Dating : Story Mother

This was his mind playing a cruel joke

Had the barking of the dogs not brought him near the door Ray would have missed the faint knock. The old woman visible through the side light awoke in him a fleeting sense of recognition. No, it couldn’t be. When he opened the inner door and only the Plexiglas outer door separated them, his sense of recognition grew along with his efforts to bite it down. No, he thought, no way could Mom have survived. This was his mind playing a cruel joke. And yet, something in the stance, the turn of the head…No, this emaciated, pathetic creature possessed none of the vitality he remembered in his (late, he had for years assumed) mother. Yet he could not look away. When she began to turn her head to look up at him he recalled the mechanical slow-motion of an old lizard he had seen as a child in some zoo or another. Recognition swept over him like a cold, damp breeze as their eyes met. He shuddered. There could be no mistake. The squint, the rheuminess and even the grimy mask covering her nose and mouth could not conceal her identity. Knowing his mates wouldn’t like it, he opened the lightweight door and stepped out, closing it behind him. As she seemed on the verge of collapse he forgot all caution and cleared the distance between them. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders to support her.

“Welcome, Mother. I am of the Backlanders. We will see to your needs.”

The old woman looked up at him. Mother? she thought. When was the last time she had been addressed as such? Far above, near the opening of the pit of her exhausted torpor, she began to perceive a glimmer as she lost consciousness.

Ray caught her astonishingly light frame as she began to fall. He lifted her as one might a child. As her head drooped over his shoulder he felt her chin against his shoulder blade. He found that he could easily manage her and so needed no help carrying her to one of the quarantine cabins. Why did they need three now? Mom was the first wanderer in — how long? He laid her on one of the bunks and got out the smelling salts. They worked immediately.

“The fuck?”

That was so mom. “Fuck” was sure to be among her last words, when her time finally did come.

Finding a few bullion cubes in the supply cabinet, he lit the stove and got some water going.

“Mother, I have some soup for you. Please drink it. You seem very weak.” Strange, he thought, I still retain the habit of addressing her as Mother, yet I think of her as Mom. She’d insisted on that formality, yet “fuck” had to be her favorite word.

“Help me up.” How strangely comforting her usual demanding style seemed after assuming her dead for — how long? He bit back his tears. Even as a child he’d hated letting her see him cry.

He helped her back onto the bolsters, then brought the cup to her lips. She took a few sips then her “Uhmm!” indicated that she’d had enough for the moment.

“Here’s a fine thing! You’re feeding me.”

“Well, Mother, in case you didn’t notice, you’re in bad shape.”

Lifting her hand with difficulty she said, “Give me a spoon,” then seeing how it trembled, continued, “Oh, fuck. You better do it. A spoon though. Please.”

How did she get here? In any case he figured he better call the main house and let everyone know what was going on.

“Hi, it’s Carl over here in Q cabin 1. That was my mother who showed up.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I’m having trouble believing it myself, but, well, I know my own mother, for fuck’s sake! We’ll take the standard fourteen days. Yeah I know, but she’ll make herself useful. Besides, it’s past time for a new Story Mother. Yeah. Yeah. I get it, but trust me, she’ll make a good one. She has some whoppers!”

Her strength returned over the next couple of days. That was also very mom. A part of himself of which he was ashamed was almost disappointed. Now he’d have to listen to her crazy shit.

“How did you get here?”

“Oh Christ in a fucking basket! I walked, what did you think?”

“I mean, it’s a long way. How did you survive? I thought…”

“I managed. You know, the stone, and Carl.”

Oh, shit, he thought, here we go! His mind ran over some of the strange stories of the past, before they went their separate ways. About the strange, secretive church she found. “The Syncretic Church.” Odd name, but it fit. At first nothing seemed too radical and or supernatural. The doctrine, if one could so call it, combined Christianity with Hellenistic paganism. It accepted of the erotic undercurrents of Christianity. So far so good. But when his Parkinson’s-like symptoms vanished shortly before she’d called him to pick her up from the hospital where the police had taken her after they’d been called to see about a woman of late middle age kneeling in front of a stone in a local park screaming and crying, she’d laid out the most bizarre story he’d ever heard, leaving him to wonder if she’d lost her mind. About how she took his stepdad Carl to meet that weird old priest, about Carl’s visions of extreme global warming when they all gathered around a big stone half buried in the church basement floor, about Carl sacrificing himself in order to keep God from destroying all life because he — she? it? — was pissed at the human race. He’d always figured she was a garden-variety atheist like he was, but no! God? And Carl left stretched all over inside the earth holding back God’s wrath? It barely even made sense. It was all too much!

He must have rolled his eyes. “I see that look,” his mother challenged, “how the fuck do you think I managed? And I see that you’re still walking like any natural man!”

“Mom, try to understand. I’m now an educated man. Things can happen, chronic illnesses can…”

“Oh fie! What about me? I escaped everything! Me! An old woman! COVID-19, the floods, the heat, the Second Plague, yet I and managed to drag my sorry old ass to…”

“Second plague?”

“You didn’t know?”

“Well, we’ve been out of the loop, by design, but there were rumors we caught wind of when we went out scavenging. But what with the internet gone, and no radio, hell, we couldn’t even raise any HAMMs, we figured it was people making up shit.”

“Oh it was real enough. Spread like COVID, killed like Ebola! You wanna know why you can’t find anybody? There isn’t anybody! Well, almost. But oh my God the stench! I was afraid to eat anything, but of course I had to. Stuck with plastic wrapped or canned shit until I got away, then I had to beg, but fuck! A pathetic-looking old bitch like me begging, I, you know, survived, with Carl to guide me.”

Here we still go, He thought. Again, his body language must have betrayed his skepticism.

She went on, “Oh so you still don’t fucking believe me! Why am I not surprised? Anyway, in dreams. Carl, that is. Every night almost. Which direction, where to find canned shit, all that. He knows. How the fuck do you think I stayed alive out there? And ended up here with you of all people? You think that kind of shit just happens? By the way, what did you do with my bag?”

“I got it. Did you know it was empty? Except for the can opener that is.”

“Well there you go! Carl knew I had nothing left. How much longer do you think I would have lasted? There is fucking nothing out there!”

Ray had to admit, it was a fantastic pile of coincidences. My mother the Story Mother, he thought, it makes as much sense as anything else.