A SCARY SHORT STORY
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In the world, there are little towns that are full of dust and ruin. A town that is small and mean is easily forgotten; it is easily forgotten, that is, to those who pass through without meandering or hesitation. You can pass through a town without stopping, without dredging your feet in the dirt; you can cut through it like a river without noticing what kinds of birds float in the sky, not hearing them ruffle in the trees, singing the news like a sudden, crisp thunderclap.
Outside, I hear the children play. They don’t see me; they can’t hear me. I shuffle along inside. I carry them. I tell them my name, but they don’t know it; they don’t call me by it.
Families tumble along in the dusty streets. I hear them jingle-jangle on the corners, at the stop signs and streetlights. Desolation rings in their ears and out of their mouths. Mothers take their children into and out of the candy store. They get drops of sweet on their faces, their tongues. I am shallow; I am low in the night. Swiftly, I can fly, like the birds in the trees. To them, I am light, like a gentle gust of wind that does not permeate, that does not strangle; I am like a feather made to tickle the nose. The children laugh; they laugh at me. I am time, time fading. Let them rake, rake, and corkscrew. There are small ones, plump ones, too.
I am a house on the top of a hill. I am its four walls. I am the old woman inside. Candlelight flickers underneath my long, shadowy lashes. I do not move. I sit still in this amber-veiled room, in this room filled with odor. It is the smell of sweet, burning leaves, red and ochre. That is my name.
There are no ravens here; but, don’t doubt me. Don’t sing to me, either.
There are black pennies all around me. I shudder to think. I may take a crow or two, they say.
The wind whistles in here through a crack in the window. I can smear the squalor caked on the glass. The view is my eye.
The beating heart of the town is shy, yet grotesque. I herald the truth into their ears; but, they cannot listen. They cannot hear. The children are their pennies; and, I sing my song.
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“Mamma, please read us a story,” the kids jumped up like puppies eager to play.
To calm them, their mother said, “Okay, all right, I’ll give you one, then bed.” With a swipe of her hand, she pushed an errant strand of hair from her brow. She set down the laundry basket to pick up another task — reading the children to sleep. The chances of this working were scarce, she thought. She took a chance.
“‘There is a witch,’ my mother and grandmother always said,” she began slowly, and with a raised eyebrow, “‘who loves to eat little morsels of small children.’”
“AAH!!!,” the children screamed with smiles on their faces.
“But, she lives far away up there,” their mother pointed to the ceiling, “and way down there,” she then pointed to the floor. “Her eyes reach far like the rivers and the streams; and, her hair is like a meadow with hills and valleys. She gathers twigs and chops wood to keep herself warm; and, she is all alone.”
“But, why does she like to eat the children, Mamma?”
“I think it’s because she’s lonely. But, she doesn’t understand how to keep a friend or raise a child, so she uses them as food. You talk to each other; she only uses her mouth to eat and to stay alive that way.” Using her hands, their mother brushed over their brows, closing their eyes, “You can fall asleep safe from her by sleeping on your backs. To sleep on your tummy means that she can slide in here on her broomstick, and dance over your back. She smells like cool breezes and the honey I put in your tea. She’ll seem pleasant and a friend to trick you.”
Their mother leaned in close to tell if they had fallen asleep. She lowered her voice to finish the story, “Be good. That’s the best way to keep the witch away.”
Sophia crawled across the floor as her mother laughed; her mother almost choked into the receiver, laughing, “I don’t know what you want from me,” Mamma looked out the window with a jerk of her head, “Well, you ain’t getting it! Now, how you like that!” Still laughing, she saw Sophia’s foot hover in the doorway as the baby made her way into the other room. The baby ate a snack of raisins that her brother dropped onto the floor a few days ago.
Mamma held her baby and sang to her as she lay, droopy-eyed and still in her arms. Sophia’s soft warmth was pleasing to her mother. “I can hold you all day long,” her mother said. “Just so long as you don’t make it too hot!” Mamma got up, put the baby back down into her crib, and looked at her. “I think when I was this little, my mother hadn’t even come up with a name for me, yet,” she told her infant. “I bet she didn’t care. She was probably waiting for my daddy to do it.”
Mamma heard Sophia whimper, bringing her out of her foggy haze. The baby balled her fists and pumped them up and down as if she were trying to start her engine and fly away. “But, I just changed you,” Mamma said under her breath. “Alright!” she yelled.
Tears streamed down Sophia’s face tracing lines that met at the baby’s chin. If she could talk, Mamma wondered what Sophia would tell her; she knew it wasn’t just, “Please change my diaper!” The thought of what this child could be thinking slowed her down. Maybe, Sophia could see things that her mother couldn’t see, Mamma often thought; the baby’s cries were so distant and detached from what seemed grounded, reasonable.
“Why are you screaming at me? Why are you crying like that?” Mamma asked, knowing she’d never get an answer.
“There, there,” she said, calming herself down and patting Sophia’s back. Sophia caught her breath. She looked up at nothing Mamma could see; suddenly, she began to laugh.
“Oh, now you’ve got gas,” Mamma said, continuing to pat the pudgy back. Then, she was humming absently and rocking, too. It was not a usual thing for Mamma to do, but she did, like old women do, as she began to hum a tune that she did not know.
Sophia gurgled and laughed hysterically; the laughter was buoyant as if she could fly away into the air and perhaps, out of the room. At that moment, anything was possible. A cloud was forming — white, then gray; it was about to rain pennies onto the ground.
“Can I have five dollars? Can they be one-dollar bills?” The boy asked his Mamma.
“Why?” She asked him, already knowing.
“We’re trying to play a game. You know, with the cards.”
“I only have some change. Use this. Here. Does your sister have enough?”
“Yeah. She’s not breaking her piggy bank. She’s using what Daddy gave her.”
“Gave her when?”
“Last time we saw him.”
“He could give a little more than some change, you know. Since when does he have coin to give? I never see him giving me any change,” she trailed off. Then, she walked back into the kitchen and resumed a phone call.
She covered the receiver once she reclaimed her position, and told the boy, “Go on, then. And don’t be too loud. We’re trying to talk. Tell your Auntie, ‘Hi,’” she passed the phone to her son, who was now, a little shy.
“Uh, hi Auntie,” he said, changing color. “Yeah, I’m doing good. How are you?”
When she saw that he had done his part as a respectable young boy, Mamma took the phone back. “Now, go on,” she said. “And be quiet!” she yelled at his footsteps as he ran off.
The children played, snapping the cards, laying them down. Coins jingled across the table. “Yes!” The girl said, almost hissing. Above them, the lights seemed to flicker. Their shadows danced as the girl gestured deliberately each time she won. Outside, the trees rustled, parting the night air, cutting it to shreds between paper-like leaves.
“I wing again!” she shouted.
“You win again, you mean!” her brother shouted at her from underneath a pout. “You can’t even talk.”
“I said, I win! I win! I win! I win!” she shouted back, renewing their battle.
Her brother threw the cards at her; then, he threw his pennies in her face. Eyes closed, she said, “AND, I’ll never play with You, Again!”
“AND, I’ll never play with you, either!” The shouting, coin-throwing match began. They picked up the change, leaping over the couch and chairs, sometimes stalling to pick up those sticky things as they seemed to be welded to the floor.
“And, what are you doing!” Mamma finally came in, shouting.
“I wanted you to come by yesterday, but I couldn’t find time to find you,” she was almost whispering at that moment. “Them ‘ole kids just run me ragged, sometimes.”
Smoothing her hair, she slowly looked over at the bed behind her.
“I know, I know, it’s late this afternoon. I should’ve called you earlier to make plans,” she touched his arm, feeling it still slowly, “I just couldn’t get away. You know they love their Mamma.” Unsatisfied with his response, she unconsciously rolled her eyes. He was smiling, and he smiled further at her impatience.
Moving over to the bed, she sat down, then laid down, always facing him — the new lover she met at the candy store.
“Well, what you gonna do?” she asked, knowing, eagerly awaiting his response.
“I said those kids just run me ragged. A woman just can’t get any peace,” absently, she spoke, dressing. “I mean, I’m getting those pains in my head, migraines,” she pressed her lips together, pleased with his assurance as he came behind her placing his hands on her shoulders in gentle, silent support.
“I don’t know, I just thought about handing them over to their Daddy; but, I haven’t said anything. I don’t know. I just want some peace.” Sitting down, she held onto his hand, keeping it on her shoulder. “I know I wasn’t that bad when I was little. I was good when I was little. You laugh at me, but it’s true,” she was looking up at him. “And, the baby…I swear she’s mean. Sometimes I look at her, and she’s just staring at me. She doesn’t have baby eyes. She has snake eyes like her Daddy’s mamma’s.
He said he’d take them; tried to threaten me, too! But, he didn’t know I’d give them for the right price.”
Looking down in guilt, she added, “I love her, though. I do love my baby. She’s mine. I just can’t see, or think, or feel most of the time.” Now, she was crying, “I love that baby with all my heart — my Sophia.” Getting up to wipe her face, she looked at herself in the mirror.
“When did I get so old?” A laugh came out of her, “Three kids, and I look like my grandmother. One divorce, too, I guess.” Looking at him, she said, “You’re almost divorced, and you don’t look as old as me. Maybe, you can help me with that.”
I hear the wind in the morning. It says the light is in the eyes of the night. I spend the days waiting, and when night comes, I hear the wind say, “The light is in the eye of the coin;” it mirrors it back to me, shining and smiling. I am the one they call insane — the obscured, the obstructed. But, does the wind hear me, know me? Outside, it can hear me. Everything can; and, I am clear like the light. I can see.
Blinking, I glow outside, first far, now near. Do they understand? Inside, they understand nothing. I still speak of the night and the trees, of the wind and the birds that fly unhindered.
A shudder seizes me only when their Mamma shuts the window; yet, I am still painted on the dark sky, waiting, awaiting. I can see inside their wicked lies, their light. I do not ring a bell; they don’t hear me. Dusk is around me; I speak in it. Hear me in the rustling of the trees.
Mamma expected the night wind to howl. She jumped at the sound of a branch wrapping at the window. Her eldest daughter lay curled in her lap like a kitten with a soft, yellow bow. Her son lay on the loveseat across from them, sleeping, too. His small face did not yet resemble his Mamma’s, or his father’s. His eyes, still round and lid-less like a baby’s, were framed by thick lashes that his Mamma often envied; though, looking at him gave her peace. Content, she sighed as she looked out of the window behind him.
The moon seemed to turn yellow. Deceptive, it was not the moon, but a light she realized; it was blinking in the distance. Mesmerized, she found it difficult to get up and close the blinds as she wanted to — something inside of her told her to close the blinds — she needed to; but, transfixed, she stared.
“I am coming on the wind,” Mamma heard, “I am looking for a coin.” Closing her eyes to think, she decided to make some tea. That would be nice. In the kitchen, she heard the slamming of the drawers, and the ticking of the eye of the stove before the flame burst up; but, then there was absence. The two children she could see, but… in the bedroom… “Where’s Sophia!?”
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