that I was not hugged or encased in warmth nearly enough as a child. Perhaps due to the fact that my non-sociopath parent was murdered by the non-non.
Eventually, the fluids start kicking. I do mean this literally. Restraining her was a good idea.
The legs are the first to return, followed by the upper-torso. There are lots of bubbles. The gases that came out of her have a smell somewhere between Clorox and broccoli. At first her body appears to be dancing, hippie-style in reckless abandon, too drugged out to allow for symmetry of movement and timing. These seizures then pick up the pace with chest undulations. There’s a small window of time when I become afraid she will short-circuit and leave me with only the smell of burnt hair and some additional emotional baggage.
She vomits several liters of a gelatinous maroon substance before speaking.
“You double-crossing prick,” she belches. “Give me back my magazine.”
By magazine, I know she is not referring to any sort of home interior journal.
“Mother,” I say, “it’s me. You’re safe. You don’t need any bullets. The year is 2045.”
Her eyes, perhaps, still have some ice crystals passing over the retina. Maybe all she can see is blurry light. She might even think that this is the afterlife, and I an angel.
Suddenly I feel her gaze lock upon me like the scope of a long rifle.
“It’s you? Jesus, you turned out homely. Let me see your rack.”
“Mother—”
With that she reaches out to physically explore my bosom. Realizing she’s restrained, she quickly bites through her cotton fetters with rodential flair.
“This place is a shithole.”
I can feel the age-old resentment beginning to boil as I watch her rooting around my tiny cabin, no doubt searching for instruments to fashion crude weapons from. When she opens my utensil drawer, she lets out a judgmental “tsk.”
“Maybe, Mom, I would live in a nicer place if I hadn’t gone to a government work-orphanage at the age of nine when you were incarcerated. Not just incarcerated, frozen. Beyond writing letters, even. Did you know that they didn’t even tell me you’d been frozen? For the longest time, I left mail for you on my nightstand, thinking the supervisors picked it up during our morning chemical showers. I’d get long letters back and it wasn’t until you started coming on to me in them and asking me to meet you in the boiler room that I realized Robby the Janitor had been stealing my outgoing mail and taking on your share of the correspondence.”
Mother has found my only pair of pantyhose (admittedly, I don’t dress to the nines much) and placed padlocks into each foot. She begins spiraling these around like nun chucks.
“Mother, no weapons. I mean it. I didn’t have to bring you back to life.”
This gets her attention. She comes over and places her fingers along my throat in a way that brings instant and absolute pain, along with the inability to move. “You’re getting too big for your britches.”
She then opens the refrigerator and eats for three hours straight. Around hour two I decide to go to bed. I don’t say a word about how the distracting light, the wasted power, and the flatulent sounds of plastic condiment containers spurting their last drops are keeping me from pleasant dreams. What I do say in my head—a telepathic whisper of sorts that I hope she will hear, considering the possibility that maybe being not dead but frozen for several years opened some window of her mind to the supernatural—is this: my britches are indeed so big, Mother. I’m a forty-three year old woman with a weakness for reconstituted fudge.
I wake to Mother (nude) holding a loofah scrub (mine) looking not so happy. She was frozen before the hydrogen ration card mandate and does not understand why the shower won’t operate. Since I cannot ask for additional ration cards to support a prematurely thawed felon, I’m forced to dip into my meager stash of them. She asks how long
Eventually, the fluids start kicking. I do mean this literally. Restraining her was a good idea.
The legs are the first to return, followed by the upper-torso. There are lots of bubbles. The gases that came out of her have a smell somewhere between Clorox and broccoli. At first her body appears to be dancing, hippie-style in reckless abandon, too drugged out to allow for symmetry of movement and timing. These seizures then pick up the pace with chest undulations. There’s a small window of time when I become afraid she will short-circuit and leave me with only the smell of burnt hair and some additional emotional baggage.
She vomits several liters of a gelatinous maroon substance before speaking.
“You double-crossing prick,” she belches. “Give me back my magazine.”
By magazine, I know she is not referring to any sort of home interior journal.
“Mother,” I say, “it’s me. You’re safe. You don’t need any bullets. The year is 2045.”
Her eyes, perhaps, still have some ice crystals passing over the retina. Maybe all she can see is blurry light. She might even think that this is the afterlife, and I an angel.
Suddenly I feel her gaze lock upon me like the scope of a long rifle.
“It’s you? Jesus, you turned out homely. Let me see your rack.”
“Mother—”
With that she reaches out to physically explore my bosom. Realizing she’s restrained, she quickly bites through her cotton fetters with rodential flair.
“This place is a shithole.”
I can feel the age-old resentment beginning to boil as I watch her rooting around my tiny cabin, no doubt searching for instruments to fashion crude weapons from. When she opens my utensil drawer, she lets out a judgmental “tsk.”
“Maybe, Mom, I would live in a nicer place if I hadn’t gone to a government work-orphanage at the age of nine when you were incarcerated. Not just incarcerated, frozen. Beyond writing letters, even. Did you know that they didn’t even tell me you’d been frozen? For the longest time, I left mail for you on my nightstand, thinking the supervisors picked it up during our morning chemical showers. I’d get long letters back and it wasn’t until you started coming on to me in them and asking me to meet you in the boiler room that I realized Robby the Janitor had been stealing my outgoing mail and taking on your share of the correspondence.”
Mother has found my only pair of pantyhose (admittedly, I don’t dress to the nines much) and placed padlocks into each foot. She begins spiraling these around like nun chucks.
“Mother, no weapons. I mean it. I didn’t have to bring you back to life.”
This gets her attention. She comes over and places her fingers along my throat in a way that brings instant and absolute pain, along with the inability to move. “You’re getting too big for your britches.”
She then opens the refrigerator and eats for three hours straight. Around hour two I decide to go to bed. I don’t say a word about how the distracting light, the wasted power, and the flatulent sounds of plastic condiment containers spurting their last drops are keeping me from pleasant dreams. What I do say in my head—a telepathic whisper of sorts that I hope she will hear, considering the possibility that maybe being not dead but frozen for several years opened some window of her mind to the supernatural—is this: my britches are indeed so big, Mother. I’m a forty-three year old woman with a weakness for reconstituted fudge.
I wake to Mother (nude) holding a loofah scrub (mine) looking not so happy. She was frozen before the hydrogen ration card mandate and does not understand why the shower won’t operate. Since I cannot ask for additional ration cards to support a prematurely thawed felon, I’m forced to dip into my meager stash of them. She asks how long
Similar Books
