A Little Death

1.

I knew I was done with illusions when my Mother smelt something dead in my brand new basement bedroom. I had yet to smell anything, but she’s always sensed these things far sooner than I, and perhaps always will. This probably accounts for her constant melancholy disposition despite any newness, goodness, or excitement in life. Something dark always awaits, even in the shiniest of times, maybe most especially in those times - where we hold our breath in waiting for the guillotine to fall.

Maybe she sensed how alone I’d feel here at times, how old vices of escape would fail me, how the only way around this would be to root myself in shoddy art-making to drown out the silence. Shopping and prettying myself, popularity and a raging social life falling as dead as a tick plucked from its host.

We traversed the basement searching for a possible mouse, we refused to think it could be anything bigger. After all, that would just be unfair to me, in my Mother’s eyes. She was proud, and a bit in awe that I decided without hesitation to move my life across the country for a job that everyone in my less-than open-minded family deemed, “having my name all over it.” For I was, “into that kind of stuff.” Uprooting everything for “that kind of stuff.” Brave or high maintenance?

"Why can't you just?" The beginning of many riffs between myself and anyone who loves me. But, in fairness, I've been royally supported through this venture, as is obvious by the fresh sweat stains under my Mother's arms as she lifts furniture - moving bureaus and bookshelves aside with a stressed-out - "it's in here somewhere, I swear, the smell is awful." I still couldn't smell anything. Though it could have been my distraction with unboxing clothing, running through photographic memories of my closet at home, thinking of everything I accidentally left behind. Or didn't want then, but definitely want now - regretful of my past self for messing this up.

In this newfound frustration, I began to see my Mother's rearranging of furniture its own form of distraction, against my distraction, which at this moment feels dastardly important.

“Mom, I don’t think there’s anything in here.”

She gives me a sideways glance over the top of an ancient-looking bookshelf as if to say "how could you even say that?" her cheeks glowing a pale pink. And because I feel so indebted to her, I decide to keep my mouth shut, letting images of my half-empty closet continue consuming me. Where was that yellow tank top with the blue flowers? Did I bring that red dress with the polka dots? Which box would I have put it in? Something tells me it's still at home in the closet - past me didn't envision any fancy dates or social gatherings.

Suddenly, my Mother is standing under the basement window, where a small square of light penetrates a bedroom otherwise shrouded in darkness.

“I think it’s coming from up there,” she mutters.

I look at the back of her head, her matted hair a loose frizzy bun. She runs her hand through it and I begin to wonder why each piece of clothing matters so much to me. Possibly another distraction to bolster the pain of my Mother eventually leaving me here on my own, in a novel adulthood I have no idea how to navigate.

I allow myself to be shaken from concentration and move purposefully towards the window. Mainly to humor her. And it is like this sometimes, paradoxically. Humoring. As if I the Mother, and she the Child. But despite this brief moment of role reversal, we have all taken to heart, "Mother knows best." Somehow her knowledge supersedes our own, even in the most ridiculous of circumstances, even when we scream inside ourselves "I know the truth." We perpetually find ourselves looking through the metal grates of a dirty basement window, the sun somehow managing to shine through.

And sure enough, a tuft of unmoving grey fur reveals itself at ground level. Undoubtedly larger than a mouse.

Reluctantly, we brace ourselves up the stairs, outside, and into light that feels blinding after hours of unpacking in the darkness. An open field spans out beyond the rickety wooden porch we stand upon - an arresting view that will prove surprising every time I walk out of the unassuming home. Grasses stretch on for miles, most patches burnt brown from the oppressive, desert strength of the sun. Mountain ranges rise in the background, as though showing off for a painting, demanding to be seen in their majesty. While beauty is always a thought while taking in the scene, something else more ominous looms close by. For all of its grace, the field lacks movement. Even in the wake of a slight breeze, the brown grasses stand stiff, as if in opposition to their very nature. Only a large gust of wind will shake them from reverie, and those prove to be rare this time of year - a sweltering August that only has room for a tremendous sun and its harsh rays. We slowly look out over the edge of the porch, where we have a clear view of what lies outside the basement window. My Mother gasps with an emotionally loaded-

“Oh my gosh…”

And I, am silent.

I can only stare mournfully into the black, beady eye of the largest rabbit I have ever seen, sprawled on her side, hind legs painfully stretched behind her as if in one last desperate leap. She is completely intact, almost alive-looking. Except for the eye. Dead eyes, I know well. And in that eye, many things course through me. I wish whatever happened hadn't happened, and if it had to happen, I wish we weren't the ones to have found the wreckage. Now, from this distance, I can certainly smell deadness, and in my head, I silently forgive my Mother and her manic behavior. Maybe she thought, in searching herself, she could have saved me from this exact, awful moment.

2.

When I was nine, I watched a baby bunny roll down our driveway, out from under the confines of a towering Japanese maple.

I felt sick, almost angry that this occurrence pulled me from whatever game I had been lost in. Most likely searching for rocks in the garden. I liked to find the smoothest ones, bring them inside, and run them under hot bathtub water. Then I could see their true hue, our white porcelain tub lined with the thick, crumbly dirt that hid them. I drew a lot of satisfaction from getting all that dirt off the rocks, the way they'd glisten wet under the florescent bathroom light, free of all that made them look like anything other than what they were. Stripped to essence, stripped to their truth. I'd always get in trouble for dirtying the tub.

Instead of focusing on my rocks, I was forced into a very real moment I could not turn away from, the weight of responsibility bearing down on my tiny shoulders - “how will she save her?” something seemed to ask. A test. Okay then. I’d save her. I’d feed her, wrap her in tissues and cotton balls for comfort, she’d grow up healthy, warm, and loved under the roof of my own cozy home.

I ran inside, upstairs to my bedroom, frantically looking under my bed for some kind of container. Time was closing in on itself and I knew we didn’t have much of it - all I could see was this baby bunny rolling down the driveway, saturating all I thought I knew of endless, carefree, non-consequential, life. I was suddenly bigger than I ever imagined I could be. My hands shook around the edges of a Nike shoe box that once held brand new gym sneakers, now old and badly soiled. I quickly thanked goodness that it was not thrown away, (as most things in this house were not) as it, and I became the flipped coin between living and dying. Taking two stairs at a time, I bolted back outside, though not before my Mother could stop me by her post at the kitchen sink.

“Where are you going so fast with that?”

She gestured towards the empty shoebox, dish soap running down her forearm. Looking back, the moment feels like an act - her playing the role of "mother." In reality, I can't remember any instance of her caring too much about anything. I was the freest child I knew. But in the name of many of my friend's mothers, women who squealed and moaned over scraped knees or the tiniest shred of "garbage" on the front lawn, she frequently had to feign concern. Though for all her freedom bearing love, I resented her at this moment for delaying my rescue.

“There’s a baby bunny outside on the driveway, her eyes are closed and she needs help.”

She looked into the sink and let out a large sigh, the soap from her arm now dripping onto the kitchen floor, making a tiny pattering sound that seemed to drone on in slow motion. She spoke at the same speed.

“You really should let her be, the mother is probably close by. If you take her yourself and keep her in that box, she’ll die.”

It was so matter-of-fact, I could barely allow myself to listen. It was ridiculous. How could she say “she’ll die” when I was actively working to save her? Though I did consider this for a brief moment, as any child would when Mother speaks. She lifted her head from the sink and looked at me in earnest, torn between granting me that freedom she prided herself in giving me, and saving me from a harsh truth. That nothing, most especially a child’s hopeful innocence, survives.

I broke away from her pleading gaze, bounding out the ratchet screen door leading back out to the yard - and the driveway; my bare feet sinking into soft mud and lush grass with every step, further and further slowing me down. My view alternated between the Nike symbol on the shoebox and the hot gravel of the approaching driveway as I broke into a half-run. With each glance towards my destination, a sharp hope grew inside of me. Maybe Mother bunny came to the rescue during the time I was inside. Maybe I could forget all of this and go back to my search for smooth rocks in the garden. Deep in this growing hope, I still kept moving until the formless speck at the end of the driveway turned into a live, baby bunny. My responsibility flooded back to me - from this moment forward, every single choice I made mattered immensely.

I stood solemn over the tiny body curled in on itself, eyes still sealed closed. If I squinted hard enough, I could see breath moving in and out ever so slightly. I thought of cats and foxes and hawks and felt the power of my humanness, my power to triumph over every predator that set its sights on this driveway. I was here, and I would save her. Using a fresh tissue I pulled from my jean pocket, I gently picked her up and placed her on a bed of cotton balls arranged inside the Nike box. There was no surprise and no struggle. Her eyes stayed closed, small breaths slow and even. She was lighter than I expected - a minuscule pile of bones and skin, yet life nonetheless. I shut the lid. I looked around as if waiting for some sort of recognition for what I'd done- clapping hands, a scolding, anything. But all was silent save for the swishing of hot wind through the trees.

Mud and grass between my toes, the shoebox slightly heavier now (though most likely only in my mind), I walked slowly back through the kitchen door. My Mother was still standing at the sink. In all my effort to keep silent, the screen door managed to creak shut, the rusted metal most unforgiving. I could feel her looking up at me, but kept my gaze cast down. I needed to escape to my room before her questions and opinions flooded my focus. To my relief, and strangely enough, dismay, she said nothing. Only looked at me with that signature bottomless sadness I'd seen countless times before.

Maybe she was sad so often because she constantly had to witness little deaths take place deep inside the life she created. Little deaths she'd have to make way for, knowing that each one would crack and mold me into someone she'd hope to recognize when all was said and done. Even when new, shining possibility reared its head, something had to have stepped aside to let it be, and God forbid, could that something be the "me" that she had come to expect? And if it was, could she fit in with, and understand, the "someone" who took my place? In her hopeless eyes, she clung to my small hands that gripped the shoebox tightly, knowing that tonight I'd learn life was everything but endless, no matter what I did to intervene - a lesson that flung itself at me in the form of this practically formless, helpless creature I should have just left alone. She knew I'd spend a long, heavy night in and out of sleep, only to find that when the sun came up, life was gone. I'd failed.

3.

And now, beside this expanse of mountains and deadened grass, it is my Mother who looks at me in question. As if to say, "this is your space, this is your home - what do we do?" I am again baffled under the weight of responsibility, of having to take care of death and decay - something I signed off on in being born, but did not match the bright exciting energy of a new life, a new beginning. Crawling out from under my Mother's pained gaze, I walk closer to the body until I am standing over it, assessing the size and weight, the hole I would once again have to dig, that it seemed I couldn't escape from digging, even miles and miles away from that awful day, that awful hot asphalt that burned my naked feet.

I stare in bewilderment, my Mother close behind me, though this time without any commentary. A fat fly lands with entitlement upon the bunny’s wide open, glassy eye. And although in this instance, life had already been drained, I again felt that time was of the essence. I speak with what I hope comes off as confidence -

“Well, we need to move her.”

My mother speaks, in a tone dismissive enough for me to briefly question my intense concern,

“Yes, a moment longer and that smell will fill the entire house.”

She does not understand why time matters in the way I believe it does.

In this, our separateness bubbles ashore; as it becomes only me, this bunny without a name, the alive, the dead, and whatever else moves in between. This "whatever else" prompts me to run inside to dig out a pair of winter gloves from the closet in progress, half-empty boxes still strewn about the floor. I dump out the contents of one of the smaller boxes and bring it outside with the gloves. I knew how this was going to work.

Back on the porch, my Mother sees me once again - empty box in hand, empty hope curdling across my matured features. Ready to save a day the sun had long since set on. She cocks her head to the side in sympathy, and I can almost see the outline of my childhood kitchen surrounding her, dish soap carelessly running down one arm.

“She’s very big, I don’t know if we’ll be able to manage a hole.”

In a flash, I see that she is right, and hate that it is so. Though the weight of responsibility fades slightly at her mention of the obvious, I ask in earnest -

"Well, what do we do then? I know we have to move her."

Hands resting gently on her hips, a line of sweat still prominent on her brow, I follow her gaze cast outwards to the surprisingly vast field behind my new home. A beautiful sight in the daytime, mountain ranges sparkling in the dewy sun, though no doubt a space coyotes spend their evenings traversing. A space where no soul would want to find themselves while the curtain of darkness descends, bringing with it only a handful of stars and a sliver of moon to light the way. Again, my mother speaks first.

“We can just bring her out there. She’ll probably get eaten, but she’s already dead.”

At first, my ears burn in the gruesome hostility of this suggestion. Then logic slowly begins to creep in. If we bring the dead, we may save a life that roams the fields right now, a tiny life who will sleep tonight with both eyes closed - this empty body providing a sufficient, easy dinner. Though staring down at the body in this moment, emptiness was the last thing I felt, even looking deeply into the single glazed eye. Alive, or dead did not seem to feign difference, this tiny death one among many in a single moment. I know the logic. Still, I breathe deeply and let a few tears pool around the edges of my eyes. I do not let them fall.

“Okay, Mom. That makes sense, I guess that’s what we’ll do.”

For the first time I can recall, she does not read emotion inside my statement but instead gives me a curt nod as I begin to slip on the winter gloves. Not allowing another moment to pass, for fear I'll begin thinking too much, I bend down and wrap my gloved hands gently under the weight of the body. This time, far heavier than I anticipated. As I lift her into the box to carry her out into the field, I watch a large group of maggots writhe in the dirt where she'd lain, as though reaching in anger for their shelter and source of food. I hold my breath at the rancid smell hitting my nose, knowing now what my mother knew all along. I begin the long walk out to the field, the box held far in front of me, my forearms straining under the weight. My mother stays a safe distance behind as she follows. The walk feels like forever, going nowhere in particular, the mountains ahead of us never seeming to get any closer. For endless moments, all is silent except for the crunch of leaves and twigs under our feet, a fleeting car horn in the distance. Until my Mother speaks up.

“Here is probably good.”

She stops walking. I listen and let her take the responsibility. In doing this, I allow myself to feel nothing. I take a deep breath, the soreness in my arms suddenly unbearable, the last mile that is always most difficult to run. I bend down with the box, slide my hands again under the lifeless weight, and place her on a patch of grass I've somehow deemed to look safest. I cover her with leaves, grass, anything I can find that will potentially hide her from view, a futile effort as her smell overpowers the open mountain air. My Mother watches me, standing above the scene with unwelcome hurt in her eyes. I take one last look at the dark wet spot left at the bottom of the box, then shut the lid on all of this. I'm suddenly very angry for no reason I can pin down. I want to cry fully, but stop myself again before I stand and walk off defiantly, back to the house, back to the pile of exposed, hungry maggots.

My mother follows once more. Neither of us says anything.

4.

I decide to leave the rest of the unpacking for tomorrow, and let my Mother take me out for a Mexican dinner; where the tension drops and the earlier events of the day fade away at the delicious sensation of lime chips and guacamole hitting my lips. We talk about anything but the strange and helpless afternoon we had - my new job, the new friends I'll make, how many times I'll come back to this sub-par restaurant, conveniently located a skip and a hop away from the house.

After returning to what will be the first night in my new home, spirits are a bit higher as we make the bed, set up bathroom toiletries, and plug in a few ambient night lights; I can almost fully forget.

As we settle into sleep, I hear coyote cries echoing in the distance, the side of my face plastered to a soft pillow, my Mother heavily asleep beside me. I wonder if she hears a thing, as I lay awake waiting for something I thank God I'll never have to see. I reach for my Mother's hand under the blanket and squeeze. But her hand lies limp; she does not squeeze back. I know I won't be calling her as much as I thought I would be, once she leaves me alone here to navigate everything new, living, and breathing.