The Mother, The Children, The Misery

A tragic tale of a mother and her children.

         It’s a curious thing, really, the way that worlds can exist inside of worlds, and how oblivious we can be to worlds beyond our own. The hideousness of it all; the unpredictable mixture of circumstance, and luck, and compassion, and the summation of every decision made. This story, a tragically true story, is about a mother, and her children, and their existence within a world that exists inside of our own. Stories like this are unfolding all of the time, right this very moment, and you never know, or never intervene, or never care. She was awfully young, and on her own, when she first became pregnant, which can be an ugly burden. And although most deny it as ever being a burden at all, for her, it was just that.
         By the end of the spring, when this story begins, she would have three children. She was aware of the swelting temperatures that the summer would soon bring, and of the heavy storms that would punctuate the extreme heat. As such, her and her children would begin the summer looking for shelter of some kind, any kind, to escape the sun and heavy rains.

Summer
         The first storm came on that summer like a fever, unexpectedly and nightmarish. Heavy rains pressured desperation, and they would retreat into the only vacant shell they could find, an old pickup truck. Tall grass nearly hiding it from visibility, likely deserted; forfeited to nature. The red paint had long since given way to the harshness of the sun, peeling and pinkish. There was plenty room enough for the four, even better still, the electric windows had been left partially down, offering a smattering of fresh air whenever the wind picked up. And this was fine.
         Early that summer, though, one of her children would exit this world prematurely, and unexpectedly. Perhaps due to some unknown natural causes, or malnutrition, or heat sickness. How the child died is far less curious that what she had chosen to do with the body. She did not bury it or find a suitable resting place for it. Her youngest baby, instead, would have its body stuffed under the rear seat, tucked away from the view of herself, and of her other children, who were too young to even notice their sibling missing. This was her first loss, and perhaps she couldn’t handle the closure of disposing of the body, or perhaps she wouldn’t give the satisfaction to those animals, the ones that would surely dig it up, and make a feast of it.
         It would remain stuffed under that seat for weeks. The consequence of this decision would be the stench that would accompany the little body in its decaying state. The comfort of the truck was utterly displaced by the rot, and the incessant buzzing of the flies. By the time it was too overwhelming, it was too late to move the baby. It had rotted into the carpet, a semi-liquified mess, teeming with flies and maggots. Her and her remaining children stayed, sharing the truck with the hidden corpse, for a few more weeks, continuing their routines as if it wasn’t there at all, and to the other children, it wasn’t, before the mother finally made the decision to abandon the truck late that summer.

Autumn
         Distance and time were not measured in arbitrary units, not for her. The only true identities for time were those of the seasons and sunrises. How far they traveled would be less than a few sunsets away. Where they happened upon an old house, and from a stealthy distance, she could see that it was occupied. Despite all her apprehension, she knew there would be food in that house. And she had two more children for which she was obligated to feed. So, she observed, stealthily, for an opportunity.
         Despite her surreptitiousness, the occupants of the house became aware of their presence almost immediately. They made it known by calling out and offering for them to come and introduce themselves. She retreated but stayed close enough to notice when they left both food and water a distance far enough from the house that she felt comfortable enough to approach. Days passed like this before she felt safe enough to approach the kind strangers. Despite their generosity, they did not grant access to the comforts that could be found inside their house. They did, however, allow them to stay on the property, in an old barn, where the children could play, and she could rest easily, and every night they were fed.
         It was this couple, though, who had earned the trust of her, and of her children over the weeks that followed, who would sever it all in a single evening. The first snowstorm had just settled in, and they watched the snow accumulating on the old gravel driveway. Just as the sun was setting, she heard the crunching of gravel. She watched the strangers exit the car and greet the couple, speaking in that language she could never understand. Moments later, her oldest child was taken from her by those strangers in one quick blue and was placed into the back of that foreign car and driven away. She would remain bewildered and bbroken-hearted She knew there was nothing she could do except leave that night, taking her only remaining child with her.
Winter
         There would be no mourning for her. Temperatures dropped like an anchor and rested around the point of being unbearable with the incessant winds. The kind of wind that makes you feel like you’re asphyxiating. Daily she exhausted herself, dragging her child with her. At night, they would sleep closely tucked under a bush, a tree, a culvert, whatever was available. During the day, they would simply walk, endlessly, until they found a small shed, at the edge of a field, with no houses in sight, she surveyed for strangers diligently.
         Clearly abandoned for several years, the roof partially collapsed, the mossy green shingles that remained barely hanging on. The large door, rusted into a permanent position, had been left open just enough to allow their skinny bodies to slip through. Streams of light and snow would pour in from the holes in the roof, and in the walls, and through the door that couldn’t shut. On days when the wind wasn’t howling, a hush would fall over the shed that would bring a peaceful quiet, interrupted only by their stomachs, which talked more than they did. Food was always hard to come by in these frigid months. Mostly they ate rodents that scurried around the outside of the shed: mice and moles and rats. Or the occasional brave bird, given away by its singing in the dead winter cold.
         She was sleeping soundly the night she was awoken by the hideous wails. Her little routine was quickly reduced to nothing more than a handsome oblivion when she recognized the cries of her baby. The early morning moon was still hanging low and bright, and the reflection from the glazed snow gave way to the vision of a winged beast, making repeated swoops at the ground. She was quick, but it was too late. She arrived to a still body; tattered, torn, and punctured by the claws of a predator. Before her first tear formed, a horrendous scream drew her eyes to the sky to meet the oil black eyes, recessed in the face of a barn owl, desperate with winter hunger. She did not have time to grab the baby, instinct drove her into a sprint, back to the cover of the barn, where she could only watch as the winged beast picked away at the flesh of her newly dead child.

Spring
         I wish her story ended here. That she had simply lost all of her children, and lived out the rest of her days alone, eventually passing of a broken heart. Unfortunately, the rest of her days did not play out with such elegance. She spent the rest of the winter alone and broken, and in the early weeks of spring, when the snow was just beginning to thaw, she left that little shed.
 She walked constantly. From sunrise to sunset, she was covering ground. At first with no real direction. But then her attention was drawn to the glowing orange beacon of a nearby city against the night sky, where she was certain her fate could be safely enveloped by a supply of food, shelter, safety, and the comfort of others with stories as tragic as hers.
         She even almost made it. A vehicle, moving hastily along as the driver perused some obscure mission of their own, hit her like a train. They didn’t stop, nor did any of the other hundred cars that drove by as she was dying on the side of the road. They thought what you would have thought, just another dead stray cat.