By Laura Salas
Martin Pistorius’ only option was to leave his thoughts behind, to become blank so that he didn’t have to deal with the futility of his situation. Martin began to disengage his thoughts. In a sense, he allowed himself to fall back into the darkness and vanish. Unfortunately, there were some things Martin couldn’t ignore.
The entire world still thought that Martin was a vegetable, so they did what they would do with anyone they thought might not be aware of their surroundings: they plopped him in front of a TV. The staff at the special care center would leave him for hours staring at the the TV, watching endless reruns of children’s shows like Barney & Friends. And that was just the beginning of their cruelty…
Each day, Martin would be filled with dread at the thought that his parents would be taking him to the care center. People in the care home would pull his hair and make his eyes water, they would crash the metal spoon against his teeth while force-feeding him, they would yell and scream at him for minutes at a time. Sometimes they would feed him scalding hot tea or soup when he got sick, or slap him around, knowing that he couldn’t fight back.
One woman would even come into the room and straddle Martin to simulate sex with him. She would touch him inappropriately, make him feel worthless and completely powerless. He wanted to run, to complain to stop what was happening to him. Or at least to tell someone what they were doing to him, if only to get it to stop. And despite wanting to give up, Martin kept on living, hoping that one day he might be free…
Martin focused hard on things that were negative to him. It was an effort to try and reframe those terrible thoughts like his mother saying, “I hope you die.” It was worse than anything else he had experienced at the hands of the care center employees and he began to wrestle with it. Why would his mother say that? Perhaps it was time to try and understand her desperation, her sorrow.
