By, Wendiann Alfieri
Part Two
You awaken in your bedroom. It is pitch black in your cavern and you slowly come to. The only sound in the room is of your pet mouse, Herbert, running frantically around his home. Herbert is a strange character. He loves you… sometimes. Other times he goes off his rocker and will just be running in circles in a confused daze. It’s probably because he doesn’t like the name Herbert, he always responded to Cashmere which is what his original name was.
You don’t want to run frantically around your room though. For one, your whole body feels like an anchor sinking in deep confusing waters. After a couple of minutes, memories start to trickle in. You remember some of the day’s events, finger slammed a crunch sound, kid’s disgusted, nice teacher, and something else you can’t quite put your finger on. Especially since your fingers were …Broken? Oh yeah the hospital, you were transported there, and dad showed up and brought you the best cookies ever. And then mom brought you home as you nibbled away at some delectable cookies.
You feel the pain in your left hand, it is numb. It doesn’t quite feel like it did in class. It just feels like its crumbling away. You feel scared, and you reach over to turn the light on your desk with your right hand. The click! Sound is followed by a blinding light awakening right in your face and your eyes are adjusting slowly, as always. The strength of the beam of light weakens and you look around your room.
Your dark green walls are covered with stickers of tigers and panda’s with bamboo next to them. The best part about your room was the floor was always filled with new stuffed animals, mostly tigers. Tigers don’t fade like the rest. You wish you could study animals as you got older. The tigers got over their struggles. They are animals, and they still found a way to stay. You have always been fascinated with wildlife and the sight of the black cavern turning into the forest you love is slightly comforting, until you looked at your left hand.
Your hand looks terrible; it’s fading, crumbling. You put your right hand on your left hand, begging this to be solved, it is just your imagination…this moment was interrupted pretty quickly as the creak sound of the old beaten door to your bedroom indicates the arrival of your mother. She stumbles in and looks at you with glassy bloodshot eyes. Your mother is a tall skinny woman. Her green eyes seem to not be as comforting as the green forest of your room. Right now she wasn’t in her right mind. One reason being she was not fully clothed. She looks at you and starts laughing, then trips over a stuffed tiger on the floor. She is on the floor amidst all your animals. She is ruining your forest.
Your fists both clench. Wait. BOTH your fists are clenching. You listen to your mother’s laughter and now you look at your left hand. You uncover your left hand by gently lifting your right hand from it. It is no longer fading. In fact it looks completely normal. The laughter bubbles up and now you are laughing out of disbelief, alongside your mother, but for completely different reasons.
Later that night, you are dream of bottles. Bottles on the floor and broken. You are stepping on them and your feet are bleeding, and you turn on the light as soon as you wake up. Your mother is among the stuffed animals, still half naked and you are now crying, again. You are crying so loudly your mother wakes up. And she rushes over to you and asks, “What’s wrong, honey? Is it the pain again?” You are very confused. Your mother is rushing out of the room and returns back with a tall glass of milk and pants and a top on.
