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Order this writing in the collection book Unlocking the Mysteries available for only $1795 |
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This appears in a pre-2010 issue
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AN AUTUMN TALE
Mel Waldman
In the autumn, a long time ago, the boy sang to Grandma. Grandma lay in the old, creaky wooden bed, waiting for the Signal. While she waited, she counted the falling leaves outside the window. The golden-eyed boy, oblivious of the leaves, kept singing. When Mother entered the room, he stopped.
“Joseph, come here!”
The boy passively obeyed her. Mother closed the curtains and left with the boy.
Mother whispered to Joseph: “Now son, I don’t want to frighten you. But Grandma is dying. We love her deeply and if we could keep her alive forever, in that room, we would. But we can’t!”
Joseph looked up at the tall five foot Giant. “You keep singing to her, son. Make sure you do. And she’ll live another day!”
The snow fell heavily outside Grandma’s window. The room was pitch-black, as black as the snow was white, gloriously white and defiant of human existence. Grandma tried to count the snowflakes. But the task was impossible. She grinned at the heavenly designs as they floated past her window. They kept her company till Mother brought her supper and removed the bedpan.
Grandma prayed to the innocent snowflakes as if they were saints. “They want me dead,” she chuckled. “I’m too tired to end it without His strength.” But He didn’t give the Signal. And without His final consent, she couldn’t leave. “I should have gone in the fall,” she whispered to the snowflakes while she gasped for air. “You old stubborn mule up there. Why didn’t You take me when my friends left? The leaves, you know. Well, maybe my new friends will not betray me.”
The rain came down like a torrent from Hell, rattling and tapping on Grandma’s windowsill. The old woman awakened from her sleep and spoke to the noisy guests. “My time is long due. And yet the leaves, the snow, and now you-play with me. You noisy guests. How well you dance on the windowsill! John, how I miss dear John, my husband up there, where you come from! He too was a gracious dancer. He danced lightly, waltzing here, there, like a butterfly dancing in the sky. Rain, rain, never go away! John, I’ll be putting on the old shoes soon. We’ll be knocking their eyes out.”
While Grandma slept, Joseph locked himself in his room. Mother and Father argued downstairs in the living room. Father beat Mother until bloody saliva trickled down her neck. He left her standing in the middle of the living room. He strolled to the den, nonchalantly smoking his pipe. She screamed, but he ignored her.
One rainy night Father vanished. Mother disappeared too-inside a black widow’s invisible heart.
Mother stampeded upstairs and knocked on Joseph’s door. But he refused to open it. He hid in the closet. In the dark he felt things-real things that grasped his heart. His tiny fingers fell into an abysmal hole, which was actually one winter boot. “Grandma loves you,” he told the boot. Then he grabbed a long, thin object. “We will fight the enemy and conquer! For you are my sword of victory!” He was addressing an umbrella. Joseph wore a big, fat smile until he remembered the knocking on the door. Joseph hated noise. He loved the Silence as much as he loved Grandma. Eventually, Mother stopped. The boy kissed his boot, Grandma slept, and Mother wandered through the house on a scavenger hunt. And Father? Father was gone!
Mother searched for something. She ran, danced, and pranced across the corridors. But she did not find what she was looking for. Each time she passed a mirror, she hurried on. She hated the faces in them.
The sun came through the window. In the garden, roses bloomed. Inside, Grandma was shriveled up, sweating in her cauldron. But she gloriously absorbed the fragrant odors that seeped into the boiling room.
Joseph marched into her room with an umbrella, which he pointed in the direction of the blazing sun. “I have come to rescue you from the enemy!”
“And who is the enemy, Joseph?”
“The real enemy is ...” He turned around and pointed the umbrella at the door. “The real enemy is beyond the door.”
The autumn came again. Joseph sang to Grandma in a high soprano voice. Then one day he was ill. He had to stay in bed for days. Mother didn’t care. She was obsessed with finding a precious object. Her craving devoured her mind, which split into an infinite regression, each time she passed a mirror and paused to stare.
Grandma was obsessed too. She craved for Joseph. She lifted herself up until she sat erect in bed. Slowly, she got out of bed and moved silently toward the door. She opened it. Closed it. And walked barefoot to his room down the corridor. When she entered his room, the boy smiled at her. They hugged each other.
Mother trampled the floor with her heels. When she galloped into the attic, she found an old broken mirror. The mirror was dusty and reeked of rat odor. His odor! She inhaled the odor with joy as she stared at the image in the broken mirror. She grinned sardonically. This was the image she was seeking. The wicked memory of childhood was in that mirror. Love and hope were in it. Power!
Suddenly, Mother hunched her back and grunted like a rat. She bit her skin until she bled. As the blood trickled down her throat she roared with laughter. She rejoiced in the stench of rat odor. And she laughed hysterically at the sight of her self-inflicted bites.
Then her eyes darted across the little room-vast universe. In the corner, it lay. Just a motionless thing now! A twisted smile crawled up her face.
A minute later, Mother picked up a huge sack and filled it with the motionless object and all the garbage she could find. Hunched over, with corrugated brows, sweat dripping from her hairy armpits and unshaven legs, she dropped to the floor. Grunting, screeching, and reeking of rat odor, she crawled across the infinite room. With the broken mirror in one hand and the sack in the other, she crawled out of the attic and down the steps. She crept toward Grandma’s room. Her odor arrived before she did.
At the foot of Grandma’s door, the Rat Lady left the ground. She rose and stood slightly hunched before the door. With the sack in her left hand, she stared at the shattered mirror. It revealed only disappointment and rejection. Ugly thoughts jumped out of the mirror, violently assaulting her. With madness in her eyes, she grabbed the mirror. She drove it into her eyes!
Mother screamed as she blinded herself. Her body twitched and shook violently. Blood gushed from her eyes. A fatal signal. Then she stampeded into Grandma’s room. She lunged for the woman who wasn’t there.
Joseph couldn’t stop crying. He lay in bed hugging and kissing Grandma. The Signal had come, a few seconds before that awful scream penetrated his bones, exploding his veins and corpuscles. The Signal was His final consent.
She lay in bed, feeling the incessant heat exploding outside and within her body. The sun’s intrusive rays bombarded the windowsill first, before reaching her bed. Joseph was at her side. He sang to her in a sweet soprano voice.
“When will the autumn arrive, Joseph?”
“Soon.”
“I will count the leaves, one by one as I have always done every autumn.”
“No,” Joseph said softly.
“No? Why not?”
He didn’t answer. He sang until she fell asleep. Downstairs, the den was empty. Father had never returned.
Joseph spoke to her once more. “No, Mother! You will not count the leaves! You’re blind! Yet I will always sing to you. Maybe someday I will love you too the way I loved Grandma.”
So it was. In the autumn, a long time ago, the boy sang to Mother.
