XAND

A Letter To My Attacker

To the young man who attacked me four days ago.

As you walked away from me, adrenaline still rushing through your veins, eyes wide and heart pumping. The thrill and satisfaction of having humiliated another victim. The memory of those few seconds already beginning to fade, what was the rest of your day like? What did you do? Who did you talk to? What did you eat for dinner that night? How did you sleep?

The next morning, as you stretched in the sunlight, a smile of satisfaction curving your lips. As you lit a cigarette and felt a slight ache in your knuckles. As you showered and dressed. As you left your home and stepped outside. As you began just another day free from fear, free from trauma, free from nightmares, how was your day? What did you eat? Who did you see? Which friend called and asked if you wanted to get drunk that night? confidence I had remaining. I already was afraid. I already found it hard to go outside. Now… there is no outside. Only these walls.

What’s it like to be able to walk down the street? What does the sky look like? What does the air smell like? How does it feel to not be afraid? What’s it like to not have to check if the door is locked 50 times? What’s it like to not replay the moment in your mind over and over and over and over and over?

As the past melts away and becomes just another story, another tale to tell your friends, another joke to laugh at, what’s it like to feel ok? What’s it like to walk down the street with your girlfriend? What’s it like to hold her hand? What’s it like to kiss her and have no one look at you in disgust? What’s it like for there to be no consequences? What’s it like to just go on with your life and for those seconds to disappear into the mists of time? What’s it like to forget? How does that feel?

As I sit here typing these words, I look at the leaves of a tree outside my window. A gentle breeze makes them dance in the sunlight. It feels good to have the window open. I couldn’t do that before. The night you attacked me I closed the windows and barricaded myself into my flat. The nights were stuffy in a room without fresh air. The night you attacked me I couldn’t eat. The next day I sat shivering in fear, watching the door, waiting for you to break it down. I couldn’t eat, fear twisting my stomach into a thousand knots.

It took four days for the bruises to turn a sickly yellow colour. My face still hurts. I’m not sure what was worse, the few seconds I was more scared than I have been since I got beaten up as a child, or the way I was made to feel like this was somehow my fault afterwards as I spoke to men who just didn’t get me. “This kind of thing happens all the time. We deal with much worse than this. Do you want to go to court or just leave it?” They told me and I wondered just how hard does someone have to punch another person for it to be bad enough?

I forgive you. Not because I’m a nice guy, not because some priest told me to, not because it’s the right thing to do, but to sever the cords that connect us and to release myself from the rage that burns inside of me like fire.

Please note, this column is the opinion of the columinst and not that of GNI or Romeo & Julian Publiccations Ltd.

Fear turned to sadness then anger and then a sort of hollow emptiness. The police told me without a name it would be difficult to identify you. I’ve become one of those statistics I used to write about. I’ve become a number, a curve on a graph. I ask what the sky looked like because I have not left my home since that day you took from me the little