Mother

Mother

By Amanda Orive.

There was a weight that had sat in her stomach for years. Some days it was heavier than on others, but most days, upon waking, it made itself known to her. It never went anywhere. In a way, she had known loyalty in it, though sickeningly. She longed for ignorance. “I still think about it sometimes.” Inhaling her cigarette, “I just don’t talk about it anymore.”

“Why not?”

She inhaled again. “Because no one wants to listen." She winced, remembering the cause of the weight. "No one wants to hear the truth, they just want to move on.”

“But you haven’t?”

“No. I haven’t.” She looked out at the setting sun. From her balcony, she answered her own ponderance, and could see why this had been dubbed the Land of Enchantment. “Nobody gives a damn about the truth, especially not my truth. Or my take on it.”

“What makes you say that?”

She was annoyed. “Look around!” She spat. “I’ve been shoved away. They didn’t want to deal with me so they sent me here. No one wants to know what I fucking did. What we did... They left me here to deal with my shit away from anyone who could hear what I have to say, or who might have to deal with the fallout of my decisions.”

“You feel abandoned?”

“I don’t feel abandoned- I was abandoned.” She bit her lip. “See, that's the difference between me and you. They left me here… You left me like this.” She looked in the direction of where the voice was coming from. Emptiness engulfed the space where a person would have sat. She closed her eyes and touched the arch of her nose. “You turned me into this. You are the reason I am perpetually isolated. Everything I did, I did for you-- I did it because I needed to rid myself of that isolating pain you bestowed on me.”

“My dear Serilda, you are never alone.”

She could almost hear those words echoing out of that evil woman’s mouth. Her mother. Kind to the world and cruel to her kin: the ultimate coach, greatest ally, and worst enemy to have.

The girl did not try to push her mother to disaster, it just happened that way. Circumstance controlled the outcome, not the intent. At least, not the conscious one. As Serilda sat on that sun kissed balcony, she wondered- now more than she ever had before- if it had indeed been murder, if she had wanted the destruction she'd created. She looked up, “you saw to it that this would forever be my truth.”

Her mother’s dead grey eyes stared back at her from the depths of her imagination; a wretched, wrinkled smile aimed at her. “I am always with you.”

Her stomach churned. She hissed as she grabbed one of the patio chairs, and threw it at the empty space where her mother’s voice should have been. The cigarette flew with the chair, hitting a wall of resistance, falling to the stones. “I fucking hate you!” She screamed. She sat on the ground and cried, repeating these words again and again.

She looked out to the west. The sun was setting, the sky was pink. She pulled another cigarette out of her pocket, lit it, and watched the sun descend. Her body shook as she rocked it, the heat brought no resolve. “I hate you.” Blackened tears spilled down her cheeks and stained her stockings at the knees. “I hate you.” She looked up only to see a twisted cloud smile a response. "I hate you."

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