it was a tool for survival, allowing me to find food and safe shelter. I grew wild, without language or human thought. Living as an animal among animals, fighting for survival in the vast depths of a forest.
I don’t know how long I survived like that. How many years I lost as an animal. I do know when I was found I was not yet grown, barely brushing teen years in appearance. I do remember the day I was found, the day my consciousness split into pieces.
I was found, in a spot I’d burrowed into to nest, by a team of South American scientists that were trying to catalog a new species of bird. They made a much more disturbing find, a human girl, living like a wildcat. And I was stunned stupid, what had only been visions of my future paths split into waves of existence, displaying the paths of this small party of people. It was more images and possibilities than my mind could comprehend. I found my own form of insanity in the meeting of those seven minds. Can you comprehend the damage to my consciousness that bringing me back to society inspired? If seven minds and futures were overwhelming, try and imagine the effects of millions…
These years of my life are more of a haze than any other. I was considered a scientific find of great significance. A true jungle child. I was taken back to their laboratory and research center in central Brazil and they went about the long process of trying to civilize me. They made attempts to clean and groom me, document my remarkable health despite my condition. They tried to teach me to wear clothes, to speak simple words. I admit I’ve watched videos of those first few days, my responses weren’t even remotely human. But then they had no idea what my mind was coping with.
They had kept their discovery a secret from the world, hoping to tame and document and then present their findings to an unsuspecting public. Initially I believe their intentions had been pure and if I had been a normal human, their efforts might have worked. But weeks stretched into months and months turned into frustration. Positive reinforcement turned to beatings when I showed no response to their lessons. My world dwindled to things I could not comprehend and then pain because I could not understand. It was a vicious cycle that made me retreat further into myself.
I’m not sure which scientist’s interests twisted first, but I do recall the pain of my body being unwillingly used for another’s pleasure. I imagine he felt he deserved some satisfaction from me after all his efforts. My existence dwindled further to that of a toy. My body used in so many ways for the pleasure of others. I don’t know which ran out first, money or interest. But either way, I was discarded into a small mental hospital.
There the staff knew nothing of my history, only that I was a mute, prone to violent outbursts and moments of prolonged hysteria. Their solution was to keep me heavily sedated and restrained, brushing on the edge of coma. No part of my consciousness could tell you how long I stayed in that state. Maybe years. The first coherent memory I have was the sound of a woman’s voice humming soft words. The voice returned every night, singing some nights and speaking in soft tones at other times. I remember the first time curiosity made me push my way to consciousness and find the source of the voice. It was an older woman who came every night to clean the rooms. I don’t know how many more nights she spoke and sang to me before I was really aware of her and how many months followed before her gentle mannerisms and encouragement taught me my first words.
The old maid had an ancient knowledge too, an understanding of prophecy and fortune telling. Her encouragement led me to come to grips with the complexities of my gift. Taught me how to focus my thoughts on a simple object to narrow all futures down to the present. And as soon as that trick was mastered she was gone, leaving a simple crystal ball on my bed as a gift. In reflection now, I know who she was. She was Cihuacoatl, goddess of the earth and my father’s mother.
With the ability to control my heightened gift for prophecy, I was finally able to focus on reality. Language came easy and music came quickly after. The darkness of my mind still clings to those first hummed notes. Music is both freedom of expression and outlet. My recovery was deemed miraculous and I was released several months after my grandmother disappeared from my life.
I found work quickly singing in bars and nightclubs and as I’m sure you know, I was picked up shortly after that and exploded on the international music scene. As for my past? I’m still growing and changing, still stretching out to find new gifts and abilities. And while I now know who my parents are, I have no overwhelming desire to seek them out, my life is my own. But there is a certain group of scientists somewhere who have a price to pay. I personally will see that they do. For now however, it is one day at a time, still adjusting. Still learning to control my gift in moments of stress and sadness. And now trying to overcome the growing urge to save people from fates I see in a maze of futures.
But you? You will find this story impossible to justify with my public face and stage presence. And you will walk away and forget it all…
