Categories > Books > Phantom of the Opera
Memoirs of an Invisible Man
1 reviewIn his later years, before Erik had met Christine, he decided to write all of his thoughts down on paper. Erik's journal speaks about what made him who he is and shows how Christine's betrayal actu...
1Moving
June 1889
I find it funny that one man can affect so many people and yet remain so insignificant and unnoticed in their lives. For years I have been in this stone prison, a triumph of my own hand, and still they think of me as merely a ghost. If a letter written in my own pen cannot convince the idiotic management of my theatre that I am in fact human, then I don’t know what else could.
Even when I was younger, I felt as a ghost in my own home. Family dinners consisted of my smaller brother and my parents sitting at the dining table in the second story room. My room remained locked by my mother and I would never really see any of them. Sitting on the wood flooring, I would lay my head against the door and listen for the sounds of my brother’s voice and the ring of my mother’s laugh. I think at the time, I hated my brother with my whole being, but as I’ve grown older, my anger cannot be directed at the pawn.
I remember the times before my brother was born to my family, my parents showered me with the love that would be dried up only a few years after my initial existence. When I was very young, my mother tended to take me places and have actual conversations with me. Although, she would never let me hug or kiss her, which at my young age, I sought dearly for.
“You must never ask for any of these things again,” would be her reply to my child like longing for love. When I asked again, I would be punished. As a result of this, I became very detached from my parents at a very young age. Besides the occasional punishment, which I sought dearly to avoid, my mother treated me well. Yet, she always argued with my father about me, even when I was around as if I could not understand what they were saying. Being abnormally intelligent, it was not difficult to decipher.
“I think we should take him to this doctor... he said that he could fix our son,” was usually how the arguments would start. I didn’t like how she thought I could be fixed then and I still despise the words now. The two who brought me into this cursed World were very adamant about making me like “other boys”. It makes me laugh sometimes, even now, how much money my mother put into unproven surgeries and unfounded guarantees. Back then when I laughed at this though, I thought it was because I WAS like other boys already. My father, a poor man who was trying very hard to make a name out of himself needed every penny that he made.
“We are spending too much money on trying to make that boy normal! Do you expect us to starve just so he can go to surgeries that don’t work?!” At that time, I really did not know what was wrong with my face. My parents had kept mirrors away from me and had even taken ones that were once hanging and locked them up in the attic. I still thought that I had a normal face just as they did.
“If we can make him normal and give him the chance of a life, we need to do it! Now when I do think about the goings on of that time, I find it pathetic that she wanted to help me and yet all that the surgeries ever did for me was to make my deformity look worse. When those bandages came off, I always asked that woman, “Am I better? Do I make you happy?” And after she would see my face, worse than before, she would leave the room crying. I never could please her, no matter how much I wanted to.
Then my dreams and illusions of me being a normal boy were shattered after my third surgery. I had been brought home from the doctors after spending nearly a month with my face bandaged up. It was about Seven P.M, I remember, when I walked into my mother’s waiting room and saw her silently sobbing into her gloved hands. Running to her, I asked her, “What is wrong, mother? What is wrong?” She told me with an almost queer smile on her face that she was going to have another baby.
I thought it was great to have a kid sister or brother, and I couldn’t understand why she was crying, and so I asked her. Never before had I been so afraid of her. Sure, I had gotten my share of punishment from the woman but never like this. She beat me, slapping me on my shoulders, over my head, and across my back as I tried to run. Grabbing me by my cursed shirt, she dragged me out of the room and up the stairs to the attic.
“You...YOU! She’s going to turn out hideous like you!” I was obviously confused and yelled to my mother through sobs, “I am normal! I am! I’m a normal boy!” When I look at her actions now, I realize that she was afraid of the baby’s birth. She didn’t want he -or she- to turn out like I did and at that time in her life, she felt that all she could have were monsters like me.
She tore the bed sheet from over the pane of reflective glass that had remained dormant in the attic for years. It was at that moment that my first shred of sanity slipped away. I was overcome with fear, screaming to my mother that the being in the mirror was not me. My fingers dug into my face with such a force that it caused my skin to rip and blood to flow. Never will I forget the feelings that I felt when I first realized that I was some cruel joke from God.
This was when the depression began. I wanted to kill myself, for even at that tender age I knew the fragile nature of life. Mother would have gladly allowed me to die and so she never intervened when I sought to kill myself. Mother knew of my unstable mind and still did nothing to help. After a period of eight months of attempted suicide, it became obvious that I was too weak minded to take my own life. When I knew that I couldn’t kill myself, I stayed locked in attic, sitting amongst the mirrors as my punishment for being born.
I find it funny that one man can affect so many people and yet remain so insignificant and unnoticed in their lives. For years I have been in this stone prison, a triumph of my own hand, and still they think of me as merely a ghost. If a letter written in my own pen cannot convince the idiotic management of my theatre that I am in fact human, then I don’t know what else could.
Even when I was younger, I felt as a ghost in my own home. Family dinners consisted of my smaller brother and my parents sitting at the dining table in the second story room. My room remained locked by my mother and I would never really see any of them. Sitting on the wood flooring, I would lay my head against the door and listen for the sounds of my brother’s voice and the ring of my mother’s laugh. I think at the time, I hated my brother with my whole being, but as I’ve grown older, my anger cannot be directed at the pawn.
I remember the times before my brother was born to my family, my parents showered me with the love that would be dried up only a few years after my initial existence. When I was very young, my mother tended to take me places and have actual conversations with me. Although, she would never let me hug or kiss her, which at my young age, I sought dearly for.
“You must never ask for any of these things again,” would be her reply to my child like longing for love. When I asked again, I would be punished. As a result of this, I became very detached from my parents at a very young age. Besides the occasional punishment, which I sought dearly to avoid, my mother treated me well. Yet, she always argued with my father about me, even when I was around as if I could not understand what they were saying. Being abnormally intelligent, it was not difficult to decipher.
“I think we should take him to this doctor... he said that he could fix our son,” was usually how the arguments would start. I didn’t like how she thought I could be fixed then and I still despise the words now. The two who brought me into this cursed World were very adamant about making me like “other boys”. It makes me laugh sometimes, even now, how much money my mother put into unproven surgeries and unfounded guarantees. Back then when I laughed at this though, I thought it was because I WAS like other boys already. My father, a poor man who was trying very hard to make a name out of himself needed every penny that he made.
“We are spending too much money on trying to make that boy normal! Do you expect us to starve just so he can go to surgeries that don’t work?!” At that time, I really did not know what was wrong with my face. My parents had kept mirrors away from me and had even taken ones that were once hanging and locked them up in the attic. I still thought that I had a normal face just as they did.
“If we can make him normal and give him the chance of a life, we need to do it! Now when I do think about the goings on of that time, I find it pathetic that she wanted to help me and yet all that the surgeries ever did for me was to make my deformity look worse. When those bandages came off, I always asked that woman, “Am I better? Do I make you happy?” And after she would see my face, worse than before, she would leave the room crying. I never could please her, no matter how much I wanted to.
Then my dreams and illusions of me being a normal boy were shattered after my third surgery. I had been brought home from the doctors after spending nearly a month with my face bandaged up. It was about Seven P.M, I remember, when I walked into my mother’s waiting room and saw her silently sobbing into her gloved hands. Running to her, I asked her, “What is wrong, mother? What is wrong?” She told me with an almost queer smile on her face that she was going to have another baby.
I thought it was great to have a kid sister or brother, and I couldn’t understand why she was crying, and so I asked her. Never before had I been so afraid of her. Sure, I had gotten my share of punishment from the woman but never like this. She beat me, slapping me on my shoulders, over my head, and across my back as I tried to run. Grabbing me by my cursed shirt, she dragged me out of the room and up the stairs to the attic.
“You...YOU! She’s going to turn out hideous like you!” I was obviously confused and yelled to my mother through sobs, “I am normal! I am! I’m a normal boy!” When I look at her actions now, I realize that she was afraid of the baby’s birth. She didn’t want he -or she- to turn out like I did and at that time in her life, she felt that all she could have were monsters like me.
She tore the bed sheet from over the pane of reflective glass that had remained dormant in the attic for years. It was at that moment that my first shred of sanity slipped away. I was overcome with fear, screaming to my mother that the being in the mirror was not me. My fingers dug into my face with such a force that it caused my skin to rip and blood to flow. Never will I forget the feelings that I felt when I first realized that I was some cruel joke from God.
This was when the depression began. I wanted to kill myself, for even at that tender age I knew the fragile nature of life. Mother would have gladly allowed me to die and so she never intervened when I sought to kill myself. Mother knew of my unstable mind and still did nothing to help. After a period of eight months of attempted suicide, it became obvious that I was too weak minded to take my own life. When I knew that I couldn’t kill myself, I stayed locked in attic, sitting amongst the mirrors as my punishment for being born.
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