Mumma

Mumma

She hears the alarm go off. “Ten more minutes” she thinks. But the alarm woke the baby up, and even if she ignores him, his wailing won’t let her sleep any longer, so there’s no point in prolonging the inevitable.

She reaches to turn the alarm off, and switch the light on, shielding her eyes with her other hand from the glare.

“I’m coming baby, mumma’s coming.”

She sits up, and starts opening her eyes, but they seem to be stuck together. She reaches with her fingers to scratch the salt off of them, first.

What she touches doesn’t feel like salt, it doesn’t even feel solid. There’s some jelly like substance keeping her eyes closed.

“What is this?” Revulsion creeps into her voice, and she feels her stomach dropping. She starts scratching her top eyelids carefully, but they’re so sensible, and it hurts. She has to get this thing off.  And she starts scratching harder, but the thing won't come off.

She stumbles to the bathroom, and the baby’s cries grow louder and louder. She crashes into the sink and immediately turns the faucet, and splashes her face frantically. Things drop to the floor as she searches blindly for the soap, she knows this’ll sting, but she has to get it off, the baby needs her.

She starts scrubbing harder and harder, but the thing won’t come off. It’s as if it were some kind of super glue.

Is that it? Superglue? But how? Oh god… is someone in her house? Did someone do this to her?

She runs, crashing into walls, bumping her toe on the doorframe, crawling the last bit of the way. The baby!

She reaches the baby’s room, and immediately it’s cries increase, she crawls to the cradle and reaches inside. The baby feels fine.

“Did mumma scare you? I’m sorry baby, I’m so sorry, mumma's being silly.”

And of course she was being silly, the house has the latest alarm systems, no one could’ve gone in. Not without setting the alarms off.

She smiles and tries to open her eyes, again. The thing is still on them.

“God! What is this thing?!”

She wants to cry, but she can’t. The corner of her eyes are covered with the muck. And suddenly the baby starts giggling. Of all things, it’s giggling, she looks down, and asks:

“What’s so funny baby? Is mumma making funny faces?”

But then she feels it’s tiny fingers brushing against the thing on her eyes.

“No honey, don’t touch it.” She pulls her head back, but the baby keeps giggling.  And then, he speaks, his first word… and she’s so excited she forgets for a moment about the goop, and laughs and hugs the baby tighter.

“Oh my baby, yes I’m mumma, mum-ma, come on honey, mum-ma.”

“Duh-bah, duh-bah.” He giggles, and she bats his hands away from her face unconsciously.

“No babytums, muh-ma.”

There’s a noise coming from under the cradle…  Perfect, just what she needed, a mouse…

Duh-bah.

She freezes, mice don’t make that kind of sound, a kind of hacking followed by a thump…

Duh-bah.

There it is again; a guttural duh, something between a gagging sound and a yawn… and then a smacking sound, like when she makes fish faces at the baby and opens and closes her mouth.

“Get away from us!”

She stands up fast, with her baby between her arms, but then she steps on something gelatinous, but more solid, something that feels exactly like the crud on her eyes.

“Oh god, n—“ She slips.

She can only turn on her heels so that the baby will fall on top of her, and not vice versa, but she hits her head on the cradle before falling completely, one of her feet is still under her, and she can hear the bone cracking a moment before hitting the floor. She cries out, but at least the baby’s okay.

And then he starts giggling again.

“Duh-bah.”

Duh-bah.  Next to her ear.

“Duh-bah.” He giggles.

Duh-bah. Something wet on her cheek.

“Duh-bah. Duh-bah.”

She tries to scream, but she’s a second too late. There’s something on her lips, and she can’t open them. And the scream is stifled in her throat. She hugs the baby tighter. She sobs one last time before feeling the wetness on her nose.

“Duh-bah mumma, duh-bah.”

The pattern

The pattern

I come home earlier than usual, and take a deep breath before entering the house. I can already smell dinner, lasagna I think. She peers out the kitchen door when she hears the door open.

“Honey, you startled me, how come you’re home so early?”

“Darling”, I kiss her, but take care to keep mi lips closed. “There was an incident  in the office, they dismissed us early.”

She frowns one of her that’s-interesting-but-I-have-something-in-the-oven frowns, and starts turning away.

“What happened? Is everyone ok?”

She opens the oven door and the scent fills the room.

“No,  it’s Pat…”

She leaves the lasagna on top of the stove to cool it, takes of her gloves and turns to look at me, I can see real concern in her eyes.

“Honey, what happened?”

My throat clenches… I turn to the fridge, to get a beer. I open the door and take on from the door, almost instinctively, but as the door starts to close I see half a pomegranate on one of our sons dishes, the Winnie the Pooh one. The bottle slides from my hand and crashes on the floor. The door closes automatically.

“Oh honey…”

I turn towards her, that primal fear of being reprimanded flashes through my mind, but disappears, the moment I see her face.

“What happened? Sit down. Tell me what happened.”

She pulls me to the table, and sits down besides me, and as I start talking, I can’t even recognize my own voice, for there’s something in it that wasn’t there before: fear.

“You remember I told you about Pat’s project, the one he talked me into joining?”

“The children’s skulls” She shudders.

“Something like that, children’s skulls before losing their baby teeth. We were studying what happens to the holes left by the second row of teeth.”

“You make them sound as sharks.”

I realize she has never seen it, not even a picture. She’s never felt that first wave of nausea, the first time you see the pattern, the holes… I hope she never does. I start to show a forced smile, but think better of it.

“Lately, Pat seemed more nervous than usual. God knows he always was jumpy, but this was different, it was as if he feared the world. He stopped having lunch with us in the garden. “Sunflowers.” That’s all he said when we asked him why. A week ago he started sleeping in his office, he wouldn’t leave. And then two days ago, when we came in, we found he’d taken some things out of the lab, and left them in the halls. Said he didn’t want them inside, the sponge with which we washed the skulls… Tom’s fractal poster, hell he even took out my fern fossil… Anyways, we came in this morning and the lab was closed off. Security wouldn’t let us in, and no one would tell us what was happening.”

I take a moment before continuing, tell myself to get it over with. She waves her hand over my head distractedly.

“Just a bug baby. So what happened next?”

“Jerry came in, said he needed to talk to our team, something had happened. We went to his office upstairs, and the first thing I noticed was he’d taken down the beehive poster. You know, one of those motivational things, “bee yourself” or something like that, it was on the floor facing the wall. Struck me as weird, but hey, maybe he was changing it for a whale or something, I don’t even get those things… anyways, we sat down and he said, “Guys, something happened to Pat”. And I asked where he was, and was he ok… And he says “He’s in the lab… but… well, he’s not exactly ok.”

She’s looking at me with real concern now, I must have started to cry without realizing it, cause she takes a napkin from de table and cleans my eyes; the frown’s back on her face, but now there’s real concern in those creases.

“He turns his computer screen toward us, and we can see the security video’s frames filling it up. He moves the pointer over the one on the top right corner and clicks, and the image, which now fills the whole screen, and there’s Pat alright. Walking from side to side, scratching his head, muttering something we can’t hear, and then he stands still, and that’s when we see it. Tom gasps besides me, and I can hear Gretchen trying to swallow… or gag, I can’t even tell. My own skin prickles, I feel like scratching my whole body, but control myself. And I hear myself asking “What is it?” but there’s no answer. And I look at Jerry and he’s staring at his table as if he’d seen a ghost. I tell you Stella I’ve never seen such terror in a man’s eyes, he takes his letter opener and starts scratching at his desk, and I don’t even know what’s happening, and Gretchen is saying “Get them, there’s so many, so many… can’t we fill them up? Don’t touch it!!!” And then she slaps my hand, the one that was on top of the desk, and then she actually does gag, and runs to the trash bin. But she stops when she looks at it, and turns to Jerry with reproach in her eyes. It’s one of those metal things, you know, one of those meshed trash cans. And I look at my hand and realize I had actually been scratching with my own nails the little holes on the wood.”

She’s still looking at me, but now there’s something more in her eyes, fear I think, and even revulsion.

“I looked back at the screen, and realize Pat is looking at the camera inside the lab, it’s as he knew we’re watching him, and it looks as if he’s pleading, asking for help, but then he moves his hand towards the camera, and I can see his skin clearly… and honey… you remember that time we took Henry to the aquarium, and we saw those things stuck to the glass, and you said they were like something out of a horror movie?”

She pushes her chair back and walks toward the sink. She leans over it, and her voice is not much more than a whisper.

“The lampreys… those were the one’s with the teeth right? The ones with rows of teeth, stuck to the glass. Henry said they looked like the food disposer on the kitchen sink.”

She looks down at the sink and turns sharply. But she avoids looking at me. She’s quiet, so I start talking again.

“Well honey, his fingers looked like that… they looked as if something had eaten at the tips, and then there were red boils on his hands, one after another, like fish eggs… like caviar, all over his hands.”

She walks towards the oven, and stares at the lasagna.

“And his face… oh honey, there’s holes in his face, holes with little round squirming things inside, and they’re symmetric, you know? There’s a pattern, and I can’t look anymore, and Tom keeps mumbling to himself, and Jerry’s filing the desk with the letter opener, and I …”

She picks up the tray with the lasagna. She’s still facing the wall, and just to the right of her legs, I can see my own reflection on the oven’s door. And my hairline, it looks like there are bubbles in it. Immobile bubbles. And I rub my eyes, but it feels as if my eyelids have been eaten away. 

She turns towards me, and the lasagna is in her hands, and I can see the burnt cheese on top, the holes in it, the pattern, the goddamned pattern. And I look at her face and there are tears in her eyes, but her mouth looks twisted, as if she were about to be sick, and she swings the lasagna plate towards my head.

I have just a couple of seconds left to think, but I can’t even talk, all I can do is gasp, cause I see something in the corner of her mouth, and it could be a cold sore, or a hole, the first of…

The red and the salt

 The red and the salt

"Swear not to tell."

And she swore.

And when teachers start asking, and parents come rushing to the school to pick up their children, mothers clinging, fathers combing ghosts with strong fingers out of their hair, she doesn’t tell.

Two weeks pass among tears and warnings, and then attention moves out of the school, and some people even stop working there. First the gardener disappeared, taking with him his rakes and buckets. Her own mother had been quick to point her bony finger at the strange and quiet man:

"Never liked him... God knows what he did to that poor child."

And when that blew over, it was the lunch ladies. One day she saw one, the young and nice one, run out crying, the older one storming out after her, yelling her outrage. Since then, her mom had packed her lunch at home.

After two weeks, it seemed, things were finally settling, but not in her mind. It haunts her... but she swore. Even now the other children don’t seem to trust her, she's caught them whispering among them looking at her. One time in the bathroom, the one who made her swear pulled her hair until tears stung her eyes, making her double and triple swear. And she swore. She triple swore…

Still, she could see something in their eyes, a thirst for the red, a hunger for the salt. And she knows she is next. Even though she's sworn, even though she hasn't told anyone, not even her stuffed unicorn.

They come for her a few days later, during recess. A smaller boy had been climbing a fence, and had fallen, unexplainably hard, and it seemed his arm was broken. He wailed and sobbed, and all the teachers in the yard ran to him or to the phone. And all of a sudden she is surrounded, and there are no teachers near and she knows her time has come.

The children hum in harmony as they take her to the furthest corner of the back yard, to the spot hidden by trees. And the game begins.

The mean girl takes her left heart finger in her small hand, and starts scratching between the knuckle and the first bend. And the questions start. 

She knows the rules, she has to answer fast, before the other one draws blood, and she mustn't cry.

She starts answering, but the questions get harder and harder, still she answers as fast as she can, eleven, twelve, thirteen questions...

"Name a color that starts with the letter i."

She's stumped, she knows this one, she's sure... she closes her eyes concentrating, but she's starting to feel pain, and it won't let her think straight... the girl scratches and scratches, and she must have hit bone by now. God it hurts! Her thoughts are racing, and she suddenly remembers the answer lies within the rainbow... red, orange, yellow green, blue... violet? She knows this; it's on the tip of her tongue, why did it have to have such a hard name? 

The sound of the earth shifting makes her open her eyes, she sees the children around her, the thirst makes their eyes shine bright. She sees the girl in front of her, there's a wicked smile on her face. She doesn’t dare look at the earth, but her eyes betray her and start wandering down, and stop at the sight of her finger, blood's been drawn, and the red opens the door.

She closes her eyes determined not to cry. And puts her other hand in her pocket. 

She doesn't remember putting it there, but there's a pencil inside, one of her Prismacolor pencils. She feels the tip with her fingers, still sharp. And she knows that it is her only chance.

She opens her eyes and looks at the other girl. The other stops scratching, she seems confused.

"Your eyes are shining red, they're supposed to be shining with tears."

She feels the thirst, urging her, so she takes her hand out of her pocket and stabs the other girl's hand with the tip of the pencil.

“Indigo.”

The girl cries out, startled, her face starts to contort. A small red drop starts growing on the back of her hand. The red opens the gate.

Her eyes don't even look thirsty anymore, they start filling up. The salt calls the thirsty ones.

"No, please, please, they made me do it, I didn't want to, please, mommy... mommy?..."

It happens fast, the sound of the earth shifting, dead children's hands reach out, and grab her ankles, tear her clothes. A deal was struck, and the debt must be paid. For a moment the earth looks like quicksand, her sobs are muffled and then disappear completely. 

The thirst has been quenched. The debt of the red and the salt has been paid.

Her finger hurts, but she ignores the pain. She turns around, the other children are still there, she can see fear in some of their eyes, and some won't even look at her. Some are biting their tears back.

Winter holidays start next week, and come January, the earth will be frozen and no debt will have to be paid, for it has already been fulfilled. One for the red and one for the salt. She could tell them this, she could say the debt’s been paid. But they had been so eager to see her cry…

"Swear not to tell."

And they swear.

Home

Home

She comes out through the right orifice, leaving the warmth behind. It's dark outside, she never comes out while there's light. Feeling with her legs before starting out. She must look for new sources of food. Her children are about to be born and they won't survive on skin... no, it must find something better and bring it back. 

Her journey is perilous, for nothing comes into the lair. But she has prepared traps outside, for she knew this night was coming, so she heads to those, over the big hole and the mountains beneath. The earth trembles, but she's sure footed, she's trekked this path before. Once, the earth itself tried to swat her, but she moved fast, although she had to stay hidden a couple of days after that, since she'd bitten in response, instinctively, and left a mark. 

She finds what she's looking for, beyond the borders of the earth, in that weird space of softness, that moves constantly, and irregularly. There's a small one at the end, near the wiggly hills. And she thanks her gods for this small blessing; she won't have to venture further on.

She envelops it carefully and starts back; this was a good journey... 

Something's wrong, the earth is moving as if it were day, not with the calm rhythm of night. She feels menaced, she knows something's wrong, but she has no time to escape before the ominous hand of earth's will falls on her, and takes with it, what's left of her life...

"See mom? I told you it was a spider! There, it fell on the bed." 

"Funny looking spider, tell you that... how's your spring fever baby?"

"My nose still itches, and the back of my throat, and now even my eyes are starting to feel funny."

"Spring fever. Don't worry sweetie, come summer you'll be as good as new."