Oh Mother, Where Art Thou?

I can still make it to class if I want to, but I don’t. Instead, I rev up my car, waking it from its slumped sleep. I drive for a long time even though I know I can’t afford the gas. I stop at a decrepit gas station and buy a pack of cigarettes. I feel silly, standing there deciding what kind I want. Squinting my eyes, trying to discern which ones are the cheapest, I finally just go for the prettiest box, the one with the camels and palm trees on it. The cashier, a squat angry-looking woman, cards me, tapping her red claws against the sticky countertop as I fish out my driver’s license.

The drive takes hours, ribboned with desiccated cornfields and old houses. My gauge has been on empty for a while now and I finally roll into a parking lot of Sisters of Compassion Home for the Elderly, tucked away into the nowhere.

I press against the heavy door, freshly painted white by someone careless and in a hurry. A dimly lit, carpeted hallway stretches into indiscernible darkness. Like a vein in the forearm, the hallway is thick with air I can sop up with a tissue. Rasping, clawing coughs rupture the warbled silence. Someone hacks and spits.

No one mans the front desk, so I sign my name in the guestbook as Chuck Norris. Purpose for the visit: Kicking Ass. I hope the receptionist is humorless and is offended by my signature, but I have a feeling no one checks the guestbook. Ronald McDonald visited Grimace a few months ago. And weeks before that, Pearl Hudson came by to pick up a box of her mother’s belongings.

I let my uncertainty trail behind me like a child’s blanket against the dirty carpet as I walk into the belly of the hallway. I can’t spot a single nurse or staff member, not even a janitor. Animal smells pursue me. Unwashed bodies. Age and disease cling to my sweater and hair.

A giggle erupts from a room. It is manic and desperate and pleading. It scares me, but I pause.

Room 107.

The curtains are drawn. A sister of compassion sits in the corner, her profile flaring in the light of the t.v. She sees me, brushes off her habit, and leaves the room. I am alone with a body swallowed by the bed it rests on.

Is this really her? To say this…thing…is engendered seems perverse. It is a non-being. A corpse.

When were these hands pulling at my hair, braiding it so tight I never thought I’d blink again? Was it ten, fifteen, twenty years ago that I sat in her kitchen? Pressed my nose against the softness of her shoulder, inhaling the lingering scent of soap and something fried.

I don’t think I can unhinge my jaw. I want to say, Hello. I miss you. But there is always something else. Someone else. Young and handsome. Tight butt. The way she always liked ‘em, she said. And there is a hand gripping my mouth, pressing my mouth shut. I am seven and he’s twenty seven and I think he broke a tooth. I want her to claw at his back like a madwoman. To tear him off of me and into shreds. I want her to scream and yell and curse and shatter and move and kiss and hug and love and sing and dance and laugh and cry. But she can only hide her bruises. She can only lie in bed.

I wore my favorite shirt. It was light pink with bright red strawberries, fat and soft felt on my tummy. And I remember him knocking the honey off the table and pushing my face into my cereal. Then the floor, and it was grimy and slick. I could see her shoes under the table, patent and shiny. Tapping nervously. The clatter of her fork scraping at the bottom of her plate. The clock.

I want a five more minutes, but I get eternity. I want another story.

Some machine behind her bed falters for a moment before resuming its steady reminder.  Hey. I’m here. I’m alive. I’m still breathing.

I remember my ninth birthday. I spent it in the hospital, blew out a candle that melted green onto a syrupy pancake brought in by a jolly nurse. And when they visited they brought a red balloon and donuts. She didn’t speak to me then. Only he leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. And when I wet the sheets, she slapped me and tore the blanket and hospital gown off of me, leaving me cold, wet and humiliated.

I walk over to her and she rasps into my face. I see the breathing tubes stuck up her nose, pumping oxygen into her deflated self. I pinch the clear airways and the machine protests, buzzing. I want her to open her eyes and look at me.

I’m not broken. I’m still standing, see?

But she doesn’t move. And doesn’t kiss or hug or laugh. She only watches from behind a coffee mug. I can see her big, brown eyes. Blink. Blink. Is there a twitch when she hears the crack of broken bone? It’s indiscernible. She is all knowing but not all powerful.

It hurts me only a little, but I get the syringe from my purse. It’s empty and deadly. I’m sure she’s awake now and her beady eyes are hateful. I pull her arm. It is old and wrinkled and soft. I’m afraid to move her because she smells of rot. But I find her vein through the translucent skin. The needle pierces flesh so easily, as if it’s always belonged there. And just like that, there is emptiness travelling through her and it will stop her heart in one minute. I take my scissors and lean over her. I look into her eyes. They’re a sad and infinite blue. I run my hand through her white hair, matted and coarse, before pressing the tip of the scissors against her scalp. They make a tight, pleasing sound when I snip off a long lock.

I look around before leaving. I have twenty seconds. She has twenty seconds. At last. We share something. Photographs hang all around her room. Of children and pets. And I wonder if they’ve ever had broken arms, those children.

At home pin the hair to my wall, picking its appropriate shade in the gradient of silvers and whites. I elicit a mildly interested look from my roommate. She’s never asked me about my masterpiece, but she tells all of her friends that I am an art student, which is a lie, and that I keep to myself, which is a truth. When she leaves, I open the window and blow the cigarette smoke out into the cool air. I worry now of small things.

Violetta Nikitina, 2013