I remember the first morning quite well. I was still fast asleep when something started tickling me at the small spot between my nose and my still closed eyes. I giggled and opened my eyes just to get a painful stab straight through my eye-lens. What creature dares to first tickle me just to wait until I wake up and then stab me in my young eyes, I thought.

How overwhelmed I was when I opened my eyes again to find a shining sphere of light standing high on the blue sky, blinking through the small holes in the deer hide that covered the small window of the Mother´s bedroom. How marvellous that light shone upon me, warmed me and, well – stabbed me in my eye on my very first morning. I stretched my arms towards it, hopeful to catch something of it, to contain it and to hold it still for further examination. Obviously, nothing of sort happened, except that I finally managed to remember that I was not alone in that room.

There was somebody lying in a small but cosy looking bed right beside my night table. Her back was turned towards me, and she was wrapped in many old, but still cosy and warm looking furs that appeared to keep her comfortably warm.

I must have made some noise by then because she turned around looked at me through only half opened eyes and spoke with a raspy voice: “Still here, little worm?”

Little worm, that´s what she addressed me at that time. Little worm was also the name I got for many years to come until I eventually chose a new one.

She got up, scratched her head, and finally held her face above my little nest of blanket and fur. Her face was not hard, it appeared gentle at first, but what made me immediately feel unwelcome were her eyes. There was a bitterness residing inside her eyes that never leaves my mind. And with those bitter eyes she looked at me. I can´t tell why but at that moment I knew that bitterness it was that would colour my coming years in a steady pattern of black silver and blue. I often think in colours these days, so perhaps you can think of what it was that I saw at that moment. Black, silver and blue. That´s also the colour of her eyes.

At that day I got fed once. I couldn´t tell that it is not normal for a new-born child to only be fed once a day, but that´s all I got at the time. What I could tell that it never was enough for me. That´s when I experienced hunger.

When the first day ended with nothing extraordinary happening beside the Mother leaving the small room after feeding me for the one time at that day, I had already learned that one meal a day is not enough. Not for me. I was eager to explore, eager to see and learn things. About the world, about the Mother and all the stars outside of my little window.

In the time I was laying there on my little night table without anybody present to explain me where I was or how I got here, what I was supposed to do or what anything at all …I started to explore the room. Not physically exploring my room, I was still unable to have any degree of control over my body.

But my eyes – they could explore. They could learn. At that day, I learned that beside the bed and the little night table, there also was a small wooden chest at the end of the bed that contained clothes for the Mother to change. Underneath my nest on the nightstand there was a drawer.

Inside the drawer there was a small collection of a yellowish fabric with strange signs all above it, all rolled together and bound with a red cord each. Years later I learned they were letters with words on them, written on papyrus. But with those few things I saw and noticed the fascination of my birthing room ended. There was nothing left to see.

During the day I explored the sensation of hearing. Many sounds came through the little window, some high-pitched whining, that was strangely repetitive. A barking noise that moved from left to right. Voices I could hear. Many voices that talked to my mother who was apparently sitting outside the room doing whatever it was she was doing. Words were spoken, words I at that point did not understand, but nevertheless was intrigued to find out more about them. They had a certain rhythm to them that my still developing mind could not yet combine into something making sense.

After I thoroughly explored the room again and again with my eyes, I went back to looking outside of my window that I already began to grow fond of. The mother was kind enough to pull away the deer-hide that blocked my view so I could watch the sun in the blue and green sky. Many clouds passed alongside my window, and I greeted them all kindly. What wonderful person must have placed this window there, so I could watch the sky all day. What a marvel to have an ever-changing sky to look at…

With more time passing the light grew dim inside my room with it growing dimmer and dimmer there were huge black figures of all the things that were living in my room moving around very slowly across the floor. I noticed my first shadows.

Light and shadows it appeared somehow belonged together. They always were attached to the things inside my room. Before I could make out any regularities about the interaction of light and shadow the wooden door opened and the mother entered the room. She stopped in her tracks; her eyes fixed on my little nest on the nightstand.

She wore a soft brown gown with dirt at the bottom end and some leather sandals. Her hair were of black curls tied together with a ribbon of red colour and her eyes remained the same black silver blue I learned about her at the morning.

She stepped closer to me, picked me up and held me aloft in front of her. I remember wondering at her evenly matched features. I can´t say that I recall her to look overly pretty, but still – she had something noble about her. Even features, wide and clear eyes, not too many wrinkles but still she didn´t seem to be too noble as well. There were wrinkles. There were many signs of honest and hard work, of bitter and of happy years. I can´t say how I knew, but all this I could see about her. I could learn a lot through observation it appears.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

“Still here, hu?”, she said, and with that she sat me down, back into my nest. I must have babbled something I suppose. Some way to explain her, that I was hungry. That I wanted her to be here with me and do something, whatever it was that Mothers are supposed to do with their children. Needless to say, she did nothing of sorts.

She sat down at the head side of her bed, her legs crossed in a lotus position and her back resting against the dry wall. Her arms reached towards me, but before I could react to show her that I was ready to be fed and cuddled her hands went towards the drawer underneath my nest on the nightstand.

She took out those yellowish scrolls, unfolded them and began staring at those for a while.

Why was she staring at them? She could´ve been doing so many good things right now, feeding me for example, but no – she preferred staring at some scrolls with black markings.

I felt hungry again and started wailing and babbling, but apart from one intense angry stare there was no reaction.

When I understood that I was getting no more food today, I turned back to staring out of my window.

I prepared myself for the pain a few seconds and dared to take another breath of this powerful energy surrounding me everywhere.

An electric jab ran through me and elicited a high-pitched gasp.

“Ssshh!”, the Mother said.

The energy run through me, and I could feel it centring itself inside my stomach, right at my sternum. The pain remained, it even slightly stretched out, reaching through my body.

I had done so several times throughout the day, whenever I felt my throat burning with thirst and my tummy growling with hunger. When I did so, the pain remained with me for a while until it somehow dissipated and the energy left my body. The energy whatsoever always tried to concentrate around my sternum. For me it felt like it did not want to leave me, but whenever I tried to ask it to just stay there, it eluded my mental grasp on it and left my body. Where it went, I couldn´t say at that time.

I opened my eyes again, I hadn´t even noticed I closed them in anticipation of the pain to come.

A look around the room showed me that the Mother had put up some candles and kept staring at her scrolls, occasionally turning them over or exchanging one for another. I liked the light they gave of.

Even more so I liked it, when I noticed the dark figures were back in my room! How I had missed them since the light of the day left through my window and unknown amount of time ago.

“You are pretty awake, little Worm. How curious…! I swear it´s just been a day since I pressed you out of me womb, but there you sit babbling all along and already looking at things.” That was the Mother again.

Apparently, she had stopped herself from looking at yellowish scrolls and finally found time to look at me. I couldn´t tell for long that I was not an ordinary baby. Babies tend to sleep for weeks before they become anything but useless, cute little toddlers.

I couldn´t understand her words, but somehow, I got the meaning. The sounds she was making didn´t make any sense to me, but as I was attentively watching and listening to her, the meaning came to me. It is still hard for me to imagine being a toddler, having to spend all these weeks that your body needs to adjust to the world outside your mother’s womb by basically doing nothing – just sleeping and waiting for your elders to entertain and care for you. Nobody cared for me, and my younger self somehow was prepared to care for myself.

“But I shouldn´t be too surprised, I guess.”

What was it she was not so surprised of?

Was I doing something wrong? I didn´t want to do anything wrong. I wanted her to hold me, to feed me and most of all, to show me things. I was so curious of things. The black things dancing around my room first among all. They were dancing right now, dancing with the candles.

“I just wonder if you know…do you know, little Worm? You understand, do you not?”

What was it that I was supposed to know? I knew nothing. How could I? I just knew how her eyes roamed across my face, looking for something I couldn´t tell.

For just a moment there was no animosity in her eyes. There was something else, a sheen that seemed to make her so much more alive, that seemed to make her glow.

Love? I can still not say what it was that I saw that day in the light of the candles in our bedroom. But the moment passed, and her eyes turned cold again. Distant, black silver and blue.

She turned around, grabbed the black sheep-wool blanket, and pulled it over her feet. With that she put away the scrolls back into their place inside the drawer underneath my nest on the nightstand.

Her fingers snapped off the candles and the light left our room. With the light, all the black figures took leave. They became shapeless, too. She turned away and fell into deep sleep shortly after.

In her sleeps she looked gentle, I thought. What a soft person she is, if not for her eyes. Her soft form began to move slowly up and down with every breath she took, rhythmical with her breathing. How I longed to be there with her underneath those blankets. How I wished she would turn around and pull me closer towards her. I could see just the perfect spot between her sideway rolled arms, right above her chest. The spot looked perfectly shaped to keep me warm and safe.

I wouldn´t need no food, no water, no nothing, just to feel her body heat to warm me through the night so I would not have to breath in this hurtful energy and let it roam through out my body.ei his

When I was certain, that she was fast asleep I turned around. There it was again, my little window. Back were also all those little lights at the black midnight sky, twinkling at me, daring me to stand up and explore their light.

Cold, hunger and thirst visited me that night again.

Whenever they came to ask my body for something I braved myself and took in a deep breath of the endless and universal energy around me. No more yelps elicited my lips like in the first night, so I would not wake up the Mother. Perhaps, if I just managed to remain silent for the night she would be more welcoming to me in the morning to come. And just like that, I began to actively substitute my physical needs with the universal energy.

I breathed it in, let it take up the necessary property of warmth or vital energy and with time it faded away, just as if it hadn´t ever been here with me.

Just like that my first day ended. I had learned many things today, but now again I learned about my three unloved companions, hunger thirst and cold.