Flightless Wings

As I exhaled, a plume of smoke rising from my mouth, I put out the dying embers to rest on a glass ashtray. Thank God I had the windows open. I can’t get used to this and yet it is one of the things that take me back. Of the many little things that lingered in my mind. I couldn’t remember much about her but I did remember the times when she would read to me, aside from the scent of nicotine embedded deep in our furniture. The reading sessions weren’t as often as I would like since she was usually busy with work. Being the head researcher required more of her time than a child would need. Evidently, in my case. I do not hold grudges against her for that, though I would be lying if I say it didn’t make me feel upset. Because she chose her job over her kid.

If there was anything that I’m  holding a grudge against was her job. The other child she had that was taking up her time when she could have spent it with me.

I held the book in my hand, hesitant to put it in the box to pack it with the rest. Well, to call it “a” book would be generous. It was half a book, torn apart as a result of our first and final mother-daughter bickering. It was a rare occasion for us to express our feelings so openly. But for what happened after that made me wish I had simply hid them.

I gave the other half to her before she left back then. Well, more like snuck one half of the book into her suitcase. I told myself that when she gets back from this business trip, we’ll fix the book together. I don’t know if she would agree, but I saw her packed her things and left with the suitcase containing the other half of the book and flew to the other side of the globe.

It has been years since she flew halfway around the world from me. With no way of tracking her down, I was left alone in a house haunted by her shadow.

Now it was my turn to leave. I wasn’t sure if I would be following her footsteps or if this is going to be a wild goose chase. I had her notes and I’ve studied her papers. It was easy to make sense of something I’m already familiar with. I never thought it was strange back then when she would read research papers to me before bed or that she would distract me with academic journals when she was too busy. In fact, the torn book was the only piece of fiction she had in her study. I didn’t think that she would read something like this, let alone treasure it so much that we got into a fight when she discovered that I “borrowed” it from her private library.

What could have been so important to her about it? I never got the chance to ask her in person and I have scoured the remnants of the book for answers. At face value, there was nothing in particular that pointed to its significance. Just that it was a storybook about a winged girl and an injured dragon who lost its ability to fly. Fiction. Fantasy. Ungrounded in reality unlike how she was perceived as, which was exactly why I believe there was something more.

They were like signals that called upon me from within the pages. As if the words inscribed on them were able to produce a voice, beckoning me to revisit my past and perhaps to reopen old wounds. Just when I thought they’ve healed. I flipped it open. The flutter of each page cut deep into the old scars and I bled. Yet I persisted. The pain was an unusual comfort for me after all these years.

The story had stopped abruptly. The pages that followed, right before the untimely end halfway from where it was intended, were typed words in gibberish. These were not here when the book was published, to be sure. They were recently installed and whoever did so managed to insert them carefully enough that at a single glance, they blended in amongst the other pages. The language it spoke was in code. One that I’ve started to decipher about a year ago. Not that it would contribute to anything. It was just an elaboration on the tale. A commentary about dragons and other fantastical creatures.

Someone who didn’t know my mother would think that she was merely analysing the literature and recording her findings there. And as for the coded language, it wasn’t rare for researchers at the institute where she worked at to write in code. This could be a practice run for her.

They didn’t know any better. Because if they did, they’d find her by now.

Unravelling the words wasn’t enough to give me the answers I need. Au contraire, the coded message was only part of the clue. Now I have a bigger mystery in my hands and it doesn’t rely on deciphering codes, but understanding her, which I have yet to comprehend. Nevertheless, her coded message reignited something I had kept for years. Now that I’ve managed to acquire information about what she was up to, I know where to start.

I went over to the kitchen, the half-book in hand. I wasn’t sure if this was necessary before. Heck, I’m still not sure about it now. I turned on the stove and let the edge of the pages catch fire. I held it for a bit, watching the edges curl and shrink down towards the spine.

This may be a mistake, even though I have read the story and the coded message hundreds of times that I could cite any line of the book from memory. It was a rather improper thing to do for a scientist, to rely solely on the memory of a human being. But if what she explained in those new pages were true, any form of evidence would be a liability.

Besides, I’m no scientist. So I wasn’t breaking any rules here.

Still, I don’t know what she meant by these “flightless wings” exactly. I haven’t deciphered that part yet. Well, she could be referring to an actual dragon for all I care. Regardless, I’m going to find it. And perhaps that way, I could finally find her.