The Pnictogen Wing

Or am I? I was not the same person then. But I do have (faint) memories of the person I used to be, when I went to Wales in 2001 for this wedding. Anyway I am in the group photograph. ~Chara

there's a lot of things that make me feel this way, but few tendencies of mine seem more contrary to the spirit of the age than my determination that we—the Pnictogen Wing, all of us, and we are many—ought to be able to revisit every single scrap of our collective pasts.

I once did so much. an outsider would say that I did nothing but read library books, but that's my point: I grew up in an isolated, abusive, profoundly unhappy household, a survivor of vile treatment at the hands of a medical professional, yet for a while I was almost happy because my life was filled with books, books on almost every subject. both my older sibling Frisk and I could read advanced material before we were six. we were too young and naïve and sheltered (and dissociated from pain) to retain much true understanding of what we read...but all the same, we filled our brains as best we could, and I want that back. ALL of it, now that we're in a position to make use of the knowledge, rather than simply fill the time with it.

the difficulty is that all those childhood memories of reading, and daydreaming about what we read, are miles deep in a fog of unpleasant memories and lurking monstrosities. the situation is far less grim than it used to be; there was a time when our pasts were completely sealed off. all the same, we've so far succeeded in recovering only some enticing crumbs of past experience. cold fingers clutch at our heart when we try to address ourselves to any subject or topic that's connected in some way with some hateful memory. music, for example, or poetry, or drawing. it feels as though we have to detoxify everything.