Saturnalia (SAMPLE)

chapter four: on the origins of hysteria

Fear is manifest threefold in the following events; the first incident being the birth of a sibling.

When Iyan was nine years old, his aunt had been pregnant with what was to believed her only child. The pregnancy had been difficult, and ultimately ended in the tragic death of the infant a mere hour after its birth. Though Aunt Myra had been hopeful, her husband was hardly such, and had convinced her to decline selecting a name for the baby, until its emergence into the world was safe and secured. How little did he know that such a decision would haunt Myra for the next years to come - perhaps, if they had been confident in the life of their child, would the babe have been born after all? Such musings were of no help to the recently bereaved woman, and she turned to Iyan for comfort.

Though neither of them had been known to each other for very long (at this time, Iyan's parents were still quite alive, and their general company was that of a friendly familial one), the two took to one another quite steadfastly. The Luttons were often engaged on social gatherings and affairs, so Iyan was often in the presence of his Aunt - Uncle Hans was quite committed to the post office.

With the growing dependency on one another - Iyan's attachment to the unfamiliar mothering qualities of Myra, and her tenderness towards the child she would never have - it was eventual that the details of the failed pregnancy would be made known to Iyan.

For weeks after Myra's confidence in her nephew, nightmares plagued the impressionable mind of Iyan, who saw visions of a child, not unlike him in age and appearance, calling out and crying for its mother. The dreams were troubling, to be sure, but out of a concern for his aunt's mental state, Iyan kept such dreams to himself, until one day, the dreams appeared far closer to reality.

Wandering the woods behind his extended family's cabin home was a favourite pastime of Iyan. On a particularly cold day, when the sun was submerged in a sea of shock-white clouds, Iyan was throwing stones at a thinning river, frosted over as it was by growing ice. A usually safe activity, as the river was too small even in its melted state to fall in, Iyan looked up to find the very child from his nightmares staring at him from across the opposite river bank. He had been arrested by fear, but also of a burning curiousity that often accompanies youth.

Unfortunately for his minimal curiousity, as Iyan attempted to cross the river and meet with this spectre, perhaps in need of assistance only the living could provide, the ice cracked beneath his feet and plunged him at once into the icy water. Sense had never been further from him - he flailed and screamed and cried out, but nothing could extract him from the sinister depths of the water.

It was his Aunt who pulled him free at last. Concerned for the whereabouts of her darling nephew, nervous as she was about the cold, her search led her in a timely fashion to the cries of Iyan, and she saved a child from the clutches of death.

First to lose is the child, seconded by the parents. The water's hungry maw opened not only for the near-death of one, but the absolute end for those absent.

When Iyan was ten and three years old, his parents had found themselves in the business of a party, a grand and expensive affair the required them to leave their son with their nearby family. The event took place some miles away, at an isolated estate owned by a wealthy Lord. The irony of their near mandatory festivities being the catalyst for so grim an outcome that was to follow was not lost on Iyan, who would think on such an avoidable accident for years after.

Taking the family's car, it was Iyan's father who drove, but with the consumption of strong alcohol, the contagious cheer of his wife, and her pressing advances as they traveled, accident was unavoidable. The senior Lutton attempted to pull the car over - by the side of a bridge, no less - to address the attentions of his sensual wife, when the bridge creaked, shuddered, and eventually collapsed over the extensive lake it gloomed over.