Monday
found, but it’s empty. It looks like a porcelain head that
was never finished, save for the eyes and the hair, and it
is a nightmare. No, that’s not right. It is plain like porcelain, but it is wrinkled like my hands. Around the eyes
it is smooth, but where there should be a nose and mouth
it is all bent, twisted, and cracking.
It looks through me, and then takes something with it
when it goes. I can never know everything I’ve lost, because I’ve quite forgotten that I lost it. Somehow, though,
I still know that they took her first. I don’t remember
what she looked like anymore. I remember holding her
hand in the park, with the sweat on our necks, but if I try
to picture her face it is all porcelain and wiry hair. I used
to brush that hair, but the snakes are still there.
***
I heard the door. It’s Monday… has to be. It was a Monday when it started.
I can’t recall… the rain was on time? For all I know it
was spring in the park. I don’t know what they did with
her, either. It had to be a Monday, though.
It’s always a Monday.
The first time they came, they took her. They didn’t get
the spring or the park, though, and I won’t let them have
it… no matter what. I always loved the spring. I think I
read about it in one of my books, once.
Was that the door? No, it’s much too soon. They only
come on Mondays. It can’t be Monday again. What day
is it?
“Mom?” The voice is twisted, hideous. It sounds like
the wheezing rasp of a dying woman.
No! It can’t be Monday, yet! I won’t let them have her!
They can’t take the spring!
I hear something shuffling next to me.
What time is it?
“Good morning, Mrs. Hamilton.” The voice is twisted,
hideous. It sounds like gravel crunching under a car tire.
I hear something at my feet.
It’s touching my books. One of them is here!
I know it’s going to look through me again. I don’t want
them to take any more of it. They already got her, whoever she was. I try to focus on the pattering of the rain
on the window, or is it snowing out? For all I know, it’s
raining ice.
Then I see it. Oh, God… I see it. I see that hideous hair,
writhing about, and those yellow eyes that see beyond
me. No face, no mouth, only cracking porcelain. Heaven
help me, it’s going to take more!
“I didn’t realize it would happen so fast.” I can barely
stand the sound of its voice. It makes my head hurt, and
I feel like my mind is going to explode. Is it trying to get
it all, this time?
“Once the final stage of degeneration begins, the process
is very rapid.”
That one sounds like gravel under tires. There is more
than one, this time. They mean to do it. They mean to
take it all!
The dying woman speaks again, near the shuffling I heard
a moment ago, “How long?”
I hear the noise at my feet again. Didn’t I used to keep
something there?
Just as quickly as it appears, it vanishes. I hear the noise
at my feet again, and then the door.
“It’s hard to tell. We can never be certain, but… in my
opinion we’re looking at a matter of days.”
It’s gone.
I won’t let you have her! I won’t!
I clutch at my chest and cry, wondering what it took this
time.
“I’ll give you some time.”
***
It was a Monday when it started.
62
I hear the door again. I wonder if they are gone, until I
hear the sound of sobbing beside me. One of them is still
here with me. I won’t let it trick me. I won’t let it steal
my spring.
October 2013
INSIGHT