Looking for advice for this short story [2000]
I look for any flying objects. The task has landed on me, for I am the tallest and oldest. My feet ache on the hard red rock that is so very bad at making the blinding light of the sun any duller. An old woman’s dull eyes were no use in a task of survival, and my caring children knew that all too well. They had sent help – help for their poor old mother. I looked back and saw my youngest daughter, Alison, scampering away from my gaze, scuttling under a rock much larger than any foe.
“My own set of eyes.” I chuckled. I saw her hazy movements under the rock; I could not make out her face or body with any clarity, but a mother knows her child. No one needs eyes to see love, and I certainly didn’t. I might as well call out to the universe to pluck them; that was of how little significance they were to me when my children were close.
I turned back around and walked up and down the slanted rock, walking jovially for the luck I had. My feet scrapped up bits of red dirt and rock. The terrain was like a magic balm to the feet, making them tougher and bumpier. If I was to keep up with my children, I needed to be just as wonderful as them. Wayne had large bumps across his feet and hands and so good at foraging that made him.
“How lucky am I.” I muttered as I pushed back a tear that filled my useless eye.
“Mom, Mom, Mom!” Screamed Wayne, gesturing his hand for me to come over. The huge sack of food across his back a clear testament to his skill.
Before I had time to smile back in his location, a voice sounded from behind me that took me by surprise.
“Mom, come, we must get back to the pod.”
“Oh, Alison. How fast you have gotten.” I said, putting my hand across my heart. She had reached me in a matter of seconds. Back in my day, I was known for my speed, but even I could not have run so fast.
“Sorry, mom. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Oh, Alison, don’t say such things. I could never be scared of you, just in awe at how grown you have gotten.”
She blushed as I said so. I bent down and pitched her cheek as I climbed down from the rock.
“Mom, I’m not a little girl anymore.” She said, pushing away her cheek.
“I know. But a mother will always have her children as the smallest of things in her heart; otherwise, there would not be any room for all of you.” I laughed. “You will find out soon enough when you make your journey to the Mount of Mars.” I continued, and she blushed even harder, until her face was as red as the rocks on the ground.
“In that case, perhaps I am still a little girl then.” She said, breaking out in laughs that took the red right out of her face.
A slight joy came to mine, and I could not hide a smile when she said those words.
We reached the pod just in time for the sun to rest. Wayne had lit a fire, and I could just make out a large slap of meat that was cooking on a carved piece of red rock.
In truth, it was not much of a pod anymore; most had either died or left, and now it was just the three of us. Three we were, but how marvellously we had survived. Most would imagine a thousand able bodies lived here, but no, just a mother and her darlings.
“Are you ok, mom?” Alison asked.
“Oh, fine... yes, fine, just take me to that rock, dear. Over there and I’ll be fine.” I replied, as my breath started to leave me. The uneven ground on Mars was too much for me. A good dinner would do me good.
“Wayne, dear, you didn’t have to make dinner.”
“It’s ok, mom.” He said as he pushed me a piece of meat and some vegetation, he presumably traded with a distant colony to get. The flavour was smoky and rich; it was wonderful, but his actions weren’t. I wanted to forbid him from cooking, for it was a mother’s job, my job. They had it so much harder than me, walking on all fours, their hands of no use to them. But it was also no use to argue; children did what they wanted. And how much I knew that to be true.
We had finished eating, and Wayne stared into the great distance. Thinking great thoughts, no doubt. He had a great mind. But great minds are often subjected to the most torment. If he starts shaking his head, then I’ll know if it is sorrow he thinks of. And just like that, his head started to shake back and forth. Before I could ask him, what was wrong, he turned his head completely to look at both me and Alison.
“Mei will be back soon. From the Mount of Mars.”
“Oh, how wonderful.” I said, smiling, for she was a joy to be around. The four of them would be reunited, and a new member was to be brought along with her – another joy. Soon we will be a pod in more than just name. I could feel the hope grow in my heart, bringing back the life to my body that was cruelly taken by time.
“She won’t be coming back here…”
“Why?”
“Let him finish, mom.” Said Alison, who sat to the left of me.
“She needs help. And I need help; we all do, mom. We need, have to go.” He said, turning his face away from me as he said so.
This had shocked and scared me. I couldn’t leave this place, a place where my children could not leave with me. Buried in the ground, all eight, abandoned by the only people who knew their names.
I rubbed my hand across the ground for comfort. Letting its tiny blades cut and clean me dry.
“Stop shaking your head, mom. We’re not going anywhere.” Said Alison, placing her hand across mine.
“Yes, we are!” Screamed Wayne, turning around and flashing his teeth as he said so. “Don’t say things that aren’t true, Alison.” He continued.
“It has to be the truth. We have to stay.” She said, scuttling over to the mounds of dug earth.
“They’re dead, and they’ll stay dead.”
“Cruel, don’t be so cruel. Just because they are gone, that doesn’t mean they’re not our family.”
“Yes, it does.” Wayne said.
I closed my eyes to prevent the tears from forming. It was as if Joe and Anna were right in front of my eyes, arguing as they did over silly little things. Hard the memory was to stomach, but to give it up entirely, death would be easier.
“You, Mei, the baby and mom are the only family I have, and I and mom are the only family you have. I would like to think you think of Mei as family too and would want the best for her.”
“Of course I do. That is why she should be here with us.”
“You’re not thinking clearly, Alison. All of us will be dead if we stay here any longer.”
“There has to…”
“We have to get to the pod before they move on. It’s the only way.”
“Mom, you didn’t think of her…”
My eyes opened to the sound of mom. So many voices had called out that name to me, and now only two could be heard in this mortal world. After the word, nothing else came to my ears. All I heard was a high pitched buzz calling out to me. I needed to follow it; I know where it would lead me, to a place of solace only to me.
Alison and Wayne were busy in argument and did not notice me slip by. Perhaps they did not hear me because my feet did not sound as there’s. The bumps that formed on my feet were never large enough to provide any real sort of grip, and maybe they could not give out sound. I turned back and saw them howling at each other. Little sound could be heard against that, maybe the loudest of their voices made them deaf to her leaving.
Alison defended their life and that warmed my heart, but how could Wayne suggest such a thing? How could he want to leave a family he was supposed to grow old with? I couldn’t understand it.
But I knew a place where I could. The cold breeze moved through my hair, blowing it across my face. They stuck to the tears falling from it, only making my eyes more red and wet. I pushed it from my face, squinting my eyes to see clearly. The stars hung low in the sky that night, and I could almost make out – nothing. Well, nothing but rocks. A leaf flew down from a cliff side and hit my nose, I looked up, craning my neck to its fullest extent, a cliff only a truly skilled forager could reach.
My hair continued its dance. It was soft and easily thrown into disarray; my children had stronger hair that never left the place it was moulded to be in. It was even harder than my nails – my strong nails that never seemed to break even when I ripped them from their home. The baby, the newborn, what hair would it have, if any? What would I know of the workings of a newer child, a better adapted little thing to our new world. Little. Little was the answer, but I could learn. The old never learn, though, or it is much harder at any rate.
The night was older too. The scent of metal reached my nose, and I held my body tight. The place was here a mound of dirt separate from the rest. Jocelyn rested here. My youngest daughter, her body would not have made the journey back to the other eight. Now here she rested alone. Alone with a part of us each.
Alison deserved a better life, and she knew it as well.
“Mom.”
It was Alison; her gentle voice gave it away. She certainly was much quicker than me.
“This is Jocelyn, your younger sister.”
“I didn’t know…”
“I know, my fault.” I said standing straight, letting the hair on my head kiss my neck. “You should go, with Mei and Wayne.”
“But you’ll have to go to the space centre.” Said Alison, a sadness in her voice that threw a chill down my neck that only made me stand all the more straighter.
“It’s about time I did.”
“No.” She said, her voice as firm as stone.
“Let me tell you about your sister Jocelyn. She died in the womb, in the fire of Mount Mars. I swam deep to the bottom of that thick lava, clawing at her small body to save her from a death that had already happened. And now she is alone. I do not want the same for you, my sweetest girl.”
“What about you?”
“Me. Well, I’ll be happy knowing my children’s happiness.”
“They don’t survive long in the space centre. You won’t be able to see them again. Or me, you won’t be able to see me and I you.”
“We’re not supposed to see everything, Alison. I said, my heart dropping at their imagined screams and wails. “I have held on long enough to life, with claws that almost shredded it from you. And for what, to see more of a life that would always be blurred with burden?” I continued, turning to face my darling daughter.
“But…”
I grabbed her tightly into an embrace, kissed her forehead, and whispered in her ear, “Life is a soft thing; its weapon is an easy one to accept. I do, Alison, and so must you, when the time comes, my sweet girl.”
As I held her body, I felt her squirm to be free. Her soul wanted it. I was right, and that was enough.