I started cooking when mom stopped. After the demons took over her brain, mom couldn’t find the strength to make meals, and that’s when I stepped in, to lighten the burden she had to carry. Mom didn’t give up. She kept all of her strength to fight them, to take back what had been lost, but those demons are winning, they have now conquered most parts of her mind.
I do the dishes, the laundry, I vacuum, while mom looks around like she approves. She then looks away, because she goes back to the battlefield, she has no time to waste, no time to rest, she has to fight and fight and fight, although she knows and I know the war will be lost.
Mom wants to speak, but can’t find the words, because those demons have stolen all precious things that we took for granted, and we have to invent them from scratch, but mom is still trying, she looks annoyed and agitated, and I calm her down, I can’t know what goes on at the battlefield, she’s there alone, the demons are calling her, they scream and she screams, but all I can do is take care of her needs while she’s busy resisting their call.
Mom can’t do much because she’s busy, we fight in turns and it’s her turn now to fight and my turn to cook like she cooked, and I miss her when she’s out there fighting, and the more I miss mom, the more I become her, we become one and we celebrate when she comes home from the battlefield, we know one day she won’t, we’re home, mom, I say, and that’s a tiny huge win in the midst of a sad, bloody hopeless war.
Mileva Anastasiadou is a neurologist from Greece and the author of Christmas People and We Fade With Time. A Pushcart, Best of the Net,
Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions nominated writer, her work has
been selected for the Best Microfiction Anthology 2024 and Wigleaf Top
50.
No comments:
Post a Comment