Not
a single visible photograph to grace the room, and looking around with his own
recent immersion in the medium still fresh Brother Skunk is struck by this as
if for the first time, is trying to remember if there are photographs displayed
anywhere in the entire house when distracted by his mother’s voice
Mother:
Are we all finished here?
as
she begins to clear the coffee table between them of its cluttered lunch dishes
and cutlery, ceramic tubs and bowls.
Skunk:
God, sorry Mum, I was eh... miles away. Here I’ll get these.
Mother
(laughing): Sit where you are. You can... You just be miles away.
each
individual word correct in its context, still quick in her face the revelation
of betrayal by their aggregate duplicity.
Skunk
(to restore the mutual humour): Are you sure you can manage everything at once,
‘cause if it’s too much trouble... you can always make another trip.
Mother
(laughing): Oh thank you. Don’t worry I’ll manage.
offering
his assistance again at the sight of her each arm culminating in its overladen
and vulnerable fulcrum of fragile wrist.
Near
certain of the impending calamity, Skunk holds his breath and a wince as she
leaves the room, exhaling into the subsequent silence with only momentary
relief as the silence accumulates on beyond the dishes’ expected clumsy
placement upon the worktop.
Skunk:
Mum? Mum are you okay?
into the protracted silence.
Skunk:
Mum?
He
is at the kitchen door even before subject to premonition.
There
is no tension apparent in her still figure, the utterly immobile body empty of
everything but an unfathomable internal dynamic affording it balance counter to
the weighted plates; the room itself so sick with her contagion Skunk will not
enter, infecting even the wasps near the window who crash and crash at the
glass as if mad.
Skunk:
Mum?
She
is breaking back through her own fugue by default, a state maintained with such
persistence for so long as to have become almost passive, and these periodic
slips into actual memory to be actively fought against.
Skunk
(screaming): MUM! MUM!
The
fridge cuts out and shudders off its low drone to leave the wasps’ counterpoint
naked in the air. He watches as they gravitate toward his mother, her hair, and
the empty skin of her face.
