It is a dark and stormy night. Well, actually it is 4:10pm on Sunday afternoon. But it is stormy, or rainy anyway, and it is getting dark.
On her way home from errands, mom notices that all of the other houses in the neighbourhood had no Halloween decorations left. She reckons it is time to get ours down too. But when she arrives at home, nobody shares her conviction. Vague responses are given to her inquiries about the timing of decoration-removal. Not satisfied with lukewarm assurances that the pumpkins and cobwebs will be gone before the Christmas lights are put up, mom goes outside to do it herself.
As mom dresses in old jeans and a launder-able waterproof jacket and gumboots, a smallish wart pops up on her chin. She goes down to the basement to find a pair of pliers but cannot find them in the tangle of discarded tools. A biggish wart pops out on her forehead and one on her nose also. Her fingernails lengthen and take on a greenish cast.
Outside, mom commences pulling one-point-five quadrillion staple-gun staples out of the carport in order to remove a huge variety of halloween lights and decorations. With each twist of a staple, she grunts a witchy grunt. With each grunt, a tuft of her usually shining and bouncy hair turns iron-black and straw-like. When she pinches her finger with the pliers the wart on her chin sprouts 3 long whitish wirey hairs. Her greenish grayish eyes turn slitty and yellow.
Now mom climbs up on a plastic patio chair chair to remove the staples too high for her reach. Rain gushes from the clogged eavestroughs onto her head. She clutches a handful of staples in her gnarled fist and feels her teeth transforming into long yellowing fangs.
Lights and decorations removed, mom turns her attention to the styrofoam tombstones and fake cobwebs. Scooping armfuls of soggy cobwebs out of the branches of the lavender and boxwood plants, mom notices a large hump developing on her right shoulder. As she moves toward the garbage shed with a dripping tangle of cobwebs and attached branches and leaves, she notices that her usually confident and springy walk has transformed into a freakish shuffle. One foot is noticibly larger than the other, the the toes of her running shoes are now pointy and curled up at the tips.
Finally, the pumpkins. Mom muses on a radio spot she heard earlier this week, touting pumpkin-scented oil as the ultimate aphrodisiac. "Not from these pumpkins," she thinks as she carefully drains rainwater from the slimy interiors of the jack-o-lanters lining her carport. She carries 2 pumpkins to the trash with no mishap, but pumpkin number 4 turns out to be full of pumpkin slimewater even though it appeared to be empty. A reeking cascade soaks the front of her jeans and trickles inside one her of boots. Mom's lips shrivel and turn black. Her nose and chin grow longer and curl inwards toward one another.
Half an hour later, mom is inside, unwinding with a glass of wine. Dad and daughter come in. Nobody says thank you, but somebody notices that the rather large coffin was not brought into the house. Pale, sulphurous smoke curls from mom's ears. Her tongue turns green with orange spots.
*****
Forty-five minutes later, mom is mom again. She finished the wine, posted her blog and reminded her family that she says "thanks" for jobs well done and appreciates their thanks and recognition. Now she is no longer a witch. The healthy supper that she cooks for them is not poisoned with magic toadstools. When she tucks them into bed later, they hardly even notice the warts.
question: what job do you detest?
mompoet - working on working out resentment because it gets yukkier and yukkier if you hang onto it
No comments:
Post a Comment