2004-03-06 - Family Ties:

This is a dream I had. I play the role of the observer:

A woman lives in a regular house, with a regular yard, and regular garden. She has the usual possessions, which regularly signify social happiness and general success. She has a husband who is kind to her. She has three children, aged twelve (girl), ten (boy), and seven (boy). She is happy.

One day, the woman learns somehow (I don't remember how, exactly) that her husband of X years is actually her brother (or perhaps half-brother). Either he or she was put up for adoption; each had no knowledge of the other over the course of their lives.

She becomes obsessed with this fact, repulsed by it, horrified and disgusted with her once beloved husband. Where they once cuddled in bed before falling asleep, she sleeps with her back to him, curled away from him in a solid, solitary ball. She can barely speak to him. When they leave for their consecutive places of work, she is relieved. She cannot tell him. She cannot tell anyone.

She looks at her children, sickened by them. They are regular-looking children, true enough; with cherub-like, chubby features in the youngest, charming, growing masculinity in the middle child, and sweet, emerging womanliness in the eldest. The children are well liked in school. They do well in school. They enjoy their lives. But the woman begins to despise them, these repulsive products of incest, however accidental.

She can no longer stand the knowledge. One night, she kills the children, one by one, while the husband is away on a business trip. She wraps the bodies in white linens and twine, and stores them neatly in the house, hidden in the crawlspace where the tools are stored.

The husband returns from the trip, looks for his children, is confused. The woman grows increasingly agitated by this. Finally, she tells him, sobbing, furious, how they are so closely related. His emotions go through various stages throughout her speech: disbelief, shock, realization, disgust, depression, tolerance, then concern for the children. He demands to see them. She won't tell them where they are.

Through the course of several events over the course of several days, it becomes clear that the children are dead. He finds their little bodies, wrapped in linens and twine: neat little mummies, courtesy of Mommy. And he knows. He is upset, mournful, and then livid. He does not know what to do.

Authorities are notified. Rumors spread: perhaps she hasn't killed the children. No one has peeled back the linens and twine, perhaps it is not true. It is all a farce; she just wants attention. Such a preposterous story. Someone investigates into the possibility of adoption of one of the siblings. Records are hard to come by; it is believed that it is all myth.

The woman, the husband, and the wrapped bodies of three distinct children in linens and twine all sit in the family back yard, amid the flowers and the man-made koi pond they kept. Authorities and spectators alike surround them. Someone tells the wife about the impossibilities of her claims. She becomes increasingly upset, weeping, sobbing, finally collapsing on the soft, sweet-smelling, dewy grass (regularly fertilized).

The husband is relieved about this, but alarmed as well, for the well being of his children. He must know if the rumors are true, or if they are actually dead. He gathers the nerve and peels back the linens and twine, to see the truth. He is flooded with emotion to realize that the mummified bodies were, in fact, fake. He holds up fistfuls of wire, papier-m�ch� and cotton to the audience in the yard. A collective sense of relief is experienced. Then alarm, again, for where are the children?

Soon, the children emerge from a forest nearby and enter the yard. They ran away, their mother told them to run away. Turns out she didn't have the nerve to kill them, but instead told them to flee, they must leave, she cannot bear to have them here anymore. The children, tired, drained, emotional, stand about, not sure of what to do, what to make of the masses in the yard.

It is determined then and there that the mother is insane. They have no idea what is to be done with her. Plans are made to have her committed on the spot.

An investigator runs into the din. He is waving various documents, thrusting them into the hands of the husband, of the authorities. It is true! The woman and her husband are, indeed, related. Brother and sister. Never mind the probability of the children being born with deformities and conditions, the documents are right here!

A buzz ripples through the crowd, the family, as the reality sinks in. The children know now, and are speechless. They shift about, breaking off stems of the pretty flowers in the pretty garden, muted and melancholy. No one seems to pay much attention to them.

Over the course of several events over the course of several days, the woman is committed to an institution for attempted murder of her children. The husband deteriorates, retracting into himself, in deep depression. It is arranged for the children's identities to be changed, for them to be put up for adoption themselves, hopefully into the same home. But the children themselves are becoming increasingly detached and alienated from everyone but each other. They disappear. Soon, they are found dead indeed, the result of a suicide pact between the three of them.