You

• Zac Benn, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2010

You wake up.
You swing your feet out from under the covers and stand on the hard floor. Looking out the window you see dark clouds huddling together like a group of big, grey animals. You laugh at them, breaking apart the mask of sleep on your face.
The shower pours over you, and then cuts off. You wrap yourself in a towel, hugging it around your body so tight it hurts. You don’t want to let yourself go, but you don’t know why.
Hair still dripping, you pull it tight across your scalp, holding it in down with a rubber band, and strangling it with a pretty white ribbon.
You see mother in the corner of the mirror. Her reflection is motionless.
You walk out of the room and continue down the hallway, your steps loud on the creaking floorboards. You jump up and down, making your steps louder. You laugh. It echoes back. Scared you run along the rest of the corridor with hands covering your eyes.
You flee downstairs to the kitchen; the lights are off and have been for weeks. You grab your schoolbag, and lunchbox off the kitchen counter. Both empty. A mound of letters makes it impossible to get through the front door so you climb through the window and leave to school, skipping.
You’re home.
You climb back up through your kitchen window as a thunderclap shakes the house. Your pretty white ribbon is loose and it flaps around your wet hair, like a bird struggling to get free. Opening the kitchen cupboard, you pull out the last of the bread, and make a sandwich, scraping the bottom of the peanut butter jar. You start to hum, filling the dark, empty space of your home with your own tuneless song, entertaining the shadows.
You cut the sandwich into four equal parts, no crusts. Placing it on a clean white plate you carry it with you up the stairs. You skip through the corridor, your pretty white ribbon darting behind you. Occasionally your figure is painted on the walls by bursts of lightning.
You sit on the edge of your mother’s big armchair, eating your sandwich and swinging your legs while the peanut butter sticks to the roof of your mouth. The chair smells like mother. What mother used to smell like.
Mother has not moved from her position this morning.
You enter the room. She does not move. You slip under her pretty white sheets and lay your head on her cold chest. You tell her about your day, how you played hide and seek in the playground, how you splashed in the puddles on the way home, the picture you drew, the scary echoes in the corridor. You squeeze her tighter when you say this.
Mother says nothing. She hasn’t for weeks.
You pull the blanket up to your chin making yourself comfortable and warm. Making mother warm too. You kiss her on the cheek, tell her you love her.
You sleep.