What lies beyond

Matrix

Flavia was born in the month of May. Her mother likes to recall that that year in February, while she was waiting for her with a huge belly, for the second consecutive year it had snowed. Where they lived almost never does snow, so that event in particular must have a specific connotation in the history of her life.
That same year, and just a few days before birth, there is the explosion of a nuclear power plant, another peculiar circumstance.
Flavia is the second and last daughter of a quiet middle-class family. Born and raised in a small suburb of a big city, she lives a particular childhood.
Her sister, seven years older than her, immediately shows a strong jealousy against her; so much that Flavia undergoes her retaliation, with just a few months of life as pinchings, various bothers and innocent questions to her mother, like "But if I break her an arm, will she be in pain?".
Flavia obviously does not remember anything about it, she heard about it in the various sessions of memories that are typical of all households, or almost all.
When she is two years old (and this will remain in the history, because even now everyone remembers the little girl proclaim from the rooftops "iaia boni has twos years"), she suffers a trauma at a subconscious level, due to the alleged abandonment of the mother. Alleged because it really is not that, but therefore seen that way by her very sensitive subconscious.
That year is the year of her sister; first comes a bronchial pneumonia, and her parents decide to treat it at home. Obviously all their attention is focused on the eldest daughter, and here is where the first hints of neglect are felt. After that, there is a knee operation, in a distant city; Flavia in this case is left to the home of his paternal grandmother; last but not least, she receive communion.
The combination of these factors leads to a double result: first, the abandonment of the mother is metabolised and stored; and then, the start of a relationship with her sister made of a strange rivalry, but more about that will be revealed in more detail later.
Flavia has always been a very sensitive child, a kind of genius in many cases, and after a series of studies on the subject, probably part of the generation among the indigo children and the rainbow ones.
For those who do not know what I'm talking about, it comes to children with special skills (empathy, creativity, willpower) or supernatural (telepathy, clairvoyance and others) and a strong spiritual inclination. They are also very intelligent, intuitive and intolerant towards the authorities, often suffering from attention-deficit and hyperactivity syndrome.
Flavia does not remember much of her childhood, but some memories have remained in her mind; among these, she perfectly remembers that as a child she could fly.
She has an out of the ordinary empathy, that leads her to empathize with the situations experienced by others, being they real or not.
For this reason she spend a lot of time watching television, going through the stories that pass by as if they were her life. She also likes to play and impersonate the various subjects, in 'question and answer' dialogues and situations of which she is the only representative, as well as the only spectator.
For a specified period of time she is left alone, free to increase her potential and creativity, until her mother realizes that there is something strange, because her little girl is always alone, she doesn't like to talk too much, she isolates herself from the talking made at the dining table and as soon as she can, she goes back into the great hall where there is the television.
The assumptions are many, maybe she doesn't like the idea that her father during dinner (the only opportunity they have to meet, given that the man works all day) only relates to her sister, because in her he has put all his expectations, aspirations and desires.
When the mother becomes aware of this dynamic, she begins to shift more and more attention on Flavia, but now she is so accustomed to solitude that the continued pressures of the woman to know how the day went and what did she do at school bothers her, preventing her from being closed in her own world and finally express herself.
The perseverance of her mother eventually got the better and she finds herself trying to fit into a family that, down to that moment, she has never been actively part of.
This doesn't, however, reduce the discomfort she feels when she tries to relate to others, including children like her.
Surely the fact that when she is a child in the community where they live she is the only one of her age, along with her best friend of the time and a boy a year older that never played with them, doesn't help.
At school, the situation is no better and Flavia tries in every way to draw attention to herself, this is a gift of the lack she feels and has felt in the family and that inevitably also spreads outside, in the relational life.
It is to put emphasis on this research of the approval of others, possibly reflecting the one she would have from her family, but she has never felt, because it will be an important theme throughout the first half of her life until now.
The great age difference between her and her sister makes sure that she almost ignores her and often the initial jealousy returns in their relationship, because if Flavia feels abandoned, her sister feels the weight of all the expectations of the family, although Flavia will realize this only many years later.
The friends of that time can be counted on the fingers of one hand (which will continue to be like that, following the saying "few but good").
Her best friend of the community, the only person she can go out with and play every afternoon, with a family history that sees the mother sedated because she suffers from constant seizures and an alcoholic father. Often for absurd reasons, her parents for varying periods forbid they to meet up.
The classmate and relatively neighbour, with whom she spent some of the best moments of her childhood living in the same district of what would later become a great friend of her adolescence.
The classmate and best friend, so that even their mothers are friends and therefore they can see each other frequently, and weave a strong friendship, although the cultural environment from which they come are completely different.
All others, classmates, sports mates and peers in general, are just a series of meteors in the life of Flavia, that led her to experiment with different experiences from time to time, to make comparisons between what she likes and what not.
She tends to rely too much on the people and to be open with the majority without malice or bad intentions, for this it always hurt when they show themselves for what they are.
Her air of always having her head in the clouds brings her mother to worry about the bad guys on the street, so she begins with the recommendations.
Don't walk slowly and with a distracted air, do quick steps and always give the idea that you are going somewhere and you rush to reach it, she tells her all the time.
But Flavia is like that: some call it distracted, other dreamer; she simply looks at the world differently and scrutinizes it in any gesture, be it a simple walk or an interaction with whoever is next, to see what reaction brings every action and learn and grow.
It's with the beginning of school relationships, with the rigid schemes of the system that cage her, that Flavia sees that her world always shrink more, oppressing her, and without understanding her need to be alone to be able to relate to others.