Mother Will Die Tomorrow

Mother will die tomorrow.

This is guaranteed.

“Mother,” I say, “You will die tomorrow.”

She smiles sweetly. “Honey,” she says, “I am already dead.”

“No. The real kind of dead,” I say. “The kind where your heart stops beating and your lungs stop breathing and your eyes are clear and glassy because you see nothing but the innards of the soul.”

“Honey,” she says. “I have no soul with which my eyes may see. I have no heart with which to beat, no lungs with which to breathe. Honey,” she says, “I am already dead.”

“Mother, your life shall cease to know. Your skin, like wood, will splinter its colours and kiss not the wind which blows upon it, but curse the every breath that tears the music hue from its splitting faces. Your eyes, like stones, will skip no longer across the surface of our lake, they will dance no longer, they will know no harsher, reality than that which beckons them to a depth where not even night, in his star-struck champagne robes, dare sleep. Mother,” I say, “your life shall cease to know.”

She looks at me wholly, star-struck skin and splintering coloured eyes; she says, “Honey, Night kisses my skin; his stars skip across my lip and sing my song. The air shatters the hues of my eyes, they fracture and fragment like stained glass mosaics; they split the white light of Day into the fluttering wings of a kaleidoscope. I am already dead.”

I stand up, mechanically, walk outside and knock on the neighbouring door. A girl opens it, clear-eyed and shiny-shoed.

“My mother will die tomorrow.”

“I know,” she says. “You will kill her. And yet you will not succeed, for she is already dead.”

“No,” I cry, “the real kind of dead.”

The girl shakes her head, steps out to the porch. “My love there is no truer death than the dead that she is now.”

“She will die,” I say, “my mother will die.”

“Will she?” She cries, the girl. “Will she? Will the Grim Reaper with his hooked nail take her by the chains of her throat and drag her through his iron gates, his iron gates which split the earth in blood and blue? Will he do such a thing, when he cannot even know if there lies a soul behind her splintering coloured eyes, or a breath of life beneath her star-struck skin?”

“Yes, he will do it, he will do it! He will not spare a breath, he will not even spare the possibility.”

The girl closes the door behind her, takes me by the shoulders. “Go to your mother, ask her this, this question only. Lay before her all the absurdities and atrocities which likens itself to humanity. Tell her of the greatest vices, the greatest cruelties, the most base and depraved of mankind’s bottom rung. Ask her then, to be one of these great sinners, then, if life is still worth it, still worth it even then!” Her voice is delirious, fervent; she grips me tightly.

I pull myself from her; her eyes are still clear but her shoes seem now less lustrous. I say nothing, nothing for a moment. “No,” I say, breathlessly.

“Coward,” she spits. “You cover for a coward of mankind, and on that account you are one even greater.”

The girl steps back, draws a hand back against the doorknob behind her. In a moment she’s gone and the door is slammed shut.

I take another knock; the door pulls open so fast I can feel the rush of air. It is not her, not her any longer; it is another. A young man.

“[Redacted],” I say, “Where is [Redacted]?”

“There is no such one with that name.”

I walk past him.

“[Redacted],” I say, “Where is [Redacted]?”

“Why, child, do you need her?”

“My mother will die tomorrow.”

“Child-”

“Say nothing of it.”

“I need not. You know it yourself…”

I whip around. “She is not. My mother is not, she is not!” The young man takes a step forward, piteously. I back away. My eyes are wild, with fear, with something. “She is not dead and I have not killed her.”

“No,” he says, softly. “You have not killed her.”

I feel no beckoning of my tongue.

The young man takes another step, kneels down to look me in the eye. I think he will say something but he doesn’t.

“Yet she is my mother. Whose hands but mine may be stained with her blood, whose tears but mine can fall from her splintering coloured eyes and stain her star-struck skin?”

He places a hand on my shoulder, strokes my cheek. I think he will say something but he doesn’t.

“My mother will die tomorrow because I have killed her. I have killed her. How may I repent? What penitence is there for one who has killed his own mother, his own mother who cradled him in her arms and fed him at her breast? Could Night and Day have mercy for one who has turned on his very maker, all while she loved him, as one could never love another whom one has not brought into this world?”

He looks away, embarrassed, or ashamed, I can’t tell. “No,” he says.

I shake my head. “No,” I echo.

For some time we are silent. I stare at the young man, his face of flower petals and bronze. I think of the girl, clear-eyed and shiny-shoed. Perhaps they are siblings, I think.

I look at the sun, blinking back at me.

I think how shameful I must feel to stand in its bask. I do not, and for this I feel ashamed.

“You are guilty before no one, least of all your Mother,” he says. “It is she who should bow to you.”

“Might I ask a question?”

He’s surprised, nods.

“I lay before you all the absurdities and atrocities which likens itself to humanity. I tell you of the greatest vices, the greatest cruelties, the most base and depraved of mankind’s bottom rung. And I ask you then, to be one of these great sinners, then, is life still worth it, still worth it even then? To be one of mankind’s great sinners, is life still worth it even then?”

“You mean to speak of your mother or of yourself?”

I think what a stupid question I have asked. He could not tell me the answer.