Mother B
The house on the hill is silent, it is still. The warmth that radiated through the walls of the old house, has now evaporated and the floors creak louder than ever before. I slowly climb the wooden steps that bow beneath my small nine-year-old feet. The screen door moaning as we all file in one by one. Her laughter, gone. I use to hear her laughing from the backside of the house, in the depths of the kitchen as she cooked warm and welcoming matriarch food. And I can see her belly moving up and down as she smiles from ear to ear, always elated to see us. But today, there is no sound, no smell.
The mountains filter in clouds and shuffle in a soft rain, matching my sadness. The only sound is an adult, talking quietly in the dining room. Everyone gathered, crowded around 6 old oak chairs, discussing the details. My brain jumbles the sounds into uninteresting mumbles. I have not one care for what they are saying. I stop right past the front door. Her bedroom to my left.
I can still smell her, a mix of hair grease, fatback and clothes detergent. She smelled like love, like the arms that pulled me into her breasts. The arms that squeezed me as if no time had passed. The arms that held me close while she made jokes with my father and eased the loneliness of my mother. But today, there were no arms to hold me. No chest to envelope me. No laugh to welcome me. Just her room, to my left, empty since she left us.
I walk into the room, straight to the bed she and I shared when I visited. Her bed against the windows, beneath flapping curtains and deep fall breezes. It's were she and I slept. I slide her lumpy pillow to my side of the bed and bury my face hoping to inhale a moment of her scent.
Her side of the bed still sagging from her weight. I crawl onto the bed, curl myself up tight next to the window, waiting to hear the weight of her footsteps enter the room. Waiting to feel the bed dip with her heaviness as she rolls down her stockings, wiggles out of her bra. Waiting for her to roll clumsily onto the bed, smothering the pillow with her gray braids after she pulled off her wig. She never says any words, just settles herself until I hear a faint snore behind my head.
But today, there is only silence.
M.B. Campbell
#writingexercise #memory
The mountains filter in clouds and shuffle in a soft rain, matching my sadness. The only sound is an adult, talking quietly in the dining room. Everyone gathered, crowded around 6 old oak chairs, discussing the details. My brain jumbles the sounds into uninteresting mumbles. I have not one care for what they are saying. I stop right past the front door. Her bedroom to my left.
I can still smell her, a mix of hair grease, fatback and clothes detergent. She smelled like love, like the arms that pulled me into her breasts. The arms that squeezed me as if no time had passed. The arms that held me close while she made jokes with my father and eased the loneliness of my mother. But today, there were no arms to hold me. No chest to envelope me. No laugh to welcome me. Just her room, to my left, empty since she left us.
I walk into the room, straight to the bed she and I shared when I visited. Her bed against the windows, beneath flapping curtains and deep fall breezes. It's were she and I slept. I slide her lumpy pillow to my side of the bed and bury my face hoping to inhale a moment of her scent.
Her side of the bed still sagging from her weight. I crawl onto the bed, curl myself up tight next to the window, waiting to hear the weight of her footsteps enter the room. Waiting to feel the bed dip with her heaviness as she rolls down her stockings, wiggles out of her bra. Waiting for her to roll clumsily onto the bed, smothering the pillow with her gray braids after she pulled off her wig. She never says any words, just settles herself until I hear a faint snore behind my head.
But today, there is only silence.
M.B. Campbell
#writingexercise #memory
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