I walk behind a lemon cat as I walk to my parents’ new house, it’s a crappy neighborhood. Houses crammed into each other, squirming for room. The sidewalks are shot, and the crappy brick job made the house a rusted red rectangle. Entering it, I see my mother precisely alphabetizing her collection, her long auburn hair reaching down to her hips. I crash the box of records I was carrying onto the floor, skootching it into a nook with my foot. Kind of like my neighborhood!
“Honey!” Mother deftly walks over to her record collection, “You know these where a bitch to find!” Her hair now blocking the box and her face, I position myself against the wall near her. I can see her fingers examining each record slip making sure nothing was shattered. “Thank nothing was broken… How about some tunes.”
“All you have is old Fleetwood Mac records.”
“Don’t diss the Fleetwood, god I thought I raised you better.”
I smirk and roll my eyes, and walk away from the wall I was leaning against.
“Shit, Banana!” I turn around, she walks behind me and starts brushing my back, “There’s paint chips all over!” I look at the wall, slightly wobbly white circle remained from where I was perched, “Banana, can you get the broom?” If our boxes where painted red and seafoam green, it could’ve been this city.
“You think I can find a broom?”
“Right… Uhh…” She pulls off a book from the shelf. “Here, use this.” She tosses it to me and tries to cram records into the bookshelf. I study the book, “Spirtual Awakening; A Thirteen Step Program to Solving Inner Calamity.” On the front, and back, of the book I see my father’s face, a handsome 30-40 year old, with brown hair, perfect smile and complexion, and OH WAIT, a scam artist. He published this book, instantly gaining millions of followers, and then decided he could make more money. A gated community, somewhere in Montana. He had all the funds and zoning commissions, one mile of housing was made, and then he ran. Why, we’ll never know. That’s how he met my mother, a spunky book critique that was quickly gaining popularity, she could’ve been the Oprah of hipster moms if she didn’t forgo all “negative agenda’s and thoughts” to explore abandoned land plots with my father. He left her, along with 300 other people, she was devastated, and now, she’s bitter as hell, being abandoned by her fiancee and the literary community. Now she owns a blog and teaches creative writing at the Y.
“Hmm, I wish Harold could clean more messes than just those paint chips. Like my life.” Mom was always overly poetic, during her webcam interview (she loved to amaze using her moderate web process) she went on about the interviewers font selection, and how she can judge anybody by their choice in font, she flattered the interviewer with snazzy word flourishes and flatteries, sucking up to her, saying that her chakra came from her navel, which means a compassionate person. The interviewer used Comic Sans, my whole family are con artists. “Rain, maybe you should go to bed early today, you’re going to a new school, After all.”
“I still go to our school, we’re in the same town.” She stands up, flutters her eyes at her mistake, smiling.
“I know sugar, what are you going to name yourself?” I look at her, it’s my tradition at every new school I name myself something different than Rain, for obvious reasons. “I’m kidding!” She scruffs up my hair, twirls towards to bookshelf (inevitably slapping me in the face with her long locks) and continues filing. I walk up the stairs, unnerved that the steps are so short, my feet can’t fit, it helps that they are carpeted though, which unnerves me even more because I can’t hear my foot steps.
Upstairs is one small hallway, divided into a bathroom, my room, mom’s room and an empty room. I enter my room, the room is a lame white paint, beige carpet with a mountain dew/absinthe stain on it , and a mattress without any sheets smack dab in the center. I hurl myself on the mattress, and look up at the ceiling, symmetrical to the cola stain, there is water stains scattering the ceiling, almost cloudlike. I turn over to my side, grab my alarm clock, set it, and fall asleep.
It’s a frightening evening, the moon is huge, and we’re in a field. There is my new house, it’s chasing me, but I‘m not me. I’m an outside observer to I’s chase scene. The house isn’t connect to the other shanties, it’s on it’s own, legless, sliding through the thickets making this terrifying crumbling sound as it uproots the wheat that lives in this field. I look up at the moon, and it’s being covered by sand colored clouds, it hardly illuminates the field, the field rains towards the clouds, the clouds a magnet to the green drops, absorbing them. I’m in dream world, it’s 7:45 and I turn into an owl in an explosion of off white paint chips and get saved by prince charming.
I wake up with stale sweat dried in my sheets. I unpeel them off and head toward the bathroom stealthily, I crack open a door, and see my mother in front of a window reading a magazine while, “eating the sun”. She looks up, perfectly silhouetted sans the light permeating through her hair “You should really try this with me sometime.”
“Then why are you nibbling on your hair?”
She looks at the lock of hair, drops it. “Hmm, after you shower I’ll make some eggs. SUNNY SIDE UP THAT IS!” She slaps her magazine on her knee and kicks her head back and cackles fakely. I smirk, close the door and enter the real bathroom. I take my shower, with my head leaning against the wall under the spout, which sickly spirts sand colored water onto me for about 15 seconds, and continues flowing clear water. I bathe with extra finesse to account for the uproar of gross.
I pile on a black, argyle jacket and some black jeans, I don’t need to wow anyone today. I’m in the same district, right? And walk down the stairs, seeing my mother cracking eggs, smashing the shells, and then flutters them into the waste basket. I shudder. “I’m surprised you’re making me eggs.”
“I decided to be a real mom today, and not just a robot. Don’t get used to it, I should be sun eating right now.”
“The sun will feel neglected, you should get back to him.”
“The sun could be a woman, and fuck the sun.”
“Your boss won’t like to hear that statement.”
“She’ll just think that I’m a new aged person, but with some realist spunk. The most agreeable hippy.”
“The most agreeable hippy liar.”
“Another word out of you and I’m putting eggshell in your eggs.”
“I think I want to try out Robo-mom.”
“Robo-mom has lasers and no sense of pleasure.”
I stare at her, her eyes widen and stares into the horizon in shame. “You can sass me if you want this morning, I will consider not putting eggshells in your eggs.”
