The Mother, The Children, The Misery.

It’s a curious thing, really, the way that worlds can exist inside of worlds, and how quickly and quietly everything can change. Even more curious still, is how hideous existence can be. An unpredictable mixture of circumstance, and of luck, and of compassion, and of the summation of decisions. Perhaps the most bizarre thing of all though, is how ignorant we can become to the suffering of others, by choice or by some other device. This story is about a mother, and her children, and the paradox of their existence in a world very different from the ours, but also very much the same.

The mother, the one about which this story is written, well, she was cast out early in her life. Not necessarily by the choice of her parents, but rather at the hands of those her parents relied upon. As it so often is these days, it was done without their consent, perhaps even against their will. And, as you know, and I know, sometimes resources do not necessarily allow for the accumulation of more within our walls. Because of this, it is not such a rare occurrence now, that out of necessity, or some other driving force, we are left with but little choice beyond finding a place we hope is safe, and abandoning the children there. Such was the case of this young mother.

She was awfully young still, practically a child still herself, when she first became pregnant. It can be an ugly burden, having children that is. And although most deny it as ever being a burden at all, for her, it was just that. And, of course, she knew it would be. Having been on her own for so many years, she had become very skillful in her survival. Having children would make this infinitely more difficult, and she knew it. The world was not like the one she had been forced out of so long ago, but rather a twisted place of loss, of fear, and of survival. Gone were the days of soft beds, the lingering scents of refrigerant from the air conditioning, dinner time security, and so many other pleasantries. All of the lovely things that she had barely tasted, and her children would never know existed. All she knew now was what her world was, and what it was, was all that it would ever be; misery.

As was commonplace in this world, none of her children would ever know their father. This was something that she learned, and understood to be true. Drive by knock ups, so to speak, that would leave her, and her alone with the obligation of caring for her children. Like so many other mothers in this world. And the father? Well, like all males in this world, he would move along, indulged in his independence, enjoying the freedom of caring for himself, and himself alone. Propagating this ritual with great pride, as if satisfying the sexual urges of his partner’s was, in and of itself, a great and noble accomplishment. This is how the males of the world behaved, and was perceived to be the norm. She never questioned it, and she was not immune to having her own urges satisfied. In this world, the cost of that satisfaction was almost exclusively children.

By the end of that spring, of the year that this story begins, when life really showed it’s ugly face to her, she would have three children. As it is in the Midwest, she was aware of the temperatures that the summer would bring, and of the heavy storms that might punctuate the extreme heat. As such, her and her children would begin the summer looking for shelter of some kind, shelter of any kind truly.

Summer

The first storm came on that summer like a fever, unexpectedly and nightmarish. Heavy rains pressured desperation, and they would retreat into the only vacant shell they could find. An old pickup truck, left in the middle of a field. Tires sank into mud, and tall grass nearly hiding it from visibility, it was likely that it was deserted; forfeited to nature by the driver after becoming stuck. The red paint had long since given way to the harshness of the sun, peeling and pinkish. As luck would have it, it was an extended cab, so it offered plenty of room for her and her three children. Even better still, the electric windows had been left partially down, offering a smattering of air flow when the wind picked up.

Her children, young as they were, were jovial alone in the fact that they could play peacefully, and rest comfortably on the old cushioned seats when they tired. Much better than lying on the ground. She had felt great pride in her discovery of this truck. Not an ideal place to call home, but it felt safe, provided some relief from the mighty sun and, of course, kept them dry when the heavy storms would crawl across the Midwest, though the occasion was rare that summer. In fact, the summer was mostly dry, and boasted a heat unlike anything she had known from years before.

Ultimately, the heat would play a pivotal role in driving the necessity to abandon this new found home. Late that summer, one of her children would exit this world prematurely, and unexpectedly. Presumably, the child would pass of some unknown natural causes, or perhaps succumb to malnutrition, or perhaps the mother herself even found it appropriate to unload some of the burden. Another treachery that had become common place, perceived as a natural part of survival, to reduce one’s obligation for food to a capacity of which is both achievable and sustainable. The horrors of the If you can’t feed them, kill them mentality that had found it’s place in her world.

How the child died is far less curious that what she had chosen to do with the body. She did not bury it, or find a suitable resting place for it, or even abandon it somewhere for the scavengers to pick up. Rather, she kept it. Her youngest baby, practically a newborn when it passed, would have it’s body stuffed under the rear seat, tucked away from the view of herself, and of her other children. This was her first loss, and as such perhaps she couldn’t deal with the closure of disposing of the body, or perhaps she wouldn’t give the satisfaction to those animals, the ones that would surely dig it up, and make a feast of it.

The consequence of this decision, however, would be the stench that would accompany the little body in it’s newly decaying state. An atrocious smell, that of death, and of a rotting corpse. The window of the truck that remained slightly cracked, would give way to the flys that have an apparent affinity for spoiled flesh. And there they would be, her and her remaining two children, with the comfort of the truck utterly displaced by the rot, and by the incessant buzzing of the flys. Even if she had made the decision to move the body, it would have been to late now. In the weeks that followed, the baby had rotted into the carpet, a semi-liquified mess, teeming with flys and with maggots. Her and her remaining children would stay, sharing the truck with the hidden corpse, for a few more weeks and continue their routines as if it wasn’t there at all, before finally making the decision to abandon the truck, in search of a new place, leaving the truck, and the corpse behind.

Autumn

Distance and time aren’t measure, not by some arbitrary units, at least not in her world. Perhaps the only true form of measurement, for her, was that of the seasons, and of the sunrises and sunsets. How far they traveled would be less than a few sunsets away. Here they would happen upon an old house, and from a stealthy distance, she would see that is was occupied. An occurrence that she had only seen a handful of times since she herself took those first steps away from that of the one which she was born in. All of which she was careful to avoid, out of spite, and of fear of the types that may inhabit them. She remained in the fields that surrounded this particular house, keeping her children hidden and close, eyeing for opportunity. Despite everything, she was well aware that in those occupied houses, there was often food. And she had two more children for which she was obligated to feed.

Despite her stealth, the occupants of the house were well aware of her presence, and of the presence of her two children. As such, just as the sun was setting that night, they would leave both food and water out at a distance enough from the house, that she may feel comfortable enough to approach. And made it known, by calling out, and offering for them to come and introduce themselves. While they weren’t subjected to the same cruelties, those occupants appeared to know and to understand how wretched the world could be. This notion appeared to be reflected in their great generosity.

As days past like this, eventually she would become comfortable enough to allow the couple to meet her, and her children. They were kind, but they did not grant her or her children access to the comforts that could be found inside the house. Likely, the couple valued there own safety, and were aware of the side effects that the outside world could have on one’s psychology. All the same, she valued their kindness, and generosity. They were allowed to stay on the property, and seek shelter from the occasional late fall storm on the covered porch, where the children could play, and she could rest easily, enjoying the steady rains from a dry point of view.

It was this couple, though, who had earned the trust of her, and of her children, that would sever it all in a single evening. The first snow storm had just settled, and her and her children watched the snow accumulating on the old roads from the porch, where she kept them close for warmth. Just as the sun was setting, a car had pulled up and parked on the side of the road, just in front of the house. The couple would come to greet the strangers on the porch where they rested, speaking words that she would never understand. Her instincts failed her, as she should have taken her children, and ran. Instead, her oldest child would be taken from her side in a quick and cold blur. She would watch, helpless, as her oldest child was placed into the back of that foreign car, and driven away. She would remain, broken hearted and confused. Unaware of where her child was taken, or of why. She would leave that night, taking her remaining child with her.

Winter

Temperatures fell far below those of just being cold, and rested around the point of being nearly unbearable with the incessant winds of the Midwest. The kind of wind that makes it so you can’t breath, asphyxiating until you finally submit, and tuck your head in a position such to allow you to catch your breath, lightheaded as the oxygen rushes back into your brain. And finally, they discovered an old barn.

Clearly, it had been several decades since this barn had seen use of any kind. The roof partially collapsed, the mossy green shingles that remained barely hanging on. The large door, rusted into a permanent position, had been left open just enough to allow the small family to slip in. Streams of light would pour in, from the holes in the roof, and in the walls, and between the old planks that formed those walls. And as old and as creaky as they were, she loved those walls of that old barn, if only for their protection from the winds.

Save for the sounds of the winds howling, it was quiet, punctuated only by the occasional calling of some night bird in the darkest hours of the very early morning. In fact, on days when the wind wasn’t blowing, a hush would fall over that barn during the midday hours that would bring a peaceful quiet, the kind of quiet she always assumed she would only find in death. The peace was frequently interrupted by their stomachs, which talked more than they did. Food was always scarce during these frigid months.

Her child was still young, much too young to be venturing out in these temperatures, and so, during those hush midday hours, she would tuck her child away, hidden from any possible dangers that may pass through while she was out. The child, a baby still, would mostly sleep while she was out, and wake upon her return to share whatever food she might have found. Mostly rodents that still scurried around the outside of the barn; mice and moles and rats. Or the occasional brave bird, singing it’s praise in the dead winter cold. They fell into a good routine like this. Hide the child, find the food, feed the child, and then sleep, in an impatience effort to pass time until the spring would come.

She was sleeping soundly, when she was awoken by the hideous wails. Her routine was quickly reduced to nothing more than a handsome oblivion, as she began to recognize the cries of her child. The early morning moon was still hanging low and bright, and the reflection from the glazed snow gave way to her vision of a winged beast, making hasty swoops at the ground, returning to the sky only briefly to hover, before making another dive. She was quick, but it was too late. She arrived to a still body; tattered, torn and punctured by the claws of a predator. Before her first tear formed, a horrendous scream drew her eyes to the sky to meet the oil black eyes, recessed in the face of a barn owl, desperate with winter hunger. Instinct would drive her into a sprint, back to the cover of the barn, where she could watch in safety, as that barn owl picked away at the flesh of her newly dead child.

Spring

She would spend what was left of the winter alone, her children all lost. And when the last of the snow had melted, and the early spring temperatures warmed, she would finally leave that barn. Sunrises would pass, as she navigated through fields, and forests still thin and bare from their seasonal shedding. There were no compasses, no maps, no cardinal directions in her world, and so she wandered without any clear direction or objective. Her fate would be enveloped in a small bout of luck when she happened upon a city. It was here that she would find food, and shelter, and safety, and comfort in the discovery of so many more, with tragic stories just as her own.

By mid spring, she had all but forgotten about her great losses, and happiness once more found it’s place in her mind. So much so, that those urges that led to such great loss once more nestled in her body, and by mid spring, she was once again pregnant. Pregnant with hope, and with a quaint sense of security, and with child. She would find a safe place where she could once again bring life into the world. A place where she could readily find food, and shelter. A place where no barn owl would dare to be found, where she could hide easily from anyone who may have a vested interest in abducting any children she may have, a place where she wouldn’t be trapped with the carcass of a rotting child.

It was in this place where she would give birth, and in this place where that envelope, the one of luck that had so elegantly wrapped itself around her, would be torn away, and shredded; no more valuable than old confetti that lined the streets with the rest of the litter. It was one of these streets, that she had crossed so many times, where her fate would end. A vehicle, moving hastily along as the driver perused some obscure mission of his own, would hit her like a freight train. And he would not stop, no condolences offered, no rescue offer made. Likely, that drive was too preoccupied to even notice, or even offer an afterthought of grief, or even express remorse in any sense of the word.

And so her story would end here. And the story of her children would begin. All five of them orphaned in a world of chaos, and of pain, and of misery. Left to their own devices, to struggle, and to learn, and to survive, and to experience their own great tragedies, how ever brief they may be. All five, curled against each other, echoing small cries for their mother, who would never return to them. Unable to even open their eyes yet and see, that their mother, who remained laying in that street, had been reduced to nothing more than just another dead stray cat.