Can You Hear Me?
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Oceana Slack, Grade 8
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Short Story
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2017
Mum, can you hear me?
I'm missing you so bad. I can't get you out of my mind. I cry at school, in bed and at my new 'home', although it will never really be home to me. It didn't matter so much when dad died, because I was only three and I don't remember him much. But I remember you, I remember you all too well. I remember too much, and remembering hurts. Every day my mind wanders back to the crash. The screeching tires, the tearing metal and the shattering glass is all etched into my mind. And I can't make it go away. I know, I should get over it and accept that you're gone. But I can't. It's too hard. And my friends at school are acting weirdly. They're acting too nice, too polite. Even Lila is, and you know that we're besties from way back. I know they feel sorry for me, but that's no reason for them to be acting strangely. Mum, everything has changed. And I hate it. I want to live back in our old, cosy house. I want my friends to act normal. And most of all, I want you to come back. Sometimes I cry a river of tears because I want you back so much, but I don’t tell anyone. I'm so lonely in my new house. It's not that Aunty Clara isn't nice, it's just that she doesn't understand. She wants me to eat all my breakfast when I don't want to eat a single bite. She just thinks I'm homesick. But it's more than that. I feel horrible and nauseated, and sometimes I have to go to the bathroom and retch. When I wake up in the morning, for a moment I think it's just a bad dream. And then a face appears in the doorway. For a split second I think it's you, that this didn't happen, but it's only Aunty Clara. Mum, I miss you. I miss the way we used to have a girls night out every week and we'd go and get our hair done, our nails painted, buy take-away and gossip and giggle like 5 year olds. Aunty Clara, well, she's just not that type. I wish you were here. You were so lively and energetic, the best mum a girl like me could ever have. I always wear the locket you gave me for my thirteenth birthday, mum. I never go anywhere without it. And when I feel lonely, I open it up and look at the picture of you inside it. It makes me feel better. But there is still a huge gaping black hole inside me that no one else could fill except you. But you're never coming back again. So that's why I want to talk to you.
Mum, can you hear me?