Sometimes, I Wish

Babysitting Jacob is pretty exhausting, trust me. All he does is sit around in different places of the house, his fingers mindlessly double tapping away at random memes that don’t even make sense anymore.

I had thought I deserved better than this. That I had left behind my old days and moved on, but still often find myself playing situations, enacting scenes in my head over and over again.

I thought I was cut out to become a journalist, or better, an actual writer. I can’t believe I’m wasting away- The doorbell sounds, snapping me out of my thoughts. Finally.

I open it to reveal Jacobs son, his hoodie drawn over his head, as if wanting to hide something. “What happened to your-” I start but he cuts me off, probably knowing what I was going to ask.

“How did dad do today?” he simply asks, brushing past me.

“Uh, he did fine,” is all I say. He stops, looking at me. “That’s it?”

“What?” I ask, now confused. “You’re not making any sense anymore, you know?”

That was all it took, to fuel my rage.

“That is not the way you talk to your mother!” I yell at him, losing all self control. “You think you can just talk to me like that?! What do you think about-” but I stop, instantly regretting it as his face turns to stone, skillfully wiping it off of any emotions, just like his father.

All I do is sigh and bury my head in my hands as he makes way to his room, no more words being said.

Sometimes I wonder why I am angered so easily, why my son keeps hiding things from me. Why I fail at being a good mother, why my husband fails to even acknowledge my presence.

I look over at him. He is now napping away on the couch, completely unaware of what was going on around him.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

When I had asked for a wish on new years eve, to help me understand my son, or make him somehow understand me, whichever would come true.

But little did I know that it was a foolish prank, that I would have to give my husband’s memory up for a wish that didn’t even come true.

From that very day Jacob doesn’t remember me, our son, anything. He just sits around in different places of the house either eating, napping, or sometimes staring out the window with a face devoid of any emotion; the only thing that connected the past and the present him, the only part of him I could still recognize. At first, we denied this state he was in; we showed him clippings and pictures from the past, told him stories of his friends, colleagues and office, but it was a futile attempt.

He would sit there in a trance, attentively listening to what we said, and would later forget it in seconds.

Now we’ve given up, surrendered to the fact that I, have lost my husband and Aryan, his father. Ever since, Aryans been acting like it was all my fault, that I had done it on purpose, that I had made a wish that would intentionally take Jacob away from us.

I’m jolted back into reality when a searing pain rips through my arm, black spots dancing in front of my eyes.

Carefully fingering the tattoo inked onto my hand, I regret times over for that resolution; that wish, hoping I could somehow travel back in time.

Two arrows that met right in the middle, creepers crawling up them, with an eye right in the middle. I’m aware of myself pinching the tattoo only a few minutes later, when the area is bruised red, but the tattoo still intact.

***

The burning sizzles down now, the bruised area already starting the drudging process of healing itself. I sometimes wonder with awe at how our body fixes our wounds, our scars slowly, parts of it disappearing day by day.

Why can’t it be the same for our mind? Why does it keep reminding us of incidents times over, until we are hurting beyond repair? Why does it take months and years to recover from just a small incident that took a matter of seconds to happen?

Why can’t we shut off the reason for our suffering, wanting this torture to end?

And that is when I resolve for the hundredth time, to get rid of my suffering, once and for all. I shut my eyes and personify the reason for my suffering into a human. I give it a form, twisting and distorting until it had a body of its own. I then wish for it to go away, to disappear or at least, suffer. Wait, where was I even going with this? I chuckle, despite myself.

And then I stop.

The form that appeared in my mind was that of my son.

***

Did that mean that I wanted my son to suffer too, in some twisted way?

The tattoo burns even more, leaving me dizzy. I stop myself there, unable to think any further.

Throwing the door open, I decide to go out for a walk. The cool wind blows through my hair, soothing me in a way. All this was messing me up. I can’t properly eat, think or sleep any more, my son being the only thing on my ind.

Subconsciously, I create scenarios in my head where my husband was making the resolution, or my son, or literally anyone else except for me. And so like this, seconds, minutes pass away until its half an hour.

Hoping Jacob was okay, I quickly turn around and make my way back home.

As I turn, I almost bump into a man.

“Mom, where have you been”? Aryan gruffly asks, hands buried deep inside his hoodie’s pockets. I look up at him, wondering when he even grew so big and tall, wondering how I failed to notice time flying by, beating myself up for something I never even did.

“Mom, are you even listening” he says, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Yeah, I-I’m coming” I say, suddenly not wanting to be near him, near anyone, not wanting to hurt myself anymore.

He spins on his heel and walks away, the billowing wind shifting his hoodie as it falls back onto his shoulders.

We stop there mid-action, the sound of only the wind whistling in our ears. There on his neck was inked, the very burning tattoo on my hand, a proof of a resolution gone wrong.

Seems like my resolution worked out in the end.

***