Staccato

The First Day

Sequel to/ spin-off of this story is titled 'Metamorphosis'.

~*~

What comes to most people's minds when they think of rich kids? Mostly that they are snobbish, stuck-up jerks who are busy planning the next vacation to an exotic location in their daddy's private jet, and then, plan another one right after that.

I wish that were the case with me. At least then, things would have been simpler.

Instead of being born with a silver spoon in my mouth, what I was born with, I could say, was a bedroom that was, well, special. I really don't know what made my parents design it in that particular manner, but it had been creative and strange of them. They are a jolly lot anyway, really not the types that would strike you as billionaires. It's the famous, spirited Jamaican blood that flows in our veins after all.

Once again, this, right here, is yet another strangeness that defines my life. Because if I were to tell anyone that I carry Jamaican roots in me, the less informed ones will do a double take. An instance of prejudice, because not all Jamaicans are black. Some are white as well - like my dad, Stephen Williams. And his illegitimate son with some white woman whose whereabouts or identity I have no clue of.

Me.

My dad's legitimate children are a total of five in number, all mocha or coffee or whatever colour you would give people of mixed heritage. Because the next thing the less informed wouldn't know of is that the slaves that were brought to Jamaica years ago, all those black and Asian and South Asian folks, found common ground and made love, and now, I would say, Jamaica is a mirror that shows the world what cultural hybridity looks like.

To put it straightforwardly, my mom Fiona (though she isn't my biological mom, I never felt that she isn't, for she loves me as one of her own) is of Black-Indian mixed heritage.

And the five legitimate siblings, in the order of their births, are my twin brothers Leon and Louie, my sisters Lilly, Leslie, and the youngest of the lot, Laurie, who is only thirteen days older than me - the reason why she's virtually my half twin.

Mirror shown to the world brings me back to the creative and strange thing that my parents did while designing my bedroom in our huge mansion of a Renaissance Revival style home in Long Island. They placed two huge stretches of mirror spanning across the two opposite walls of my room, so that it resembled an endless, reflecting, infinitely repeating abyss of my neatly furnished room. And as a little kid one of my favourite things to do was jump around on my bed with my siblings and watch our infinite, tunneling reflections jump with us, like a strange, extremely synced orchestra.

If this wasn't done to my bedroom, I probably wouldn't have been fascinated by the world of physics, and perhaps would have instead been into dancing, like Leon and Louie, or maybe be interested in criminal investigation and harbour a dream to get into the FBI, like my sister Lilly, or just be annoying twerps like my two other sisters Leslie and Laurie.

Anyway, what they did to my bedroom had lasting effects in me. As a child, as little as four or five years of age, I would lose myself in flights of fancy, imagining strange worlds within those reflecting mirror worlds. What if those doppelgangers are all real, all wondering at the other infinite doppelgangers before or behind them, all the while thinking they are the real Noah Williams.

When I was five years old, I had decided that it's not God, it's the Universe that answers our prayers. As you must have already chuckled and guessed it, this view of mine would be subject to repeated, significant alterations, in the years to follow. There would even be a time when I would conclude grimly that the Universe is just a cold, heartless, pitiless, meaningless place, our existence an unfortunate accident, and our life an absurdist play; I would conclude that the Universe is simply dead to all our sufferings and our helpless prayers.