Mother

[Disclaimer – this is a fictional narrative writing piece]

I sit by the small garden in front of the grey building in the midst of the cityscape, a few feet away from some other houses. I have my briefcase on my grip and a half-burnt cigarette slipped in between my fingers on my other hand, and am donning a heat-trapping suit and blazer that stuck to my body like a second skin. I watch the cars pass by over the distance, headlights blinding me, until none passes by anymore. And I sit there, pondering, and perhaps, steeling myself before I enter this home of mine I have abandoned.

When I stand, the sun has just begun to awake from its slumber, stretching its arms far and wide and blowing a cold yawn that tousled my hair. Then I am faced with the intimidating facade of my home; it looks down on me like I was a parasitic pest offensive to the eye, and it reminds me of the sneering eyes and calculative gazes full of mockery from everyone. I hate it.

My home has always been a picket-white-fence one. When I was little, everyone and everything clamoured to praise me for the simplest things––they worshipped the path I walked, evangelised the words I talked, and pontificated anything I did. They would say “Honey, you’re so smart!”, and I would cheer, “Of course! Praise me more!”. When I made even the slightest of mistakes, they would swarm like locusts to appease me, whispering words of encouragement: “It’s alright, there’s always next time, you did your best!”, to which I would nod my head vigorously. And if they wanted to criticise me? That would be blasphemy. And I relished in all these, like they were fine wine, like a god craving after offerings. I climbed up my pedestal and rested on my laurels, while they salivated after the blessings they hoped so hard for: my ‘impressive’ achievements.

The mother I have is a domineering, power-hungry woman. In my home, whatever she says goes; my father even would lick her toes if she asked him to. But she appears too pure, golden white and pearly sands, and her voice so silky smooth like satin that no one ever questions her actions and deeds, nor do they castigate her intimations. She does her household chores, cooks lovingly for my father and his family, educates her children, and nevertheless, despite her desire to conquer every land she steps on, is surreally patient and oddly kindhearted in the eyes of people.

Her brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces are all, too, like her. The fakery is all too clear, their greed and hatred unmasked as they listen to my mother proudly presenting me as a trophy child. They would tell me that I was smart and one of the best they had ever seen, yet condemn me behind my back, moulding me into an overly proud scum of the Earth, even though it was my mother who had gloated about my achievements. Once, I overheard a conversation:

“Sis, Ethan just got another A for his test,” my mother said.

“Oh, that’s,” my aunt replied, in what I perceived as a weary tone, “quite a pleasant news.”

“What about Felix? Is he doing well in school?”

Silence then pervaded the room. I heard a sharp intake of air, and a shuddering sigh. It should be from my aunt.

“He’s doing fine, thanks for asking,” my aunt replied, with a harking laughter after.

“Really? I heard from Ethan that he struggled with science.”

“He is, but he’s doing fine,” my aunt repeated.

“How could it be fine?” my mother said, “You should pay better attention to his grades! Tell him to be more diligent. Look at my Ethan, he’s always working hard, so he always gets an A in his tests.”

“He’s doing fine.”

I heard my mother sigh. “Sis, as a parent, you should be more concerned.”

And that made my aunt angry. My aunt began to stammer. “You––You don’t get to comment on how I––how I manage my children.”

“I’m just worried––”

“I’ve had enough.” Rapid footsteps then entered my ears, and I assumed my aunt had walked away from my mother. Not long after, I heard my mother’s laughter. She sounded like a witch.

From then on, Felix started acting weirdly. He would, like everyone else that I have become numb to their words, praise me for no good reason. He, too, started getting more aggressive towards me; he would push me off my chair and tug my hair so hard it hurt, then treat it as a joke between cousins. I wanted to confront him, but he always skirted off the topic, and I did not know what to do then, so I stopped bothering him with it. In the end, he moved away from the city before I could get my answer, and I never saw him again. Even though I did not put much thought back then, I knew that the change in Felix had something to do with the animosity between my aunt and my mother. Yet I never did question my mother about it, and that might be one of my biggest regrets.

And then comes today, where I have been summoned by my mother from my one-man apartment room to this grandiose house I am standing across from for whatever godforsaken reason. I was supposed to have arrived by yesterday night––I did––but I lied to my mother saying that there was a heavy traffic jam, and now I am dilly-dallying outside, stalling for the time I have to meet my mother. She should still be asleep, yet my mind keeps on telling me to run and hide, to never again see her, else I would be shackled in this suffocating home again.

As I approached the door that led inside, my breath quickens. Then I realised that I was afraid of my own mother. My fingers tremble, the sweat on my back felt cold, and my vision blurs––I was really, extremely, irrevocably afraid of meeting my mother. I do not know when it started, but I have seemed to turn my mother into the faceless monsters lurking under children’s beds I was so scared of in the past.

I spend a handful of time walking to-and-fro, trying to reason with myself that, no, entering the house will not lead to the end of my life. I end up sitting down again, this time on the drywood porch.

Then something greets me. “Welcome!”

I stand startled. “Huh?”

“Welcome!”

I must be going crazy, because a doormat is talking to me. “Am I hallucinating? Is a doormat talking to me?” I whisper to myself.

“I’m talking.”

“You––You are really talking!”

The doormat might have quivered, but I feel that my fear was deceiving my eyes. And ears. “Uh, yes. I am,” the doormat confirms.

I remain silent for a moment, then I say: “Ah, whatever.”

“Aren’t you going to enter?”

“I’ve been trying to.”

“...for more than an hour?”

“...it’s hard work.”

We chatted for quite a while; the wonder that I was talking to a doormat––an inanimate object––has barely sunk in, but, although the situation seems very peculiar, I feel comfortable. The silence I have been living with for far too long finally is filled with a warm voice I can have a pure conversation with––something more with substance, and not tip-of-the-iceberg conversations without any apparent meaning.

Eventually, I ask the doormat: “Aren’t you tired?”

“Tired of what?”

“Getting stepped on?”

The doormat halts, but then whispers: “I am.”

I pour my emotions into my next line: “Then, do you want to escape somewhere far away?”

“Escape?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Away from everybody. Away from everything. Just ourselves, with no one telling us what to do. We can do anything we want. No more getting stepped on.”

Its eyes get hopeful, but dim as quickly afterwards. “It would be great if such a perfect place exists.”

I drop my smile, and let out a dry laugh. “If only.”

Perhaps, we were too immersed in our own fantasy where we can do and talk about and enjoy things that we want to, without caring for the world and what its people think, that we were no longer talking. But the clouds above curdle like spoiled milk and the sky sews itself shut with a ghoulish groan, and the rain stops our fantasy, rudely pulling us back to the bleakness we are living in.

“Hey, nice meeting you,” I bid goodbye when the first raindrop hit my head.

“Wait!” the doormat exclaims suddenly. I tilt my head, but nonetheless wait.

“If you––If you somehow find that place, could you take me with you?” it pleads, “I have nothing much to offer, but––company! I can keep you company! And I… I can lend you an ear for your problems, I––please, let me escape? I can’t––I can’t take it anymore.”

I look down sadly at the new friend I made. “Okay.”

And this seems to flare the doormat’s confidence.

“You––I can give you anything! You can do anything to me! I can be the path you walk on, I can––anything! Just… take me with you, I beg you.”

“Isn’t that as miserable?”

“If it means running away from this hell, I am willing to sacrifice anything.”

The silence afterwards may have been the most meaningful one I could have ever mustered. I did, too, sacrifice everything just to get away from my mother; my computing degree now collects dust, squeezed in between stacks of papers I had no more use for. I left the familiar people, the familiar sceneries, and the familiar sun and moon for the freedom I sought after. Ages after, the prophecy my mother had told me, that if I left I would be living a life of mediocrity and debauchery, ultimately came true, yet I regret nothing.

I wondered, one night, what life I would be living until the brink of my death. My then girlfriend, Thea, had just stormed out of my dingy apartment, after my phone dinged for the umpteenth time on our so-called date night. I remember that as she lost her sliver of patience, the fork on her trembling hands soon flew to the wall on my back, and the silverware and crockery on the rickety table zoomed left and right, up and down, until all that was left was our screaming argument that might have waken the entire neighbourhood up. She told me that I had never loved her, and what I shot back was that she never did try to understand me. And that last night with her I watched her hastily pack her cosmetics, shampoos and body wash, books and clothes, with the tears in her eyes smearing her mascara making her look like some sort of fierce murderer lurking on the streets. Then regret came crashing in, and I repeatedly told her that I loved her, that I would die if she left, and made myself believe in it, but she was gone, never to be seen again, just like how Felix had disappeared from my life.

And after that when I was despairing, I gazed into a mirror. I grabbed the mirror, with a force that I did not know I had within me, and cried for the things that had gone wrong. Why was everyone leaving? What was wrong with me? I had a stable job, pretty face, and shelter that I had earned myself, so why did Thea leave? I had given her all my love, all my everything, for her: I bought her the weird cheap bags she wanted, I praised her beauty every single day without fail, I learnt how to cook her favourite dishes, I let her win our arguments, and most crucially, the heaviest but exhilarating task: I loved her.

Then I asked myself: what was love? The only love I was familiar with was one where I was raised like a rose bud in a greenhouse. I was left to drink the purest spring water, eat the most luxurious fertilisers, and bask in the most optimal sunlight. But was this love? Was a love that was so obsessed with only the beauty of my petals love? Thea once expressed her exasperation towards my working hours, and how we did not have enough ‘quality time’ together, but I had brushed her off, saying that I worked for her, for our own good. And I thought this was love, to ensure that she did not have a tough life. But perhaps I was wrong. And I could only mourn, Mother, oh mother, is your love not love? What have you done to me?

The me in the mirror gazed back, and I discovered the most horrifying thing: I looked like my mother. I had her slanted eyes, I had her high cheekbones, I had her upturned lips. I had her jutting nose, I had her low hairline, I had her double eyelids. I was carrying my mother’s face; my mother was everywhere I went. I could never escape from the infinite reality of my mother. I could never be free from the clutches of my mother. Even my actions were my mother’s. So here I am again, standing right in front of the very door I left from, begrudgingly meeting my mother after us being long apart.

I entered my home. The living room has not changed much since I left. There is still the marble coffee table with a vase of wilted flowers on it, the sofa still has the countless wine stains, and the grandfather clock rigid beside the old box TV still is as conspicuous as ever. Everything is still the same, and I, too, am still the same.

Then the clock suddenly says: “Good morning. It is now five in the morning.”

I stilled. “Woah! You talk too?”

Never have I imagined being ignored by a talking, inanimate object, but I was ignored.

“Hey? Can you not hear me?” I say.

The clock finally perks to my voice. It clears its throat, and replies, with a tinge of practiced cordiality: “Oh, apologies. To what do I owe you the pleasure? The time now is five-oh-one in the morning.”

“Uh, nothing really,” I stammer, “but is my mother awake?”

“Your mother? She has not left her room, so she must still be sleeping.” And the clock adds, after some thought, “You ought to not disturb her.”

“Rest assured, I won’t.” I sit on the leathered couch with ease, and my body sinks into the foam. The tension in my muscles loosens a little as I hear that my mother is not awake. I am still yet to be ready to meet her.

“Why have you come back?” the clock asks.

“My mother asked me to.”

“She asked countless times, but this is the first time you did come back.”

I do not deny its words. My mother had called me numerous times: the first time was when I was in a bar searching for warmth, and the second was when I stayed up late chasing after my work’s deadline. The subsequent times, like I had with the other two, I ignored. But somehow, the last call she made, I pitied her desperate voice and seemingly truthful phrases. Maybe something in me was hopeful––hopeful that she had changed, and wanted to rebuild the bridges she had burnt.

“Yes, but I was busy.” I decided that that would be the reason, if my mother ever asks.

But the clock does not believe me. “You lie.”

“How do you know?”

The clock has a habit of ignoring words as if he had no time to entertain others. “Are you ashamed?” it asks instead of answering me.

“What is there to be ashamed of?” I clench my fists so hard that the edges of my palms turn white. “I was really––really busy. My work is very demanding, you know? And I have to work hard, if not I would be shivering out in the cold this winter if I get kicked out of my apartment; because I don’t have enough money to pay rent.” And, when the clock does not say anything, I continue to ramble: “No one in this family helped me, why would I want to come back?”

“I see.”

Then I realise that I blew my cover away with my last remark, but I remain mute anyway. Yes, I am ashamed. My mother, who was someone so high and mighty, willingly bent her knees so that I could finally reach out to her, but my immature self refused to give her my time of the day. A mother, who carried my body in her belly for months, did not even get a single second from her son to listen to her pleas.

“You could afford to be more honest. Everyone likes an honest man,” the clock suggests.

“Huh?”

“Your mother would ask why you did not visit her. It would be best if you tell her the truth.”

“And get reprimanded? No thanks.” I snort. “And my mother definitely doesn’t like honest men. She hates them.”

“She has changed, Ethan.”

I suddenly feel bubbly. “Changed?”

One night, I ran away from home, and I dreamt of a changed mother. I lay on a cold bench in a park miles away from home, shivering in my too thin clothes and berating myself for not bringing my gloves to run away with me. I knew that my resistance was futile; an incident like me running away from home would not shake the cold-blooded mother I have, but with the mysterious and indescribable stubbornness of the young, I persisted full of hope, that some time into the night, I would be hugged by the warm body of my mother, with her swallowed by the grief and fear of losing her only son because of her errors. And I dreamt that she would realise that she had left many things, somewhere, of the utmost importance, something so profound that could have changed the fate of our strained relationship: the compassion, the forbearance, the dedication, the reinforcement of a parent towards a child, and a love that transcends beyond the fleetingness of life. But night went and morning came, and what I had in my hands were nothing but the necessities I packed the day before and a bleeding heart. My mother did not come. She had abandoned me entirely.

From that time on, the idea that change and my mother would always be like parallel lines that would never, ever, cross solidified in my mind. The little hope that I had was brutally extinguished by the painful truth about my mother––that I was never precious to her, that I was nothing under her eyes, that I was something disposable after use. And so, when the clock said that my mother ‘changed’, the strangeness of it was so inherent that I could not help let out a pitiful laughter. It was as if the clock’s claim were a mockery to my beliefs.

“That’s quite funny,” I conclude.

“What’s so funny?” the clock asks.

“That you believe in your baseless assumption that my mother has changed.”

“It is not that hard to believe.”

“That woman will never change.”

“Nothing is ever constant. People change with time.”

“I refuse to believe it.”

The clock sighs, as if trying to coax a child in the middle of a tantrum, and stops replying to me altogether. Part of me wants to believe him, but there are just too many red flags, evident from one’s eyes, that it is impossible for something so magical and fantastical to happen in my lifetime. If she had changed, why had she not visited me, even when I had told her my address? Alas, however, the clock has planted a seed of doubt, and it constantly grew. If not, what could have pushed me into coming back to my home?

“Hello,” was one of her most favourite greetings through the static of my phone, like many others who I have no care about. And it entered my ears one day I was out swimming in the sea of my consciousness, chugging tens of glasses of whiskey that the bartender kept on pouring for me. I might have slurred my words, and if my mother had noticed it, she did not say a single thing, like she always did.

“Hn? Hello, mother,” I replied.

“How are you?” The standard question.

The bar was uncharacteristically more crowded and daring that night, and with people packed into each other like sardines, their hands wandered to everywhere they wanted. Soon, I found someone grabbing a part of my body no one should have touched if we were out in the streets. I plastered a flirtatious grin on my face, and sent it to that bold someone, before replying: “Fine. Uh, can we talk later? I’m––I’m busy.”

I could imagine my mother’s eyebrows raising up to her hairline. “Busy? Where are you?” Again, the same questions.

“Bar,” I responded curtly. And I realised that it sounded like it could be something my mother would hark on, so I lied through my teeth: “Work outing with colleagues.”

My mother did not reply for quite a while, and I was internally telling her to hurry up and hang up; I had more important things to do, and it was very much more exciting than hearing her voice. “It’s already very late in the night. If you have been drinking, don’t drive. Just leave your car and hail a cab,” she nagged. And when she did not get a response, she, tightly, added: “Ethan, did you hear what I said?” And another: “I tolerate you drinking, but you must be responsible.”

“Yeah––Yeah, just, yeah. I know.”

“You have work tomorrow, right? Don’t stay out too late,” she reminded.

“Yeah.”

“Call me when you get back home. Don’t––”

As I heard her mechanical voice drone on and on, the little bit of patience left in me crumbled to dust; and that might be, too, because the heated gaze from my bedwarmer for the night lit a fire in my soul. Perhaps, I would have been more receptive to her words if she had really cared. Yet I knew she did not, so I decided to pay her no heef for the rest of the night.

“Mom,” I interrupted. “I know. I’ll call you back.” And I hung up.

The next morning, I woke up with the sun burning me to oblivion, and beside someone whose face and name I could not recollect. With practiced ease, I slipped out of the duvet without making any unnecessary movements, left a glass of water with aspirin I stole from one of the cupboards in an unfamiliar washroom, and tiptoed out, probably to never see the same person ever again. Then my phone rang, and I was so startled that I immediately rejected it. But the caller was persistent, and called again right after.

“Ethan,” a familiar voice rang out when I accepted the call. She sounded irritated.

“Mother.” I mimicked her tone.

“You––” she seemed to want to burst, but held it in, and I applauded her for it. “Come back home,” she said instead.

“I’m––”

“You are not busy. Come back home. Now.”

“Mother, I have work.”

But her voice turned desperate, as if she was clawing her way up an underwater abyss. “Please, just listen to me this once,” she begged. “I want to make amends with you. We can’t go on like this.”

“Mother––”

“Mother was wrong! I admit it, I haven’t been the best parent; I was not a good mother to you! But I’m trying. I’m trying to be a good mother. So please––please, listen to mother’s words once again. We can fix this. We can.”

I was, then, baffled and, also, frightened. I was having a hard time believing that my mother––my mother!––was admitting to her faults and trying to apologise for her shortcomings. But I was forced to watch a black-and-white film playing right before my eyes of her obvious mispareting and of her ignorance and inconsideration in raising me. And at the same time, I felt giddy. I felt I was on cloud nine, and the feeling was much, much more satisfying, so much more gratifying and pleasant than any inhales of cigarette smoke and any of the nights of intimacy and closeness I had experienced. With all these happening in a short while, my mind became static white, and my judgement flew out of the window and was replaced with an episode of naiveté. Then I agreed to meet her.

In one way or another, I find myself sleeping on the couch of my home after my argument with the clock. And when my eyes flutter open, I am met with my mother sipping on a tepid cup of tea, like the way she used to every morning. For a moment, we stare at each other, saying nothing. My mother looks more haggard than ever, something uncharacteristic of her proud and puff-chest traits. And the sadistic self in me flares in excitement––it is preaching on how if my life is ruined, then hers should too; an equivalent exchange of sorts.

“Ethan,” she greets, finally.

I nodded.

“Ethan,” she repeats, like she could not believe that I am sitting right across her.

“Mother,” I whisper, sadly, “I’m here.”

Her eyes shake, and the fingers wrapped around her teacup loosen.

“Ethan,” my mother starts, with as much emotion that a person with a limited capacity for it can express––like a capricious meteor––“I know you’d rather be somewhere else than this dreary home. And I know you dislike me, or maybe even hate me.”

I want to say that I could never hate her, but I keep my mouth shut. Could a son really hate his mother?

“But,” she continues. “I––there’s something very wrong with our relationship. And I want to fix this. I want you to know that I’m trying. To mend our strained relationship. And I need your help,” she pleads, severely so, “I need us to communicate. I want to learn how to talk to you. But you need to know––you must understand that it is very hard for me; and I know it is for you too, so… I hope that today we can talk. Talk about what I’ve done wrong.” Her voice trembles ever so slightly.

And I watch her, not daring to interrupt.

“You can… talk about anything,” she encourages, “Mother will not get mad.”

I have a hard time believing that, but I comply anyway. “Mother,” I call.

“Yes?” she replies.

“Why did you suddenly want to talk?” I ask.

She clearly has not prepared enough for the question I hurled, and a brief panic flashes by her eyes, but she regains her composure with an insurmountable speed for me to not bother. And she, with an act of pursing her lips and not meeting me in the eyes, looks somewhat bashful––an expression I thought is out of place in the frame within my mother’s face. And she admits, with great difficulty: “I was worried about you. And I am always worried about you.”

And it is my turn to be astonished. “You… worried?”

“That night you ran away from home, I felt regret for the first time in a while.” She laughed hollowly. “After all my anger dissipated, I realised that my words were extremely hurtful to you. Then I immediately set out to find you. But you were gone. And I didn’t know what to do.” Her voice cracked at the very end, but she seems desperate to add: “I really didn’t know what to do. Your father was running around calling all the police stations. And I didn’t know what to do.”

“Mother, I––” I do not know what to say, but I figured I need to say something nonetheless. But my mother stops me, like she is scared of what I would say to her. The realisation plunges in like a knife, twisting my tissues and muscles and skin, that she is, as incredible as it is, also afraid of facing me. We are both afraid of facing each other. We are both fools and cowards.

“I was,” she starts swiftly, afraid that I would cut in, “faced with the reality that my son, the son I loved and cared so deeply for, could just disappear like that. And I felt numb all over. Like my life has lost its meaning. And––And that night you wouldn’t pick your calls up… was the last straw.”

Guilt surges up my throat. “I’m sorry,” I simply say.

“I was scared. The whole night and morning I stayed up watching the news, hoping that I would not see my son’s face on the TV. But my mind could not stop imagining horrifying scenes: of your bloody head, of your twisted limbs, of your eyes that would not open no matter how many times I screamed your name, inside a burning car. And when my calls were not connecting, the scenes got more real and wild, and I just––I couldn’t take it anymore.”

But I still could not believe it. “If you were––If you are worried, why haven’t you even visited me? I was waiting for my mother. I was waiting for her to come.”

And my mother turns sadder. “You made it clear that you didn’t want me there.”

And I could not refute her words. “Sorry,” I say again.

“No, it is my fault. I should be sorry.” she counters. “I was not a good parent to you. I was not a mother. And I know my actions have hurt you. I’ve used you multiple times to gloat. And I thought that it wouldn’t have any effect on you, but I didn’t stop to think that the repercussions were so severe. I didn’t realise that it made you so withdrawn, that it made you become an object of hatred. And I’m sorry.”

I am at a loss for words.

“So.” She clears her throat. “I––I’ve read from a book that the first step––the first thing we do is for you to tell me about your concerns right now. So,” she explains, “let’s talk.”

With what barren topics I have in mind, my mouth then goes off rapidly firing words––of the little things I struggle with, like my laundry and that mobile phone game I downloaded a few days back, and of the little annoyances I have, like the colleague who sits beside me talking on his phone a tad too loud and my balding boss, with his air of arrogance and a belly too big, and an awful lilt in his voice, berating me for whatever thing he could berate me for. And I do not know why, but I cannot stop; my mother’s words had widened the crack on the dam of my feelings, and from that crack overflowed my fears, resentment, dissatisfaction, and all the words I have been wanting to spew out to someone.

At some point, I cry. But I keep on talking. And soon, I tell her about Thea, about how she stormed out on me, and how it hurt so badly, how it hurt so, so much that I could not leave my bed for days. Then about Felix, about how I missed the only friend I had, about how I felt betrayed, lost, and unwanted when he left without speaking a word about it to me. And there is this lingering fear that my mother would morph my feelings into a lecture––like she used to in the past, which would bring me a certain disappointment and extraordinary sorrow that racked through my body––but she does not, and I am so incredibly happy. My mother sits there with her palms clasped together into a tight ball, nodding along, and almost weeping herself. And she is listening. She is listening to me.

“Mother,” I say after my verbal onslaught. “Mother.” I do not know why I am calling for her. Perhaps, I need the confirmation that my mother is indeed in this room, right at this moment, with me on the sofa, calming my crying self down. If in the end all this is just a dream, I would wake in the midst of the hysteria brewing inside me, and I would surely lose myself.

“It’s all going to be alright,” my mother whispered. It sounds shallow, but I have been waiting for her to say that to me. “There’s nothing to cry about, everything is going to be fine,” she coos, as if I regressed back to a five-year-old boy.

“I missed you,” I say. “I missed you.” And that seems to be the only thing that I wanted to convey.

“I missed you too,” she replies. “It’s all my fault.”

“I’ve never hated you, mother.”

She seems surprised, but she keeps on holding me. Her arms wrap around my hunched back, and her fingers lick my tears away from my cheeks. And it all feels liberating, like I was a butterfly breaking out of my cocoon and finally seeing the beauty of the world I lived in. The ideal and impossible world I envisioned, where my mother and I had a happy ending together, a world so far out of reach, is here.

“I love you, Ethan,” my mother says, haltingly. “I don’t show it enough, but I do. My baby. My poor baby. I’m learning how to love you. I’m learning.”

The tide ahead of us will be turbulent, yet I, inasmuch as sometimes the words I want to say to my mother get lost in the fogs of my trepidation, will try, with my very best, to row my way forward bravely. And in this seafaring journey of mine I have gone through alone for the past years, I now have my mother. She will be clumsy, she will be a stranger, and she will be foreign, but I do not mind, because at last, I have a companion––a someone who will unconditionally listen to my woes, and a someone whose silhouette I will always chase. I need her. I really need her.

“Mother,” I call for the last time.

“Yes?” she returns, not without so painfully watching her pitiful son.

“You won’t leave me, right?”

There is no response from her.

“You––right––you won’t, right?” I beg profusely. “Even if you did, you’ll come back, right? Not like Felix, not like Thea––” And the more I speak, the more desperate I become, “you won’t leave me, right?”

My mother only looks at me with her beady eyes, and the lights reflect the glister on them.

“Mother?” I plead, once again.

But my mother starts crying––with ugly, fat blobs of tears streaming down the bulge of her cheeks like boulders down a steep hill, and an immense agony that I never knew she had in her––and I am perplexed and confused, and an inkling of fear expands with full force from within me. My mother then voices, out of breath and with each word seemingly adding to her agony; a simple phrase, with two overly familiar words––”I’m sorry.” And one after another, the words echo: “Ethan, I’m so sorry.”

“But––But why!” I yell.

“There is nothing else to say,” she laments, as if it explains everything.

The edges of my world suddenly blurs. “Mother! Don’t leave me!”

“Ethan––”

“No, I––no! Mother––”

And when I open my eyes after, the morning was freshly summer with a weather that makes the day crave a sweet lemonade. The flowers are blossoming like proliferating weeds, and the grass was astoundingly lush with a healthy green. It is a normal summer day. A picture-perfect, almost too perfect, of a day.

My steps fly across towards my mother’s room, but the room is empty. Then I run down the stairs, but the room is empty. And all the toilets, all the verandas are empty.

I walk up to the grandfather clock I talked to. “Hey, where’s my mother?” I hurriedly ask.

The clock does not utter a single word, or even move for an affirmation that he hears me.

“Hey, answer me.” My tone becomes ugly.

“Hey! Answer me!” But there is still no response.

“Don’t joke around! I know you know where she is! Talk to me!” And no response.

“Please, I’m begging you, say something!” No response.

“I––If you don’t talk, I’ll ask my mother to throw you out!”

“I’m not joking! Answer me now!”

“Please––Please, just, give me a clue or––anything! You must know where she is!”

“I just want my mother, give me my mother!”

Then I visit my friend, the doormat.

“Hey, friend, please, can you tell me where my mother is?”

Yet similarly, the doormat has become mute, or rather, lost its ability to speak.

“I’m not asking for much,” I say. “You just need to tell me where my mother has gone.” Then, after careful consideration: “Please.”

“Hey, why are you no longer talking to me?”

“Did you leave me too?”

“Please, why aren’t you saying anything?”

“Why, why, why! Answer me!”

“Where is my mother?”

“I just want my mother.”

Written by: Warren Tanaka (21S70)

Edited by: Caroline Ong (21A10), Tran Vu Phuong Uyen (21A15)