YELLOW ENVELOPE

What is important in life? The world has different values ​​and meanings for everyone. We do everything to feel safe and secure. We want everyone to obey us, for the entire world to submit to us. But what do we do when this isn't the case? Our minds are filled with various thoughts and desires that we want to fulfill regardless of age or education. This was the case with Dominika.

At the age of 4, Dominika experienced an accident. The accident left her with a permanent head injury. Her development was halted. She was a big girl with the mind of a 6-year-old. When she was 17, her parents decided to divorce. This was a hard blow for Dominika. After these unexpected experiences, it was supposed to be another trauma in her life. The accident united her parents, who were already in constant conflict. However, as the years passed, the parents, increasingly self-absorbed, stopped worrying about their daughter's feelings. They didn't see her innocent eyes asking "why?" They noticed something when Dominika threw a plate at her father during dinner. It was he she perceived as inferior. Her childhood instincts told her it was her father, the tall, brunette, blue-eyed one, the father who always screamed when a doll broke a glass, as if he didn't understand that she wanted to be independent but was too young to fend for herself, the father who always pushed away her mother when she wanted to hug her, and finally, the one who grew bored with her family and decided to find a new one. She was certain he was the culprit.

She often played court, sentencing her father to death, killing him, and throwing him into hell. To her, he was Satan, the devil, the evil the priest had spoken so much about in catechism class. In Dominika's imagination, her father killed her mother, tormented her for years, and committed crimes. After her death, her mother strove for heaven. Then her face would light up, radiating joy and warmth, surrounded by an incredibly vivid yellow ray, and it was this color that would remain etched in the girl's memory forever.

But this only happened in Dominika's imagination. She didn't really want to lose her father, because who would bring her cookies and candy every evening and weekends, take her for walks and to the movies? And her father couldn't cope with such a difficult situation. His fragile psyche was in worse shape than his daughter's. He couldn't love Dominika. The accident ended his vision of a perfect future. He wanted Dominika to become an athlete like him. He wanted to sign her up for training, but instead, his dream, pristine world had collapsed, and he felt as if it had fallen with him.

The atmosphere at home was unbearable. Her parents were constantly arguing, and Dominika was increasingly the cause. This reminded her of the fights from the movies she and her mother loved to watch on Sunday afternoons. Her parents didn't spare her either; she, caught up in their arguments, would become hysterical. It was during one of these arguments that tragedy struck. Dominika began screaming and kicking, and with terrified eyes, she threw everything within reach at her father. Throwing a knife, she struck him in the stomach. She rejoiced when he fell to the ground. She wanted to throw him into hell, but this time it was reality. After several days of fighting death, her father lost. Her mother couldn't recover from this drastic event. She fell into a serious illness, then depression, and after a few months, she too said goodbye to a life she believed was unfair to her. Dominika knew that her mother had been given yellow wings and had flown to heaven. However, she didn't realize that it was her fault, not her father, whom she suspected.

Dominika was left alone. She couldn't be punished for this act, as she was unaware of her actions. However, the murder case dragged on for years. The press continued to publicize the event. Dominika's face appeared in every newspaper. She was happy about this, knowing that the magazines her mother bought featured famous, unattainable figures, and she considered them role models. She wanted to be like them; she thought she had become a role model. She wanted to have all these magazines because she enjoyed looking at herself.

Dominika ended up in a social care home. Years passed, and in her twenties, she learned her first independent activities. She didn't like being told to clean; after all, her mother always did that. It was precisely this person Dominika began to miss. She often looked up at the sky and thought she saw her mother, smiling and beaming against the yellow background. She tried to smile at her gently, but then her mother would disappear. Dominika withdrew into herself and could stare at a single object for hours. She longed for someone to know about her feelings, explored them, sometimes shared them with her dolls, but always kept a watchful eye on them to make sure no one was around. When she had learned to write a little, her teacher advised her to write a letter to her mother. "Dear Mommy..."—that's how Dominika began her first letter. She didn't know what to write. Her mind was full of questions and doubts. She wanted to consult her mother on many matters that were very important to her. "Mommy, what should I name the teddy bear I got for my 24th birthday? He's so big, he reminds me of that animal on the TV. Because, Mommy, I have a TV in my room, so pretty, and on it sits the doll you bought me." These were the kinds of things that tormented Dominika. He didn't know what was important, what was right and what was wrong. "Mommy, I brush my teeth three times every day because the teacher told me that if you don't brush your teeth, you're bad. And I heard that if you're bad, you go to jail, and I saw this man from prison, and he was very ugly, and I don't want to be like that." Dominika described everything she did to her mother. The whole world, as she saw it, was contained in that letter. On the yellow envelope, she wrote: "MOMMY ANGEL/HEAVEN UP." She dropped the envelope into the mailbox outside the house. Every day, she waited for the man who would bring her a reply from her mother. She went to bed hoping for tomorrow. Every evening she would say to her mother: "Mommy, drop me a letter from the sky. Let it be in a yellow envelope, let it fall with the rain. Please, because I can't wait. Mommy, if I want to be there with you, write to me how it is."

Months passed, then years. Dominika never received a letter. She missed her mother terribly, thinking about her constantly. It consumed her for days. Her toys were already dusty, lying in the corner. Dominika often felt just like them: abandoned, unwanted, useless, ugly, and without a voice of her own, unable to make decisions—supposedly free, yet trapped in her own consciousness. She felt like an old package containing modern technology, like a puppet from the theater, only remotely controlled. She didn't fit into this world, or perhaps the world didn't fit her, it didn't offer her full potential. Increasingly withdrawn, she stopped distinguishing objects, recognizing people, and didn't know which words to use when. After a few months, she completely stopped making contact with the world.

In her heart, only a yellow envelope remained, falling with the rain. She lived, but without hope. She became like a plant, yellow. She needed neither water nor sunlight; she was the sun herself. She was everything and nothing.