Mother's Anniversary

The October moon shook her awake. The light bent through her broken blinds and her yellow-hued teeth shivered and crackled at the plummeting temperatures. It was about to be 3AM. Ellen clenched her covers as she awaited her Mother’s Anniversary.

Every year, on October 3rd, Ellen was visited by a woman. She believed it to be her mother’s soul, crawling in from the underworld. Sometimes she believed it to be a tortured and battered entity that was trying to take her. Other times she believed she was probably going crazy and needed to hit a joint. Regardless, every October 3rd, Ellen lit a candle at 2:59AM and left it to burn out on the window sill by her bed. It let her mother know, she came in peace. And hopefully in turn, her mother would do the same. Unfortunately, her mother was not the favor type.

Ellen forgot to set her alarm to light the candle this year, and her door swung open at 3:05am. The door flung open with such force it crumbled the wall behind it collapsing the drywall unto an already dusty, matted carpet.

Ellen jolted up, her eyes red and wide, her heart pumping swiftly. She scampered and shook as she fumbled through her side table drawers. She was looking for that dreaded nubby candle. She lit it, shaking every which way; sweat dripping down her brow and off her nose. Her tongue raised in concentration and hesitation. Alas, fire.

With great immediacy and might the door slammed shut. Pictures that once decorated Ellen’s walls came crashing down in harmonious unison. With the last final piece, a heavy weighted mahogany antique mirror, to fall as the grand finale, smashing onto her head.

Morning light came flooding in, bursting open Ellen’s sandman sealed eyes. She got up as quick as a gunshot’s flare. She reached again for the drawers, finding her shattered screen smartphone. It was October 2nd. But that could not be right.

Ellen quickly checked the candle she had previously lit by the window sill. It was no longer a nubby candle, but a brand new candle. It stood erect and tall, almost proud, staring at her in its immaculate white waxy glazed finish.

A look of sheer terror engulfed Ellen’s deeply dilated, musty green eyes. She felt her head, sticky with blood and tasted nothing but copper pennies on her tongue. She looked at the door, and saw the drywall pile on the floor. She pinched her arm, she was still there.

Ellen ran outside her bedroom. A woman was standing in the kitchen brewing coffee. In a long nightgown and heavy off-white, bleach stained robe. She was humming a melody of familiarity, and Ellen knew her mother was standing right there.

“Mom?” She said. The woman turned around hastily and gleamed a toothy grey smile.

“Your mother is not here,” she laughed. The woman grabbed the coffee pot and threw it Ellen’s way. It came splashing all over her, searing her skin in a boiling pain.

Ellen awoke on the floor. Her hair stuck to the carpet. Her eyes and skin sticky and clammy.

“Do you know where you are?” A woman’s voice whispered in her ear. Ellen looked around. Tall glass ceilings and windows dotted the large, brightly lit room. “You are home.”

Ellen sat up. “What do you mean?”

“This is where you live,” the woman replies. “This is where you have always lived.” She reaches her hand out and covers Ellen’s eyes. The floor opens up from under her and disintegrates.

Ellen falls at a monumental speed. She falls through thick brown turf and terrain. She tries desperately to grab the walls of sediment and claws the dry thorny branches poking out from the tunnel's walls. She screams, cries and pleads.

The fall is long, almost eternal. As Ellen falls further and further, she sees pictures. Pictures of her and her mother. In heavy frames blown up as large as museum exhibit displays. Her falling speed slows to drops, like levels of a building. She sees the first photo, her and her mother, holding hands next to the family dog on the front porch. Her and her mother, at the zoo petting the goats. Her and her mother, eating ice cream at the beach.

Another drop and she lands in a chair, sitting in front of her mother’s old bedside table. On it, stood her mother’s white glitter glazed candle, the one her mother lit every night before bed. Where should would smoke her ‘before bed’ cigarettes and drink her ‘before bed’ liquor. That candle.

Ellen brings her hands up to cover her face. “Please no!” She pleads. “No, stop it!” The chair breaks from under Ellen and she continues to fall even faster than before. She closes her eyes but there is no escape.

She sees everything. The brandy glass, the candle, the flames. She sees her hands slamming the front door and running down the street hiding under a park bench. She sees the body bag and the firemen, she sees her burns. She tastes the ashy soot in her dry, chapped mouth. She sees the house, swarming in red, dancing violently to a dusty crumble. She sees the social worker and the clipboard. And finally, she sees the black dress. The one she wore to the funeral.

Ellen awakes on a plushy maroon chaise. The man makes a final click of his pen. “And, time.” he says, taking one last note before closing up his green notebook. “That concludes our session for the day, good work this time.” Ellen nods, and looks around, grabbing for her worn khaki backpack.

Outside, Ellen greets the early afternoon October air, and watches as orange leaves dance about the sidewalks. A blue car drives up and Ellen gets in the backseat.

“How’d it go?” The driver asks. Peering through the rearview mirror.

“Good," she replies, "He told me I did good."

“Good.” the driver says.

Ellen hears the car doors lock as it begins its way up the road. A white candle rolls out from under the passenger seat hitting Ellen’s tattered white sneakers. “What’s this?” she asks.

“Oh that? I found it on sale at the candle shop down the street. Thought I'd kill some time.” the driver replies, turning on her blinker. "I got two of them, take that one it's yours."

Ellen picked it up off the floorboard and clenched it in her palms. She took a smell of it, hoping to smell the freshness of spa lavender and rosemary.

Her pupils dilated to large black voided swirls. A gust of smoke rushed into her nostrils, causing her to gag and cough with in uncontrollable stupor.

"What is this, what have you done?" Ellen wails to the driver.

The driver pulls out her walkie talkie, "get out here Dave."

"Why would you give this to me?" Ellen shrills.

"Ellen, Ellen, Ellen, it's citrus scent! Ellen?"

Ellen flails and throws her arms out, gasping, trying to unlock the child proofed door. "Help, help" she cries.

Ellen opens her eyes to the whisper of a familiar female voice. She was talking to a big muscular man with a thick leather belt by the door. The woman nodded as the man walked away. Ellen recognizes Doctor Winn as he walks in, briefly stopping to talk to the woman by the door. "Darn, and I thought today was gonna our day." he says. His eyes glance over at Ellen as he clicks his tongue and sighs.

The driver approaches the pair, "It was a citrus candle, a strongly scented citrus candle. I just don't know how--"

"Trauma tricks the brain in mysterious ways, Jane, best you don't blame yourself." he wipes a bit of sweat from his brow. "We will be better prepared next time. As for now, please take the day off, and tell Bob and the kids hello for me." He pats her gently and she walks away.

Doctor Winn and the woman proceed together into Ellen’s room, shutting the door behind them. He turns on his pen light and flashes it into Ellen's eyes, "good, good" he says under his breath. "Now I want you to close your eyes and count back to ten, slowly." he coos. "Just relax now." Dr. Winn places his hand firmly but comfortably on her shoulder. As Ellen's eyes begin to soothe he quietly injects a small syringe into her arm. With a small tug, and a bit of resistance, Ellens falls asleep.

Dr. Winn hands the woman the used syringe who disposes of it in a wastebasket nearby. "Alright, well that's enough action for one day," he says. He grabs his hat from his bag and sees himself towards the door, marking one last thing in his green notebook. "Reminder," he stops mid-step, "don't forget to switch the old candle for a new one before she wakes up.”

“But, Doctor”

“No, now I know. I know what you’re thinking. Why be so cruel, she’s been through enough already. But believe me when I say this is for the best. It might seem unusual right now, but you will see she will come to grips with her reality.” He hesitates and looks down at his unrolled sleeve, fixing the buttons. “You will see, within a few weeks she will come around, I’m sure of it. We still don’t know who started that fire Mary Anne, remember that.”

“Her mother was a..” She stopped. “I mean, it’s been years Doctor, years. How much longer does this have to go on? I cannot standby and watch this for much longer.”

“Be patient, and follow my procedure Mary Anne. I am the doctor, you are the nurse, act as such.”

Mary Anne nods compliantly, as her posture slightly slumps. She watches Doctor Winn walk out the door.

Mary Anne looks down at Ellen sound asleep. She grazes her hand over Ellen’s head, stroking back her hair from her warm, faintly sweaty forehead. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

She reaches in the closet and pulls out a bin of nubby candles. She places one in the drawer. She then grabs the phone in Ellen’s bag and resets the date for October 2nd and places that too in the drawer. She turns off the lights and then quietly shuts the door behind her.