The Purpose

CHAPTER 1: THE BEGINNING

CHAPTER 1: THE BEGINNING

It's a Friday in late June in St. Mungo's, and nothing has happened yet. Everyone is waiting. Someone will come here this afternoon, at a quarter to three precisely, to talk to someone else. Surely, nothing bad can come out of it?

Time is a strange thing. Ruthless and unsparing. It never apologizes. Time and St. Mungo's have that in common. Because here, all time is dead time. It kills you slowly, day by day. Every hour is identical to the one before it. If you are in "a certain situation," that is.

One kid in said situation has never gotten used this place. St. Mungo's and her will never find peace. Maybe everyone has places that makes them feel that way: places that never apologize, never admit that they were wrong about us. They just sit there, impregnable, whispering: "You might think yourself all strong and resilient. And maybe you do come here with your chin held high and your back straight. But you can't fool me, because I know who you really are. You're just a scared little kid."

Berit will soon turn twelve. Her room is so tiny that if it had been in a larger apartment in a well-to-do neighborhood in a big city, it would barely have registered as a closet.

If anyone didn't know any better, they could just as well swear the place was allergic to color. It looked no better than the inside of a freezer, white and lifeless, with one exception.

A piece of paper was pinned to the wall – the only real proof apart from herself that a human being inhabited the place. Someone had written parts of a prayer on it.

If you are honest, people may deceive you. Be honest anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfishness. Be kind anyway.

All the good you do today will be forgotten by others tomorrow. Do good anyway.

It has been almost a year since she was moved to this place. She sat in her bed every moment for the first week. Until the matrons insisted that she shower and change her clothes. Everywhere they looked at her with sympathetic stares and expressed their "regret." In the second week she overheard a man talking to the nurses. He had purple robes and spoke in an indifferent, clinical voice about the need to "prepare her for the likelihood of staying here permanently."

In the following months Berit met innumerable people in expensive looking robes. They sat behind desks made of well-polished wood in various other rooms that St. Mungo's had to offer, and they apparently had endless amounts of time to instruct her in what documents had to be filled in for various purposes, but no time at all to discuss the measures that were needed for her to get out. Most of them spoke of the "secrecy of the matter" and the "seriousness of events" and how "they're only trying to help her."

One of them bullishly explained that this was the best place for someone "in her situation." Something about how "the strain of everyday life" quite understandably could be "excessive" if she was among peers. "Under...hem-hem...present conditions," she kept coughing, nodding discreetly at Berit. It was crystal clear she regarded Berit as no more than an inanimate object. Her robes were pink. "No hope for her. No hope, I'm afraid" she soberly explained to the others. "This is not rehabilitation, this is... hem-hem... storage."

The young girl said nothing. "It's as if she left all her words outside, poor thing. Haven't heard a word from her since they brought her here" the matrons would often state over cups of tea and short lunch breaks. "Wondered what might have happened."

The final lines written on the sheet of paper on her wall read as follows:

What you create, others can destroy. Create anyway. Because in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and anyone else anyway.