Dr. Jedidiah’s Diary
Dr. Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves
traveling, meeting new people, and exploring different cultures. As a single
father who lost his wife to drug overdose 10 years ago, he has not been his old
perky self for the last decade. During those hard years, he has met hundreds
of, thousands of people from various walks of life around all over the world.
Meeting new people and listening to their stories outside his office have given
him different feelings from the ones through the formal encounter groups or being
truly honest with himself. Here is Dr. Jedidiah’s monologue that has left him
with some food for thoughts in life…. or a fodder to justify his own mistakes
in the past.
Episode #85. Anna, the Storyteller’s World of
Enigma
Everybody in the novel writing club thought of her as the
weirdest story teller. When I first met Anna in that weekly meet-up, I was one
of those that saw her as an eccentric or clueless person who happened to end up
with a small cohort of story writers. She had ghostly pale skin in a bony figure,
and all the stories she wrote and shared were way above our normal range of
understanding as an ordinary flesh and blood. Quite often times, the way
she opened her stories sounded so anomalous and out of key to me
that I could hardly ever concentrate on the rest of her chapters. Anna seemed
like a ledge on the outside of a tall building. That is, members,
including myself, in the club would not wish to welcome, her because her hideous
creations gave us goosebumps, but on the other hand, her one-of-a-kind stories
would play the role of extending our imagination to the point of experiencing
maximum thrills outside our own comfort zones.
Anna takes delight in finding the club members secretly
embarrassed while reading her stories in which they faced their own hidden side
of evil selves. Sometimes members try to partially shadow-ban Anna’s
fictions in our club blog and did not let her have a chance to elaborate on her
stories. However, it was not a big deal for Anna to be gradually ousted by the
members. She just wanted to remind people of some untold side of their lives and
think about it at least once a week. I was wondering what she tried to show us
all with her stories. When I asked if her fictitious stories had any intentions
of giving us some awakening moments, she quietly gave me a sardonic smile. She said
“My Irish Grandma was a born story teller and went by the name of a great sennachie in town. She used to be surrounded by all her
grandkids in holiday seasons. One thing that still puzzled me is that my
grandma always changed her voice once her story began. Not in a warm, soft
voice that tucks a child in bed though. I could feel the tiny trembling wavelengths
in her voice, and it gave me and my cousins the creeps, which had never been felt
anywhere before. Well…I know most of my stories I’ve made up here must have sounded
gnarled, grotesque, and somewhat uncomfortable to you guys, because I know she
had inspired me from my childhood. The picture of my grandma still runs through
my head like an old witch doctor. The way she smiled was more of a twitch,
which seemed to catch anyone who failed to comport himself in front of
her.”
“What was the purpose of your grandma’s bed time stories?
Just to scare off her grandkids that did not behave themselves?” I knew my
questions would be evaporating into the air without getting answers from Anna
when she said “Do not ever judge or assume anybody in your life. Some may
always look like an agitator who breaks the Saturnian carousal,
and some others might be seen an advocate of peace making in the midst of
turmoil. Who do you think you are? What about your parents or close friends?” Anna
went on to tell me a little more about her grandma Abigale who was brought up by
abusive father. Her dad used whatever’s around to beat his little daughter even
for a small mistake she made. The day when she broke her dad’s favorite flower
vase, she was yanked out of her room and beaten for half an hour with an
iron cord. When she came home just 15 minutes after her curfew, she got slapped
in the face by her dad. Grandma Abigale thought her father did everything in
good faith for her. One day after school when Abigale was in 10th
grade, she saw her father with another woman at a movie theater. Not once,
twice, or….. even countable times in her memories. When she brought up the
matter at a dinner table, her mother started to sob and told Abigale that she
had known about it all along. Her mother left home for good the following day.
Anna asked me if her grandma Abigale had ever gotten a
chance to judge her parents, who do I think she might say a good parent. The father
who destructed the peace in a family by secretly deviating his track? Or the
mother who kept painful silence until the secret was revealed and then abruptly
left everybody behind? I wasn’t able to answer her question about who to judge
or criticize. Anna’s mind-boggling stories had told me how complex and
distorted our life could be, and the most dangerous thing to do in such an
intricate web of mysteries of life is to define people in each of our individual
perspectives. Her final story in the club was the most energy-draining and
emotionally charged one of all. It began with a scene where a bunch of kids
playing shadow tag in a school playground. As the sun was setting and it was
getting dark, one kid watching the others in the corner of the play ground
slowly trudging near the kids at play and said “I’m it. Chase my shadow now.” All
the other kids started to chase after this boy, but nowhere was his shadow to
be seen. The playground smelled like a rusty metal leaving bitter taste in
their mouth. I hope Anna was not projecting her own childhood and her late
grandma in her abstrusely twisted stories.
Expressions
1.
flesh and blood: living
being with human emotions or frailties, often in contrast to something
abstract, spiritual, or mechanical
2.
anomalous:
deviating
from what is standard, normal, or expected.
3.
out of key: (something
is) out of tune or not in harmony
4.
ledge: a narrow horizontal
surface projecting from a wall, cliff, or other surface
5.
to shadow ban someone: to
block (a user) from a social media site or online forum without their
knowledge, typically by making their posts and comments no longer visible to
other users.
6. 6. sennachie: a professional storyteller of family genealogy, history, and legend.
7. witch doctor: (among
tribal peoples) a magician credited with powers of healing, divination, and
protection against the magic of others.
8.
twitch: to tug or pull at
with a quick, short movement; pluck
9.
to comport oneself: to
pull oneself together/ to behave oneself
10.
agitator: a
person who urges others to protest or rebel
11. Saturnian:
(Latin origin) peaceful, prosperous, or happy
12. Carousal: a
noisy or drunken feast or social gathering; revelry
13. to yank…: to
pull or remove abruptly and vigorously
14. in good faith: in
an honest and proper way
15. abstrusely: in
a difficult way
*Picture source:
https://rogersmovienation.com/2019/08/09/movie-review-scary-stories-to-tell-in-the-dark/
