Have a spooky day everyone!!
Read the story after the jump-->
She
kicked her shoes off and rubbed her feet the instant she came in the door. We
were both quiet, having been jarred from a late afternoon nap by the sound of
the key in the door.
“Oh guys I just don’t know how some
women do it. This whole being a professional is exhausting. And these women?
They’re just so fit and always on point at work.” She sank to the floor and
rubbed her feet. Her face was pinched and drawn. Not understanding what she
meant, we went about our normal routine. We welcomed her home, telling her
about our day. As usual, she ignored us and went straight toward the sofa. The
TV clicked on and we were suddenly in competition with the noise it made.
“Hush. Mommy’s trying to watch
television.” She curled up in the fetal position on a white leather couch. She
would stay like that for hours some days. Other days she’d be gone for hours,
only to resume her position on the sofa the instant she came
home. Images flashed across the television screen as she flipped through the
channels. It took her a few minutes to find the right channel but finally she
settled on what appeared to be a crime drama. We finally admitted defeat,
turning instead to preen our feathers and take a short nap.
Her dinner that night was a bag of
tortilla chips and salsa. She had debated, flitting back and forth between the
fridge and the pantry, pulling each open in turn and then shutting it. She’d
shake her head with disgust as she shut each and return to the other to repeat
the cycle. After a few rounds of this she settled on the chips & salsa.
This was not an unusual dinner for her. When she first brought us home she used
to cook elaborate, wonderful smelling meals. Sometimes she’d be in the kitchen
for two or three hours, slicing and dicing and filling the small one bedroom
apartment with intoxicating aromas. We loved to watch her cook, dancing around
the kitchen and singing to herself. She
usually had her phone tucked into a pocket or her waistband, headphones snaking
into her ears and occasionally tangling around a drawer pull or pot
handle. Her dancing lacked rhythm and
her singing was abysmal but in those moments she seemed so free. She really was
beautiful when she danced like that. More
importantly, she was alive.
After polishing off the chips and
salsa, she eventually turned off the TV and the floor lamp on the corner. It
was bedtime. We clambered up onto our perches, awaiting the green blanket that
would drape our cage. She would tuck us in before heading back into her bedroom
to watch more TV on her computer and probably eat more chips or cookies. Sometimes
she would disappear with a full pint of ice cream and return with only an empty
container.
We could tell she was happy before
she even uncovered our cage the next morning. It was mostly the flourish with
which she pulled off the green blanket that betrayed her exuberance. There was
something else too: somehow there seemed to be another presence in the
apartment. It almost seemed like there was something sitting on her shoulder.
This sort of pinkish red glow seemed to emanate from her. We couldn’t see or smell or hear anything out
of the ordinary though. It must have been our overactive imaginations. Life in
a cage when you were meant to live in a jungle can be quite dull.
“This is it guys. Today I’m going to
make a change. I’m going to lose this weight,” she lifted her shirt, pinched a
roll of fat and wiggled it at us.“I can do this. I have to. I really don’t have
a choice.” She started the coffee. While it brewed she grabbed a trash bag from
under the sink and got to work, talking to us the whole while.
Her excitement was palpable but that
wasn’t why we were so desperately trying to get her attention. We shrieked,
flapping our wings and throwing ourselves from our perch to the front of the
cage and back again. There was something maniacal about her. She scared the
hell out of us. And that eerie presence seemed to be growing, taking form there
on her left shoulder. It was less pink and more red now.
“Guys I’m just so tired. I’m tired
of being alone. I’m tired of being ugly. I want to fall in love, to be
beautiful and desirable. I want to live for a long time. I want people to look
at me and think, ‘I wish I had what she had.’ I’ve been hiding for so long. But
I feel like I’ve finally figured out a way to get what I want. And this time I
know it’s going to work. I just know it.” As she spoke, the red glow pulsed
brightly as if in approval of this new life direction.
She started with the fridge. She
pulled item after item out of the big eggshell white fridge, dumping them into
the trash bag clutched in her left hand. She was singing as she cleaned out the
fridge, wiggling her hips and bouncing oddly around.Cleaning out the fridge was
a normal activity for her, so we couldn’t understand quite why this time she
would be quite so excited about the process. Normally when she did this she
would inspect the item after pulling it out of the fridge, reading the label,
checking the expiration date or looking for mold. This time she didn’t look.
She didn’t read, or check or look. She just removed item after item and placed
each and every one in that big black trash bag.From our cage we could see in
the fridge. In fact, we could see everything in that apartment but the bathroom
and the bedroom but only when she shut the bedroom door. The rest of the time
we could see in there too. All that was left in the fridge by the time she was
done was one lone piece of fruit. It was an apple, shiny and red, sitting in
the crisper all by itself. Something was not right. The presence on her
shoulder was growing. At the same time, it was disappearing. It wasn’t really
external anymore but seemed to be digging into her shoulder, through the flesh
and bone and gristle and down into her very soul, the very essence of our
mother.
She moved on to the freezer,
throwing away bag after bag of frozen food. Only the ice trays survived the
freezer cleaning. The bag was full, and apparently quite heavy. “OOF!” she said
as she tried to lift the bag. After a few tries, she stood there staring at the
bag and giggling. She shook her head, hands on her hips and left foot jiggling.
Eventually, she half-dragged the bag out
of the apartment door. A few minutes later she burst back into the apartment without
the bag.
She repeated the process in the
pantry with a second bag. The coffee filters, tea bags, and a box of crackers
were the only things left in the pantry. Soon that bag was gone too, taken out
of the apartment and out of our view. She sat down with a cup of coffee,
looking pleased with herself. The TV clicked on and she watched, rolling the mug
back and forth between her hands. The mug was one she’d had for years, white
with her college logo on two sides. She drank the coffee slowly, as if savoring
every sip, pausing to take long inhales of the steam coming out of the top of
the mug.
After an hour she popped up from the
sofa. “I think I shall go down to the Inner Harbor today!” She all but danced
into the bathroom. We couldn’t see her when she went in there but we could hear
her making noise as she showered. She
sang the entire time, as she showered, as she dried her hair, as she applied
her makeup. An hour later she bounded out the apartment door, camera in hand.
“Bye
guys!! Be good birds while I’m gone!”
And
with that, we were left to our own devices again.
When she returned later something
was not right. During her absence we had almost forgotten about the presence
and the fear we had felt earlier that morning. But when she came back, the
presence came with her. It was like she was pulsing with this red light. It
emanated from her, yet it wasn’t her. She seemed tired, angry. She pulled open
the fridge, the freezer and the pantry. Whimpering she pulled at the shirt over
her stomach and lifted the cracker box from the shelf. “No. No,” she said,
returning the box to the pantry. She went back to the sofa.
That night she went to sleep early.
Consequently, we went to sleep early too. The next few days would follow a similar
pattern. She would rise, waken us, have a cup of coffee, shower and leave. When
she came home she’d eat a cracker, slowly nibbling on it as she watched TV. Bedtime
consistently came earlier. She hardly spoke.
All the while that red glow grew
stronger. It slowly consumed her and radiated hatred throughout the apartment.
It traveled with her, whatever that presence was. It left when she left and
returned when she returned. We hated it.
Within a few weeks her clothes hung
loosely from her frame. There wasn’tas much of her as before. It wasn’t just a
physical decrease. She was quiet, withdrawn, sullen. She never put her
headphones in and danced anymore. She spent hours scrubbing every surface in
the apartment. This cleaning was different though. In the past cleaning had
been a joyous affair; she would dance and sing and we would dance and sing with
her. Cleaning was angrier now. She often cried when she cleaned now.
One day she went into her bedroom
with empty trash bags and emerged with them full. She took the bags with her and disappeared for
hours. When she finally came back she had different bags. These were new bags,
not trash bags. She pulled out item after item of clothing, spinning around and
showing us her new acquisitions. This was the mother we knew, we loved. She
showed each and every item to us.
“I just love the color on this one.
And oh my goodness the beading on this skirt is amazing. I mean, I know I can’t
afford it but I can’t exactly run around wearing clothes that are a size too
big, now can I? These are a 10, guys! A 10! Who would’ve thought I would ever
be a 10?! Maybe I can do this. Maybe this was all worthwhile after all.” Her
fingers stroked one of the new clothing items, a turquoise blue dress. The way
she looked at that dress, you would have thought it was her savior. There was
love in her eyes. She used to look at us like that, all full of pride and love
and joy, like nothing else in the whole world mattered but us. As she gazed at the clothes, the red glow
surrounding her grew stronger, pulsing now instead of just the steady glow we
were used to. She shook her head and the dreamyspell was broken. The clothes
were scooped bag into their bags and whisked back into the bedroom. She hummed
softly as she put them away.
A month later she brought a man back
to the apartment with her. She’d never brought one back before. She talked to her friends on the phone about
wanting a boyfriend, wanting to fall in love. But she’d never actually gone on
any dates or taken any steps to meet someone. She sat on the sofa with him.
They talked and the TV hummed softly in the background. Eventually the talking
stopped and the petting began. They kissed passionately, growing more and more needy
with each kiss, each touch of the other’s hand. Eventually she pulled him to
his feet and led him into her bedroom.She glanced back at us and shut the door
behind them. Even though we couldn’t see, we could still hear through the
closed door.
The
next morning he was still there. He left before breakfast though and the red
glow grew stronger. Her left foot was gone, replaced by only a glowing red
shape, somewhat akin to a human foot.The boy only came over a few more times.
There was another one after that but he never stayed the night. Several more
came and went. None of them stayed long.
They were interchangeable, these boys. Each one looked similar to the last.
Each one said thanks baby before he left her. Each one left before breakfast. After a while
she stopped closing the door when they went in there. We wished she would close
it like she used to.
With each passing day she woke up
smaller than the day before and quieter too. She rarely opened the blinds, rarely spoke to
us. We wondered if she’d noticed that we’d stopped talking to her. There was no
point. She wouldn’t listen. We had
tried, chattering excitedly whenever she neared the fridge or pantry. One day
she threw a cup at us when we did this. From that day on we made no noise.
But as we diminished in her life,
the red glow grew. It traveled from her left foot, engulfing and replacing her
entire left leg. Then the right leg became nothing more than a red glow. Her
right arm went next, then her torso. Soon she was nothing more than a red glow,
a left arm and hand and a head.
Eventually she stopped going out altogether.
She never called anyone, never got dressed, never put on makeup. The woman we
loved was gone and in her place was something gaunt and ugly. We hated this
walking skeleton we lived with but she kept us fed so we didn’t complain. Her
left arm soon disappeared into a red glow too.
One day, things were different. One
day, when only her head was left, she spoke to that red glow. She told it to
leave, to go away and never come near her again. She said she regretted making
this decision, this agreement. She would take being fat and ugly and alone over
this any day. She didn’t recognize herself anymore she said. And not in a good
way she said. She cried and screamed. She threw things, broke dishes, punched
walls and swore mightily. The harder she fought, the more of her returned and
the more the red glow shrank. Eventually it was only her left foot that was
consumed by the red glow. She collapsed into bed that night, exhausted from the
effort of it all.
The next day she awoke and left the
apartment early. She returned shortly after with a cup of coffee from Starbucks
and a pastry of sorts. It looked like a cinnamon scone—her favorite before the
red glow came into our lives. She ate the scone, drank the coffee and left
again. This time she was gone longer and came back with even more food: eggs
and produce of every kind.
“I’m doing this right from now on
guys. I’m going to be healthy, not just skinny. I can do this. I can do this on
my own.” She started cooking again. She
started singing again. So did we.
But then one day it all changed. She
came out of the bathroom sobbing. She
told us, at least we think she was talking to us, that it just wasn’t working.
She’d skip lunch she said. The red glow spread from her left pinky toe,
engulfing first her left foot and eventually her entire left leg. The glow grew
and spread, consuming her completely this time. Well, almost completely. For a
while all that was left of her was her right ear. She protested meekly, complaining
that she didn’t want things to be like this. Ultimately she shrugged and
concluded that there was no other way. The glow consumed her right ear. Family
tried to intervene, tried to tell her that they were worried about her. Her mom
came into town, begged and pleaded with her. But that ended in disaster. They
fought, screaming until their voices were hoarse. Finally, her mom left. As she
shut the front door, her mom told her that she loved her but that she couldn’t
help her. This was a problem she had to fix herself.
For day after that visit she didn’t
leave her bedroom. She rarely stopped crying, except when she slept.
One
day our mother came back, but only for an hour. Physically she was still the
same skeleton she had been the day before.
She danced up to the cage, all excitement and enthusiasm.
“This
is it guys. Today I’m going to make a change. I’m going to do this.” She held a
knife in her left hand, dragged it down the inside of her left arm. “Down the
river, not across the street.” She held up her bloody arm and smiled. We pruned
our feathers, unalarmed by the whole proceeding. She did the same to the other
arm, holding up two bloody arms.
“Oh
guys…” She sighed and slumped to the floor beneath where we lived. A deep laugh filled the apartment. It was an
evil sound really. The red glow left her body and hovered in the space near the
apartment door. All that was left was the shrunken frame of the woman we once
called mother. But we never called her that anymore. We hadn’t called her that
in a long time. Truth be told, we didn’t miss her as that glow finally faded
completely.
In
that instant we began to sing.
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