***This is an excerpt from a short fiction/poetic narrative piece that I am currently working on***
The fire alarm – blaring in the next room- warns us: THIS HOUSE IS ON FIRE. Its dire refrain competes with the bells from the local church – the ring-ring in the distance- that reminds me of time spent on unholy thoughts. My mother is licking the frame of our disintegrating house, to leave it like a chicken bone, shiny with her saliva, a shimmer that will perhaps keep the vultures and the squatters from picking through the remnants. And the clocks: erect lines and numbers charting the seconds that remain before everything we have known becomes ash. The ticking seems to tease me, as flames lick my ears and threaten to expunge photos before the good china goes, which means there might be a tea cup to scoop the ashes off the sofa with.
And when the flames crackle, like I am swimming in cellophane, the birds descend, attracted by the smoke. A blue jay picks through my mother’s hair, weaving the gray strands into a sturdy nest. My mother and the birds both seem content amidst the chaos, with a look of detachment –“it’s not my mess”- and a look of new-found purpose as in “we’re not going anywhere.” I grab an empty suitcase from the front closet, intent on carting away what memories I can save. I open it, stare at the black plastic lining inside that begins to catch the embers that rain around us. Embedded in the plastic, the embers remain lit, twinkling like stars. Like reading coffee grounds, I draw imaginary lines with my mind between sparks to form constellations. I slam the suitcase shut before the constellations extinguish themselves, choosing the infinity and ambiguity of outer space over photos, relinquishing the tangible memories that so easily entrap us, lock us in the past. I walk towards the front door, taking the suitcase with me.
Joists and beams capitulate as the orchestral milieu of bells and alarms invite the fire truck’s sirens to play along. A chorus of birds interjects, and this is the grand finale. I begin to walk through the burning threshold. I look behind me. I have never seen mother so happy. Yet, a single tear runs down her cheek, catches the blaze’s glint as her eyes shine with joy. Destruction is confusing. The blue jay rearranges the mat of hair atop mother’s head. I signal for mother to follow me with a wave of my hand. She shakes her head. The blue jay squawks. I turn my back on them before mother can see me cry. Before I leave, I throw the suitcase outside and run into what remains of the kitchen to pull an old mason jar from underneath the sink. Running, I jump through the threshold like a circus performer catapulted through a wreath of flames. I roll onto the hard earth, its dustiness, a sweet powder. On a piece of paper, I write:
Dear Mother,
For you who have forgotten my name:
I have carved it on a tombstone
stuck deep in the ground
upside down
so you can find me
when we’re dead
From there, I will leave the breadcrumbs
of who we’re thought to be
(scattering of friends, family, and lovers
easily devoured by forgetfulness)
in the hopes that
someday it will lead us home
I stuff the note into the jar. I cap it. I bury it deep beneath the earth so mother can find me in the afterlife, in case we don’t remember the way back, in case, as this life separates us, we fragment beyond recognition.
I slowly pick up the suitcase and open the car door. I see a fire engine’s lights approaching, but the house has already begun to crumble with mother inside, her alone, head heavy with nested attachments to our lives there. I start the ignition. Drive away. No need to see how it ends.
On the road and the stillness-absent sound, soothing metronome of rubber tires traversing the road’s minor inconsistencies-softens the pulse of my heart. I am driving with a suitcase full of constellations, without a plan or destination, letting air cushion the impact of breathing, of the heaving needed to raise my chest up against gravity. Then, I hear a pulse. Not mine. Thumping. Outside. Around. Me. It is coming from the back seat. I look behind me and see the suitcase moving from a banging within as if a person is trapped inside. I begin to drive faster before realizing I can’t outrun the sound, this sound that travels with me. I hum to distract myself from the raucous in the backseat. I can’t silence the rhythms from behind me, underneath me: suitcase and road. I see a sign for a rest area and decide to pull over.
Racing into the empty rest-area parking lot, I slam on the brakes. Jump out. Open the backseat. Drag the suitcase along the ripped pleather seats; its weight – it is inexplicably heavy now- pulls it to the ground, to meet the pavement with a BANG. I haul it over to the sidewalk, struggling to keep a grasp on it as it throbs and shimmies.
“Why don’t you just open it?” he asks. I jump much like the suitcase continues to do. I look behind me and see a man wearing a suit of small mirrors, tiled over his body. Red hair burns atop his head, leading into sideburns that streak like a wild fire across his face, burning a trail to his bushy beard. I look back at the suitcase; it looks like it’s dancing, outside the men’s restroom at this nearly-deserted rest stop. The stranger’s tiles project the light of the full moon onto the pavement. Like some bizarre disco.
“Eh, mate, do you have someone trapped inside? What’re you gonna to do ‘em? Kill ‘em? Well, don’t kill me, mate, alright, I saw nuthin’, nuthin”. He speaks at a hurried pace, like he is chasing his thoughts, has finally caught one and has only a few seconds to share it before it writhes out of his weak hold. “But me friends” (he points to the mirrors) “they have a time keepin’ quiet, they do”. He pulls one of the mirrors off his body and throws it towards the suitcase. The shards, like icicles, litter the pavement. The man starts to dance. CRASH. Another mirror hurled at the ground.
“STOP” I scream, “Stop doing that.”
“Doin’ what, mate? Just destroyin’ the ol’ eye witnesses. Doin’ you a favor really.” When he has run out of mirrors to destroy, he stops dancing. He runs to pick up one of the larger shards, a remnant from the mirror massacre. Clutching it in his hand –edges digging into his palm but not drawing blood- the red-haired maniac leaps, leaps, right foot then left, like a ballerina, towards the suitcase. He hurls his arm towards the pulsing container. The shard comes down hard, piercing through the frayed cloth exterior, like the man is stabbing somebody in the belly. The thumping stops.
“Now, will ya open it?” he implores, like a child.
“Go ahead,” I offer, shaking with emotion, with fear, confusion, wonder, or, perhaps, something unnameable, a feeling I lack a word for. I lie down, uninterested and unable to look. I stare at the moon, marvel at her simplicity.
Unwavering, he clicks the suitcase open.
“Well, bugger all,” I hear him say, gruffly, the quick-paced, sing-song lilt absent from his voice.
