"Tell me...why, why do you want to ruin your life so much?", my mother glares at me contemptuosly as she asks me this question for the umpteenth time, my head is down, and I am silent -I am tired of hearing this question-
"Camada, what's so wrong with being a farmer, or a maid or a nurse or something more...sane, why of all madness to join would you decide to join the REVERRED?..."
She pauses, and I feel her gaze steady on me,
"Don't you know that a lot of people die when they are put through those gruesome tests to become Reverreds, you literally stand no chance!...so, why?...why do you insist on foolishness...just like your father..."
Her rising tone breaks off painfully at this juncture,
I look up briefly to regard her, her hands are clasped together tightly, her expression is taut, she sighs heavily;
"I have done the best I can do as a mother"
Her voice is low and very, very bitter.
I sigh too as I nervously run my hand through my hair, finally I decide to speak up;
"Power...I want power mother".
I say simply, she looks up at me in horror first, and then begins to laugh in a manner as if, she's barely managing to breathe;
"Our family has been cursed with stagnation my dear Camada, I do not have to repeat the story of how our bloodline was cursed by the same reverred you want to serve, cursed to never achieve anything substantial... working as cleaners IS the height of our livelihood..."
She smiles, a distant look in her tired eyes as she repeats the words she has successfully brainwashed herself with- herself, not me.
"I'm afraid there's no 'power' for you to obtain...",
Then it hits me; the vague nostalgia, the painful discomfort and growing impatience of not doing anything to change my status quo; mopping floors, going on demeaning errands, being subject to degradation and inhumane abuse, it's happened before sometime that I've forgotten, and it's begun to happen in this lifetime again.
-In my last life I was weak and normal but in this life, I'll be powerful- I undertone, reaffirming my life resolve once again.
"Well...dear mother, if there's no power for me to obtain...I guess I'll have to MAKE MY OWN POWER..."