Chapter 6
The consequence of doing too much of this sort of wicked nonsense was…
My parents agreed that there was something wrong with me mentally.
When I was sixteen, they took me to the best psychiatric hospital in the city.
I came out of the psychological assessment feeling wonderfully refreshed.
The doctor holding my results behind me, on the other hand, looked distinctly conflicted.
My parents looked worried.
“Is her condition very serious?”
The doctor frowned deeply.
“How should I put it… I’ve never encountered a case like this before.”
“Let’s have her do a sand-tray assessment as well.”
Half an hour later, over a hundred little figures stood in my sand tray.
Beautiful women and handsome men circled the two figures in the center, one male and one female, like stars around the sun.
They packed the entire tray.
Anyone with trypophobia would have had an immediate attack.
Perhaps the doctor had never seen such an overcrowded sand tray. His expression was beginning to slip, but he still smiled as he listened to my introduction.
“I call this sand tray ‘One Big Happy Family.’”
First, I picked up the male figure in the middle.
“This is my dad. He never says so, but I know he loves me very much.”
I pointed at the big circle of figures around “Dad.”
“These are his other wives and children. I know he loves them very much too.”
“Dad has such a big heart. There’s a Big Bang going off in it every moment, and every galaxy has different people living in it!”
I picked up the female figure in the middle.
“This is my mom. I love her more than anyone in the world.”
I pointed at the big circle of figures around “Mom.”
“These uncles love my mom more than anyone too, just like me.”
“Lots of people don’t understand her, but what has she done wrong? She just wants to give every man in the world a home!”
I picked up the two tiny figures holding hands in a corner.
“This is me and my little sister.”
“Some feelings need no explanation… If you know, you know.”
Finally, I gestured at the whole tray.
“My greatest wish is that, in this cold world, both the cruelest and the fairest of places, our whole big family can stay together, all of us, forever and ever, holding each other to the end of the world.”
“Until the Earth explodes, we’ll never fight.”
“Until the universe reboots, we’ll never part!”
The doctor’s expression grew more and more complicated.
He then sent me for a complete blood count, a comprehensive biochemistry panel, thyroid tests, an ECG, an EEG, a brain CT scan, an MRI, near-infrared brain imaging, and a whole series of other tests.