Aisha, i don't know what's the meaning behind my name, and if you know please don't tell me because I like it that way, I don't want to find out whether it meant a good thing like honest , kind and graceful because then I would have been cheating people with my name too, or if it's a bad thing like, cruel, devilish and dangerous because then I'll start to think that my mother had seen my future ahead of me, when all she did was to name her little baby girl after her late childhood friend, it's the year 2001 in here, I'm a twenty one year old woman, i had a condition when I was younger , Narcolepsy , it suddenly started at the age of ten, I'll got through my daily life normally but then suddenly fall asleep for hours, it's insanity, really, i couldn't even if I tried to stay awake, on 8:23 , I'll be on the way to school, on 12:23, I'll be confused about being on the sidewalk next to dog , I could seriously fall asleep while crossing the street and die, you might ask what happened? how did i go from being a healthy kid, to a mad child? mother said I disappeared the day before my tenth birthday and they found me in the back yard two days later covered in dirt, when I woke up I had this condition, so I got home schooled until I got fifteen, it sucks by the way, before high school, on my fifteenth birthday, my auntie, aunt Sarah who gave me plane tickets to Europe for my 12th birthday, this year she promised to convince my family to send me to a high school, my parents always reject when I asked them before repeatedly so no wonder they shut down auntie but she managed to convince them on the condition that I'll take medicine twice a day, I didn't really needed it but looks like it will assure them and keep them relieved, I tried to not get my hopes up at first but the idea of having my freedom back with some medicine was enough for me to light up with joy, the thoughts that I'll have friends to study with, hang out together and complain about life to each other, the life I always wanted, you might think it's stupid, can't I have friends because of my condition, of course I can, the thing is you can't have friends if you don't go outside and talk to people, I never in the past five years set a foot out of the damn door, I was caged, they said it was for my safety, but it doesn't feel like safety when seeing everyone in the family stepping outside and living a normal life, the door was like a giant wall I would never surpass, can you imagine how hard it was for me to hear my cousins complain about their annoying life outside with their cool friends, it felt like hate and envy at the same time, so it's not a surprise i tried to go outside before, never succeeded because I was watched by a nurse all day long, I was treated as if I had a disability, it hurts seeing people's eyes look at me with pity, as if I were a burden to my parents, wishing me to get well knowing damn well it's not curable, I hate my condition, it made me different from others, it made me question my sanity a lot, when I was diagnosed with narcolepsy, I knew that it's just like having a messy sleeping schedule, well I should have known better when my doctor diagnosed me, I got treated like a crazy person because of it, so I was excited to go to school after they agreed, it felt like spring to me, even when the medicine tasted like vomit, I took it, when they fired the nurse I felt joy , because I knew that was my first step to be outside of that door.
I wish I could go back in time to live it again , going back to the time where I had the gift of not knowing, the period of my life I used to hate most, I wish I never took the medicine, my life now is worse compared to my years in high school I thought sitting in the green woods, where trees are so tall ,it's creepy, no animals live around here, all you could hear is the sound of crows leaving the forest, as they should this's no longer their beautiful home, this's a grave yard.
took me three weeks to fix an eight hour shift before falling asleep with the help of a shit load of medicine , we had a small party to celebrate my success, it was amazing, I never had that much fun before, after the party my Nana called for me, all my uncles and aunts were there, even my parents, Nana is the most precious person in the family, everyone respect her, how could they not ? she served in many wars as a doctor, I heard my mom and aunt hazel once whisper about the scars on her body, bullets and knife cuts, I always had respect for that woman, she treated everyone the exact same way, she's the only one to made me feel normal, kids in my family don't get to talk to Nana, unless they achieved a great thing, my first time meeting her was before my forth birthday when I won against my uncle in chess, I was a genius.
" Do you remember what happened that day? the day before your tenth birthday, do you have any idea what happened to your cousin?" Nana asked, so that's why they called me here, I can't believe I expected her to ask something different for once, the same freaking question every time we meet, she wants to figure out what happened to Layla, I forgot to mention that day when I left the house, she followed me, Layla is my aunt Sarah's daughter and the only memory her late husband left to her after his death while serving in the marine, she's a year younger then me and the person I envy most.