Whither
and whether,
wherever I go
whatever I am
I am set in wind
I am in season
yes I am, always,
in heat of winter
on the outskirts of Argentina
I'm in season, even
in the cool Swedish tundra
midnight sun unsettling
mid May to middle July
and in Amazonian
August droughts
my umbrella's
still held up
in demand
for the
current
rainy
season
05.18.2024
Personify the four Seasons challenge @AJAY9979
Sisters: An Unfinished Random Flash Fiction
The monitor has kept a lonely vigil on the nightstand. Its green, and sometimes red, bars of light have blinked intermittently for nearly two weeks. The volume is turned off, though the residents in bed beside it wouldn’t know the difference. They lay inert beside its quiet pleas—bodies and breath reeking of the same substance that recently occupied the empty bottles littering the floor.
Neither is much to look at. The wife—we’ll call her that, for they are legally married after the common-law variety—is rather large. Her thin, unkempt hair fans across the pillows of her fleshy cheeks, puffy lips hiding dark, spotted teeth. Her pink, wrinkled chemise stains beneath the underarms and her hefty legs tangle in the rank sheets.
Beside her lies the broad form of her husband. Though not as corpulent as his wife, he bears it more awkwardly. His arms and shoulders are thin, but he packs more in his gut and cheeks and ankles. He is also rather hairier; the short stubble of his head extends toward his eyebrows, and down his back. An empty liquor bottle rests against his chest. He strokes it mindlessly with his thumb, a smile on his lips; sordid dreams flitting across his barren mind.
The monitor gives a sudden, silent scream as the bars flash to maximum capacity. Green. Green. Red. Red. Red. All five blink in rapid succession. The monitor seems to buzz and shake with the effort of waking its owners. The wife twitches and begins to stir.
Down the hallway, at the microphone end of the monitor, a girl crouches against crib bars, fingers to her ears.
“Hush, hush,” she pleads with her infant sister, “you’ll wake them!” Her knees are held tightly to her chest, tears in her big, somber eyes.
The girl is no more than seven, perhaps eight years old, though she is small for her age. Her body is as pinched and thin as her parents are large and obtuse. Her wispy-fine hair is mouse-brown and matted, and she reeks of urine. Reaching into the crib, she tenderly lifts out the shrieking bundle. Even so, no one has taught her to support the neck, and the baby’s head lolls back. The infant shrieks louder. Terrified, she pleads again— “Hush baby!”
She cradles her sister like she’s seen other girls do with their dolls. Girls whose dolls are exquisitely dressed, pushed along in pink little wicker prams. She rocks baby girl, back and forth, back and forth. Still, the girl screams on, inconsolable.
Fearful, the girl looks about, grasping at a bottle on the shelf. It is empty—only a dried milk residue remains—but she puts it in, desperate to quiet the shrieking. For a moment it works, baby girl is content to suck on the dry air of the bottle. But her empty belly aches with the rush of air and the crying intensifies. Laying the baby on the floor, the girl rushes through the doorway to get to the fridge, when from the other end of the house, a roar.
“Fer gods sakes, shut ’er up!”
The girl flinches visibly and hurries back to the room. At the end of the hall, an argument ensues.
“It’s yer turn.”
A whiny voice answers. “I went th’ last time!”
“No yeh didn’! Yeh jes’ slep’ through me gittin’ up!”
Their voices grow louder and louder through the thin walls.
“You son-of-a-b—! You say that every time!”
“I don’t! Ef’n yeh ever got off yer own lazy ass, yeh’d know!”
She screams at him in return, a high, angry shriek, and the sounds of a scuffle ensue. Profanities rain through the walls and the whole house shakes at the meeting of these two behemoths. Baby girl screams on, where she’s been left the floor. Her sister sobs quietly, crouched, hiding behind a threadbare armchair in a corner of the room.
A few loud thumps, a final shriek and the door flies open. Hair ratty and frizzed from the tussle, the ogress emerges from her cavern, jowls quivering with rage.
She hurls a final insult behind her; “son-of-a-b—!” before stomping down the hall. Her fury is brought to a halt on finding her infant on the floor. Her face slackens into an expression of dull stupidity as she puzzles over the marvelous event, when suddenly the pieces click.
“Lena!” Her patience is razor-thin. “–Lena! Where is that little b—!?”
Timidly, Lena emerges from behind the chair, thin arms across her chest, shielding herself.
“There you are.” Her mother grimaces. “What you been doin’?” When Lena doesn’t answer, she cuffs her across the head. “You been wakin’ her!? Huh? You been wakin’ her ‘cause you know we already en’t gettin’ no sleep!? You little b—! Answer me!”
Lena glances down at her squalling sister before replying. “No’m. Jes’ tryin’ to shut ’er up.”
“Liar!” Her mother slaps her again, before turning her attention to baby girl. Lena takes the opportunity to scuttle back to her place behind the armchair.
“What Lena been doin’ to you, huh?” she smiles emptily down at baby girl. Lifting her up, she presses the child against her bosom. “Shush, shush, baby.” Lena watches jealously from the corner.
Alternately rocking and bouncing, the woman works to console her. Rock, bounce, pat. Rock, bounce, pat. At moments, the newborn pauses in her crying and allows herself to be consoled. Then, remembering her parentage, the wails begin afresh.
“Agh—jest shutup!” The woman’s jaw quivers angrily. “Well—mebe you’re jest hungry!”
Rummaging in the cupboard, she hastens to mix a few ounces of formula and puts it in the child’s open mouth. Though hungry, the child gags on the cold milk, crying louder. Her small, wrinkled face is a crimson red-verging-on-blue. Rock, bounce, pat. The mother goes through the motions of consoling her child, though inwardly her corrupted heart dwells on the offenses against her. An abusive husband who forces her to care for their children alone! A willful daughter who purposefully awakens her sister. An infant who won’t stop screaming. All of them, conspiring to wrong her. Her mind picks over each damning evidence.
A dark seed of hatred, already well-established, takes firmer root. Her stained pink chemise slips off her shoulder and those wretched, rotted teeth grimace as the infant scorns her attentions.
Rock, bounce, pat.
Rock, bounce, pat.
Five minutes pass, then six. Each second is an eternity beside those ear-splitting screams.
At eight minutes, she tries burping her, changing her, feeding her again. After each failure, her fleshy face darkens, and her mind grows more embittered.
‘All I do is care for ‘em, hour after hour an’ this is my thanks.’ She thinks savagely. ‘I hate ‘em.’
Rock, bounce, pat.
Rock, bounce, pat.
Behind the chair, Lena tries to stifle a miserable sob.
“Lena! Git out here!”
Reluctantly, Lena creeps out from behind her perch.
“You woke ’er, so you c’n take ’er. See how you like it!”
She dumps the child unceremoniously into Lena’s arms and retreats into the hallway. The thin walls no longer hold back the tide of noise, however, and the alcohol has worn its way into a pulsing headache. She hovers there for a few minutes ‘jest to teach Lena a lesson,’ before marching back in to pull the baby out of Lena’s despairing arms.
Rock, bounce, pat.
Rock, bounce, pat.
Rock, bounce, pat, shake.
At first, it’s just brief jounce, enough to scare her quiet. Then, as the screams crescendo and the injustices against her culminate in the woman’s small mind, she shakes the child harder. With a final thump on the thinly carpeted floor, she begins to scream herself.
“Shutup! Jest shutup!”
This time, baby girl listens.
The Persistence of Memory
His love, outside of time, beyond the illusion of forever, was immemorial as it was eternal.
Long before the human genome had been discovered and deciphered in cold, impersonal laboratories, his epigenetics had been warmly at work, laying down inheritable sentiments for his progeny. He built up a latticework of devotion to her where natural selection had no relevance.
His love would persist through the ages. It always had, hadn't it? Some certainties persist beyond memory.
His was just a trick with amino acids, bonding junk DNA to the otherwise silent portions of his genetic helices. But there she straddled, fresh and alive; lovely and kind; and generously giving.
And inheritable.
Alas, he never taught her how to do likewise. He couldn't. It was a process so private and inherently esoteric that he didn't quite understand it himself. How could he translate such mindful machinations into words of instruction? He might just as easily deconstruct love, grief, or loneliness, all of which ensued upon her death.
But love and grief and loneliness are constructs of a genetically derived mindfulness, apart from his epigenetic love letter, and ne'er the twain would meet: his completeness by her was immune to the instructions of mere proteins or hormones.
Each time he visited her grave, the tighter his epigenetic bonds became. They stood out--little bombs easily packaged for sorties to his offspring to come.
Each time he visited her grave, he would sink to his knees, crying, "I love you eternally. My love is still here now, and will so remain, until it becomes the stuff of stars themselves!"
Hundreds of years later, great-great-great-grandchildren, now unrecognizable to each other on their family tree, visit her grave driven via a powerful, mysterious compulsion. Chance had summated perfectly: three strangers--two men and a boy--know they must be there but don't know why.
Prudence Planchard
My Forever Love
May 25, 1757 — September 5, 1785
The older man said, "I love you forever."
The younger man, added, "My love is still here now..."
And the boy added, in a sentiment well beyond his years, "...and will so remain until becoming the stuff of stars themselves."
They departed, but would certainly, in love, cross paths again.
Fraction
And there I stood silent
in a vast empty field
with the East wind
flowing steady
against my brow
And there I
swallowed memories
of past horizons
every emotion
illuminated by the sky
in teal blues
emerald greens
And there I heard
your voice
echoing gently
on the skin
of the black sea
whispering
eternity
to the lost
believer within
In Blood
Dear Plexiglassfruit,
Of all the letters I may have sent, I have never written to my mother-- my real mother. I suppose I never believed that she was there, waiting, as recipient, and I'm not sure what I would have said, in years past, on paper.
My mother-in-law says she cannot imagine, as a mom, not being proud of me. She is very kind. There is pride, and Pride; and I have understood that for my mother I am on the cold inverse of the sentiment. Mother puzzles over me and makes comparisons. I tacitly admit the rationale. I make odd choices; everyone voicing an opinion, has told me as much.
Mother has graciously let it go after all, as notable, but uninteresting. We both know that I don't have anything to offer her--- I am useless as a backscratcher. There is simply nothing I can do for her, pragmatically. She has lived life as a sort of barter, with the eye on always coming up ahead. Having expected a man to take care of her, she has learned that money takes care of her. She steels herself to this state of affairs.
She told me a few years ago that, for Enlightenment, I am not ready.
(*My sister, yes; She has paid her dues, I suppose.)
I can only marvel at the confidence of the proclamation. I lay no claims, and wouldn't dare cast judgement... I guess I hadn't much thought about reaching Enlightenment, sitting out here in the dark peripheries of our misunderstandings. My childish hope was that we take care of each other.
If I were to write to my Mom, in abstraction of all that binds us in our interpersonal experience, I would write something she would likely dismiss as "dispassionate essay:"
Dear Mother,
Motherhood is not at all what I expected.
You cryptically said to me, a couple years in, when my child was almost three that "Now" I understand, and know. Truly, I do not. I rather sense some discrepancies in our perceptions and acknowledge the inaccuracy of my own viewpoints. The insinuation I feel is that, now, presumably I understand what it is to be pegged. Saddled. Of course, with affection and responsibility. Because that is the sentiment that I associate with our family reflection of child rearing-- The burden wrought.
And I observe the key differences that may or may not have been fully voiced. That motherhood "happens" in different ways. It has been expressed as lament, in our family circle, as the limitation of self. The facts remain, Mother, that you yourself said you were "not ready," and my sister though eager, was "surprised" by pregnancy. You've each countered that I was so reluctant and calculated as to "sap the Romance out of it"... well, certainly everyone's notion of such fantasy is varied. I have never doubted anyone's Love, in the short- or long-term.
I understand that having a child, or children, is tiring. The state of being on alert, all the time, is not necessarily shared by all parents though. I have learned this in watching the families of my preschool students. I also know it, from being left, so often unattended as a child, without adult supervision; under the care of my sister, two years older, and sometimes not even that. I understand the impulse that sometimes overwhelms and makes a parent want to withdraw. I have felt it.
For whatever it was that made you want to pull away, Mom, I am sorry.
I hope I never hit you, pinched you, scratched you, spit at you, demeaned you or otherwise made you feel faced with contempt. I am wracking my memory for any such incident and cannot remember. And I cannot think of a thing more heartbreaking, abusive and demoralizing. A form of domestic violence that has no legal recourse, the abuser being a minor and outside of the law.
So, as you have doubtlessly wondered: what then do I think of Motherhood? I have not found that being a parent is aww and diapers, sleepless nights, and adventures. That was understood. To be sure, I expected it to be, for lack of a better word, "work." I hoped for Motherhood, as an ideal; an opportunity I suppose. I was looking to be fully present, and now, have these constant questions: ...Have I done the right things? Where have I gone wrong? ...What can I do to make a correction for my apparent, yet undeciphered, errors? ...for surely, the evidence shows, if only in my own sight, that I am doing something not right... to have fears about my child.
Of all of this, naturally, you are unaware. You are not here; pictures sent show only smiles, and I have said nothing, except the underlying truth that yes, I am happy to be a Mom.
Perhaps it is of these misgivings that you speak of... when you say, "Now...you know."
M.