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| The following story is an entry in Network Twenty's March 2008 Fiction Contest. Author's name will be posted after a winner has been chosen. The Magic of Life I stood over the stove. Eggs frying, bacon hissing and growing into a brown shade. My birthday is approaching. I will be a ripe twenty eight. My boyfriend is a year older. I am trying to make breakfast but am thinking too much. It is my day off, yet I am thinking of work. Well, more like thinking about the people I see wandering the small, upmarket mall where I work. Every month, at least twice, I see someone who was in school with me. Not alone. With a Husband. Or a Baby. Or a Husband AND a Baby. Or a ring on the finger. I have no ring on my finger. I do not have a baby. I am not married. I am scared. I am not scared because I do not have a husband, a baby or a ring (should this be in any order?). I am scared because I am not entirely sure when exactly it is that I should begin wanting these necessities. Many women my age, have babies three or four years old already and their swollen stomach hint at another little person heading for the front door into the world. Nappy commercials make me particularly nervous. The very small people that fill the screen appear subtlely manipulative and controlling. My female friends find this rather derogatory of me. I am not sure I care. I have a right to possess an unrivalled mentality. One of my closest friends (who is thoroughly hooked on inspirational books) asked me about my relationship with my mother. She sees a link between my relationship with my mother and Nappy Nervousness. My mother, was not blessed with common sense or basic good judgment. Every Friday afternoon (Friday was an especially momentous day), my mother would light six candles. Two yellow, two Indigo and two dark pink. This was done without fail, at two thirty. Next, she would leave red chillies on every single windowsill in the house. The Spiritual World apparently loves the color red. If anyone needed my mother on a Friday night, she could be found on the roof, (on the chimney to be exact - she said that the chimney provides spiritually healing smoke.) She would take our family dog with her for company and as she believed, to enhance her connection with the Divine. When I was still staying with my mother, I was usually looking over my shoulder. She made the presence of gods and goddesses a little bit too real. It was not unusual for me to discover a bath full of water with no occupants in it. My mother would then ask me not to disturb the goddesses, as it was their time for tranquility. I usually waited. Unless I was in a hurry - then I joined them either in the shower or bath. We went through a lot of coffee. Dishes were constantly piling up. Mother explained that the gods and goddesses had many vital duties and they needed to be vigilant. We ended up in a screaming match. I demanded to know why the gods and goddesses could not change to decaffeinated coffee, chicory or herbal tea. She replied with complete calmness, that this would cause them to fall asleep and they would be fired from their Divine positions. She went on to say that if this was to happen, it would be universal chaos. All this over coffee. I just stared at her. Winter was particularly challenging. She would lay out all of our warmest blankets onto the roof - for the gods and goddesses of course. If it were not for the erupting fires that we normally had going from our fireplace, I would have either thrown my mother off the roof or died from an extreme shock of cold. My mother dismissed me and my protests as negative energy. My best friends tried to convince me to see a therapist about my mother's eccentricity. I lost interest when the therapist insisted that I cleanse my aura. What I really believed was the last straw was when my mother came to me when I was in my room. I had just turned twenty one and I was busy moving out. As I leant over, packing my old toys in a box, she spun me around and stuck a veil on my head. She declared that I needed to get married. It was time. I felt it necessary to remind her that I would require a man in order to be a victorious bride. She felt it completely insignificant. One morning I awoke to my mother cooing me as if I were an infant. I was extremely disturbed and jumped out of bed. She presented me with a wedding cup cake. I presented her with my disgust. She told me that she went upstairs to our attic, sat in her grandmother's old rocking chair, and fell asleep just as the sun was spilling onto her face. When she woke up, there was a piece of white lace resting on her nose. I reminded her that we have a countless amount of boxes filled with material all over the attic. She said the lace represented my wedding dress. I chose to ignore her. And I had great joy in throwing the lace away. The next thing I know, I am being dragged by my hand to a park. We sat underneath a very generous sized tree that blocked out the sunlight. "Close your eyes." She said. "No." "Just please, do it." So I did. I felt something silky being brushed against my face then something jagged slicing a piece of my arm. I opened my eyes. A little pool of blood formed. "What did you do that for!" I yelled. "May your married life be smooth and your childbirth's be as painless as possible." She produced the offending object that had cut into my arm. A piece of bark lay in her lap with a tiny blood smear on it. What had felt like tissue on my face were pink rose petals freshly plucked from their floral bodies. "Childbirth's? Plural?" I was losing my temper. It was time for me to leave. "It's time for me to leave." I loved my mother. I just was not sure that I liked her. My apartment was spectacularly different from my mother's house. It was devoid of any incense, Tarot cards, crystal balls or crystals. Candles were kept to a minimum. I also made sure there was enough coffee in my new home - enough caffeine to kick-start a jet. After my first month in my apartment, I received a parcel. I opened it. Inside the parcel was a box, wrapped in navy blue velvet, and inside the box was a pile of photos - of men. Each photo had a little note on the back written in purple ink. It was my mother's handwriting. Each one had the relevant man's name, last name and age on the back and where they lived. To my astonishment, my bizarre mother had given a lengthy comment about each one. It was clear who her favorites were. She drew a red smiley face and a big tick on the back of the photos she especially approved of. One cloudless day in May I was surprised by a hit on the back of my neck by a flying object from outside my balcony window. It was a black candle. I felt my jaw drop. I ambled with deliberate dawdling, over to the window as if moving slowly would lessen the chance of seeing my mother's eyes peering up at me. I peeked out the window. There was my mother. She had seen me. I could not hide. And she was sitting on a horse. I noticed that the horse had a cabbage leaf stuck to its ear. "Let me in please?" She called up to me. "I'm on the third floor. Number eight." "Yes I know!" I was dumbfounded that she had somehow located me. I had not given her my address. No one knew where I was. While I waited for her, I unpacked some more boxes. The door opened and in barged my mother. She looked different. Her usual curly hair was now straight. There was not a single ripple in her hair. Her usual naked lips were painted with a flattering berry color and her skin looked slightly tanned. I was surprised to see her in a short skirt. It showed off two fantastic legs. She must have grown tired of her long skirts. She wore a chalk-colored shirt. It was rare that she wore light colors. She seemed distraught. "What's wrong?" I asked. She shook her head and smiled. "They've stopped listening-" "How did you find my address?" She smiled and produced three candles from her enormous straw bag. She touched the base of each one and simultaneously they lit. There were no lighters, matches or fire to be seen. I gasped - rather loudly. The Divine suddenly seemed very real. "I have failed to intercede. The divine have closed their ears." I stared at her with puzzled expectation. This prompted her to explain. She started crying and cursing under her breath. "They have not anointed me with any vision or suggestion as to where your future husband is! I have been asking for over a month! Every night I have nightmares that you'll die alone." I felt my eyes widen. I was not really sure what to say. I went and put the kettle on. "Why have you forsaken me?" She screamed at the ceiling, throwing her hands up and making fists. "Maybe we're not meant to know right now." I proposed. My mother looked at me and managed a smile. She nodded and excused herself to go to the bathroom. I noticed a very soft looking piece of gold paper with beautiful, ebony writing. It stuck out of the side of her bag. Its sheen had caught my eye. I heard my mother sobbing and cursing in Greek. My father is Greek and taught her all the juicy words and phrases. It was now clearly coming in handy. I decided to inspect the piece of paper. Then another thing caught my attention. VIRGIN. I continued reading. And then I realised. My mother had not received any vision or clue as to where my supposed future husband was because in the spell I had to be a virgin. I felt myself beginning to loathe the spell. It was such blatant discrimination. Wasn't magic supposed to be open-minded? After weeping for half and hour, my mother emerged from the bathroom. I told her of my finding. She looked as if she had ran backwards into an oncoming train. I told her with gentleness that she had overlooked that crucial requirement. I decided to change the subject. "So where did you get the horse mom?" Still dazed, she took a few moments to respond. "Oh, there was a friendly, young, black man selling vegetables from his cart. I just asked him if I could borrow his horse." "Where's your car?" "I sold it." What? "What! Why?" "To pay for your wedding. But the spell didn't work." She said as if she was now the latest victim of a pyramid scheme. I felt a rising joy. With this humiliation, she would stop trying to control my life. Now at least I would get a say. "Oh, well the young friendly, black man seems nice. And he has a horse! Maybe he's the one for me." I joked. My mother had her head down and seemed to be studying something in her lap. She looked up. "Yes, I was thinking about that." She said with total seriousness. There was a stunned silence for a whole sixty seconds. "I was kidding mom." I said slowly. She looked disappointed. "Oh? Pity." | |