Читать книгу Two Drops Of Water - Nicola Rocca - Страница 27

CHAPTER 16

It was an illness. Eugenio Boroni was sure of it.

Not scratching his ear or running his tongue over the cavity;

the other thing. The other thing was an illness.

He'd heard people talking about it and had looked it up on various websites. They all said it was a kind of psychiatric illness. One that pushes against the sides of your brain whenever it feels like it. The victim is powerless to resist, forced to do whatever the thing says.

When Eugenio felt it pushing, he would fidget, get nervous, shake like a leaf. He started to scratch his ear lobe frenetically. Such was the force he was using, his ear began to bleed. The scabs left behind only made him want to scratch even more. His mother had figured as much and told him off. The family doctor had prescribed an anti-inflammatory and told his mother to stick plasters on his ears. After Eugenio had left the room, the doctor had spoken to his mother one-to-one. He'd told her the boy was nervous, perhaps even a little anxious and scared. Given his age, these problems were fairly normal but shouldn't be ignored. They should get better with the passing of time, but if they don't, it would be wise to consult a psychologist. The doctor had said the ear scratching was a nervous tic caused by the typical worries of a particularly fragile and sensitive pre-teenage boy.

Eugenio knew now that the doctor couldn't have been more wrong. He wasn't anxious or scared. That tic was just a consequence of this stupid illness.

It was something he'd always had, and the thing had pushed him to the margins of society.

At first, people listen to you, maybe even smile. But then they realise something's not quite right with you. Their mood changes.

The thing...

He always tried to fight it, but he wasn't strong enough. It had got the better of him every single time.

At first, when he still hadn't given it a name, the desire seemed to be coming from a remote part of his body, somewhere inside. This desire would become an irrepressible urge that he had to act on. He had to do whatever the illness told him to do. Even if it was wrong; even if it was evil.

Especially if it was evil.

He hadn't felt that irrepressible urge for a while now. The illness had simply become an integral part of who he was and what he did. He just did things. He no longer knew right from wrong. Real from fake. He'd lost trust in himself and there was every chance that others would soon lose their faith in him. There were certain things, certain words, that people just wouldn't forgive.

And once you've lost that trust, it's hard to get it back,

if not impossible.