Mommy

You recognize this place. This is where you go to buy your vegetables and bread. Why are you here?

You quiver, and so does the shop. It’s the icy chaos outside, knocking on its roof, grabbing at its walls. The blizzard, right. Whether you came here for shelter or for groceries is something you cannot answer, but it does not matter. You’re here now.

The steel aisles are empty, and the registers are unmanned. Kenopsia – you read that online somewhere. It’s the feeling of being in a place that is usually full of life and energy, but has been abandoned. A place once happily bustling, now left to rot in its emptiness.

You don’t like kenopsia. It’s starting to feel eerie. Let’s get the food and get out.

You reach for an eggplant. Something giggles.

It’s…a baby. Her head peaks out from behind a corner, and she’s laughing. Or crying?

You approach it, but hesitate just before picking her up. Something washes over you, some strange feeling, as if you want to protect her and leave her alone at the same time.

You ignore the feeling. It’s a crying baby, for God’s sake. You’ll soothe it, because you’re a nice person. The little thing gurgles as you sling it over your shoulder. You pat its back and hum a nice song.

Vegetables, check. Crisps, check. An ungodly amount of chocolate, check.

The baby twitches in your arms. You give it a pat, but it twitches again.

When you bring it around, its eyes are all white, and it’s screaming.

Not a normal baby scream, but a prolonged, high and low, split-voiced shriek, that sounds like it is being played from a malfunctioning radio.

You drop it in shock, but it grabs your shirt. Dangling. Eyes still fixed on you.

In a panic, you fling it off and run to the next aisle, then the next. Shelves fly past. Part of you knows that you’ve been running in circles for some time, but the other part cannot get the white-eyed baby out of its mind.

When your heart feels like it’s about to collapse in on itself, you stop. Hands on your knees, inhale, exhale. When you see it, you are overjoyed that you paused for a break.

There’s something in the next aisle - a shadow on the floor.

You retreat, slowly, quietly.

You’ve only glimpsed it for a second, but you know that the shadow does not belong to a human. It is too big, too thin, too evil-looking.

Your adrenaline is a waterfall inside your body, but your feet are glued to the ground.

Something clicks in your head. Oh, you should never have picked up the baby.

It’s like the classic old man’s advice to the adventurers. Stealing dragon eggs is easy – what you really have to watch out for, is the mother.

You gasp.

Bright lights, a pure ceiling.

Murky faces in pale masks.

“She’s awake!” Shouts one of them.

A face dips in close.

“You’re alright, you’re alright. You hit your head because you were wriggling around so much, but we managed to get her out.”

They prop you up, cushion you with soft things, and pour water down your throat.

When you’ve stopped sweating, and your heart has stopped jumping, they dump a swaddled fleshy mass into your arms.

You stare into its face.

“What are you thinking of naming her?” asks a doctor.

“Where’s John?” You can’t see him in the room. Everything still seems a little blurry, confusing.

“Uh, who?”

“John,” You echo, “My husband,”

They send each other faltering looks, some baffled, some pitying.

“You- You came here alone.” says a doctor, concerned, “No one rode the ambulance with you,”

John.

Oh, right.

John is dead.

You want to cry again. How have you not gotten over it? It’s been a year since the funeral.

A year of nothingness. A year of alcohol and deep futility.

You despised that year.

You look down at your baby. “The baby,” corrects your subconscious.

And that’s when it comes back.

It’s all in painful flashes, at first. Fragments.

There is alcohol, a face, a bar.

The same face again, leering. Getting too close.

Warning touches, sliding hands, agony.

Then, a dark alleyway, a bruising grip on your wrists, and the feeling that you want to die.

This is not your baby.

You sob into its face. It doesn’t seem to like that very much, but you do it anyways.

“You’re so beautiful,” You say.

You are lying.

The next few days fly by with scattered paperwork and cooing nurses. You feel like you’re in limbo, suspended in purgatory.

Soon, you’re ready to leave.

“I’d be extra careful driving home if I were you,” drawls a nurse, as you pack up your things, “Roads have been really icy this week,”

“Oh?” You say.

“Yeah. They’ve even forecasted a blizzard tonight.”

“I see.”

The entire way back home, you feel like you’re on autopilot. You sit on the couch and stare at a wall until you hear the snow beginning to swirl. It is a much pleasanter sound than the baby’s cries.

No one will see you in the blizzard. It’s perfect.

By the time you reach the supermarket doors, the baby is tomato-red from the cold. It’s still making its infernal noise.

“Shut up!” You shake it.

You clamber into the musty, lukewarm shop, and welcome the feeling of emptiness.

An empty place for an empty child.

As you stare into its eyes, you get the feeling of kenopsia again. You know this baby is dead inside.

You don’t bother looking around for witnesses – you know there’s no one here.

As you place the baby on the ground, next to the eggplants, you see your shadow on the floor.

A familiar shape.

It is too big, too thin, too evil-looking.

You realize you had been wrong, in your dream.

You’re not the kind of mother that’s overprotective of their young.

You’re the kind that eats them.