An Empty Road

“She waited for me to do something, and when I didn’t she rocked forward slowly and stood up” (Firelight, Wolff 260). There was a vacant sort of look in her eyes as she did this, as if somehow she had been let down or shocked into oblivion. Her mouth hung slightly open and I saw her small pink tongue flit out delicately to wet her lips, so like a cat. She pursed them and opened again to say something, break the silence that was stretching between us like a long and empty road. We had walked it together not moments before, mother and daughter, but I hadn’t spoken when she needed a voice, not given a hand to her when it was most necessary. It had only been moments ago, but it was a distance to great to remedy – the time for repair had come and gone, disappearing to that dark realm of regret.
I looked away and found something fascinating on the wall, anything to keep me from looking at my mother’s lost look, my father’s indifference. Look, look, look, I told myself, but each passing second increased the temptation of searching her face for something that was known, remembered. Look. Small, light blue diamonds were filigreed into the wallpaper, a treasure trove that spanned the width and length of that small room. They projected ever so slightly from the flat edge and in the stark light from the overhead their shadows seemed to lengthen and sharpen, pointing into small daggers that threatened to fly at me from the quivering, stationary spot. I stared at this malignant beauty until even the sharpest point blurred, wavered, then disappeared completely, lost from focus along with the rest of the world. For all the riches in the world I wished to be elsewhere. Anywhere but in that space so enclosing and suffocating that I felt I could die with how stifled I felt.
I could not acknowledge these trapping, confining walls any longer, so I turned my head down to the carpet on which I still kneeled. If the circle of my sight remained small enough I might be able to forget that I was not alone, lose myself in silence and nothingness. It lay there, inanimate and uncomplaining beneath me. It did not stretch and grow, did not aspire to any unreachable goal such as sunlight or happiness. It was uncomplaining below our cruel weights. Our. For they were cruel. Nothing should hold such a weight on unprepared shoulders. Perhaps I was being foolish, but the unfairness of it nearly took my breath away. I shifted slightly in my spot as if I might fix this at least, only to find new discomfiture. The rug that had always felt so soft under my hard feet irritated and scraped at my bare knee, making it restless, inspiring it with a need to move to flex. If I did that though I might be seen, noticed, so I remained crouched like a small animal hiding from some unknown danger. I stayed as I was, low to the ground, hidden away in a world where I hoped I could never be found. One that I could never escape.