Back Alley Meeting
1
I was sick,
so no one played with me.
I saw a black cat catch a mouse.
It happened in an instant. All I saw was a dark shadow leaping out, and before I knew it, there was a black cat with a mouse in its mouth.
The mouse didn’t even twitch - perhaps the cat had hit its vitals. As if noticing my gaze, the cat looked my way.
Her large, golden eyes were wide open.
Only moments later, the cat vanished off into the alley.
I let out a great sigh. How beautiful it was. The image of that black cat was burnt into my sight.
Such a nimble body, and with eyes like full moons. Gold like mine, true. But I had no fangs like her. And I had no freedom.
I sprawled out on my dirty bed and gazed outside. All I could do every day was look out the window into the back alley.
Why, you ask?
Because to do so was my way of life, and my duty.
The people pa.s.sing through didn’t notice me. And if they did, they pretended not to notice the pale girl glaring at them.
Honest people scowled as if they’d seen something taboo, and quickly departed.
Naturally. These were the slums.
Everyone is focused on living for themselves, unable to spare the time to lend others a hand.
“Ellen?”
My mother gently calling my name returned me to reality.
“Did you see something?”, she asked, placing a bucket of water down on the floor.
Perhaps she’d noticed how I looked outside with more of a gleam in my eye than usual.
I nodded slightly and opened my mouth.
“A cat…”
A voice more worn than I was expecting came out.
I coughed slightly, then continued.
“I saw this dark black cat catch a mouse.”
“Ah,” she smiled. Her loosely-wound light brown hair swayed above her collarbone.
She dipped a cloth in the bucket of water and wrung it out. She neatly folded it, then put a hand on the blanket.
“I’ll change your bandages.”
As soon as I nodded, she pulled the blanket up to my knees.
I had bandages wrapped around both my calves. There were faint splotches of red in places.
When she removed the bandages, the cracked skin discolored an awful red became evident. Mother began wiping it with expert hands.
I tried to tell her about how quickly, how elegantly the cat had caught the mouse. But as it truly had been over in mere moments, I soon ran out of things to say.
While I kept silent, mother finished wrapping my bandages and pulled the blanket back up.
She looked at my head, and as if only just noticing, said “Oh, your ribbon’s slipping.”
She reached for it. Not that I would know myself if it was slipping or not.
She smiled and gestured for me to look the other way. I obliged, turning my body toward the window.
She untied my red ribbon and began to slowly comb my long, light-purple hair. Carefully, so it wouldn’t touch the bandages on my face.
I knew not to move a muscle. I waited for her to run the comb through the entirety of my waist-length hair, from top to bottom.
It was almost like she was playing with a doll.
Every time her arms moved, a sweet scent grazed my nose.
My mother always carried an aroma like sweet confections. I would expect it was because it was her job to make such things.
She always replaced my bandages around evening. Which was roughly the time she came home. I liked the combination of her sweet smell and the slightly chilly air that set in as the sun set.
Time pa.s.sed slowly.
I closed my eyes in comfort.
Just then, mother whispered.
“I’m sorry I can’t let you play outside.”
My eyes flew open.
A small electric current ran through my head. It was a sort of signal, warning me of danger, that rendered me immobile.
I had to choose the right words at times like these. The gears in my head turned to find an answer. All this in only a moment.
I replied as cheerfully as I could muster.
“It’s fine. I like playing inside the house, you know?”, I said, looking toward my mother.
She smiled and combed my hair as if nothing had happened. Once I’d confirmed her smile, I awkwardly brought a smile to my lips.
I was born sickly.
But that isn’t to say I was always confined to this dark room from birth. I couldn’t see the sky from this window, yet I knew the blueness of the sky and the smell of the gra.s.s. When I was younger, I had played outside.
Since birth, the skin on my face and legs was inflamed. There was something wrong with my joints, so it hurt even to walk.
No one knew why. Much less how to cure it. There were no decent doctors around here, nor did we have money to spend.
I recalled what the fortune teller had told us.
“This girl’s sickness is to be blamed on the wrongdoing of her ancestors. She will suffer for eternity.”
My mother shouted something, and took me by the hand out of the fortune teller’s. As we went through the alleys, her face was so pale that it seemed she was about to faint.
Ultimately, all mother could do for me was protect my skin with bandages and have me drink medicine.
I didn’t know what it meant. At the time, I was just a child, who just wanted to play outside. There was pain in my legs, but not enough that I couldn’t walk. My mother had allowed me to go out and play as I wished.
I could hide the bandages on my legs with a skirt, but not those on my face. Every time I moved or scratched my face, the putrid skin like crushed earthworms was plain to see through the gaps in the bandages.
Children my age found me repulsive. It wasn’t a contagious illness, yet parents feared me and would not let their children near.
Some would see me and whisper at a distance. I feigned ignorance and played alone, sniffling slightly. Yet it was still better than being in a gloomy room.
When I tired of playing, I’d return home.
I’d lie down, leaving my dirty clothes and bandages as they were, and wait for mother to return.
One day, she returned from work like usual. “Did you have fun?”, she asked, reaching for my dirty clothes.
I saw her hand.
I don’t know why, but I was overcome with unease, and every pore seemed to sweat cold.
…Were mother’s hands always so rough?
I couldn’t open my mouth to ask. Just imagining asking made my legs buckle. I felt I heard a whisper - “It’s your fault.” I trembled.
I couldn’t definitively say the roughness of her hands was entirely due to her attending to me. But there was no doubt it had an effect on her life.
At this rate, my mother would surely someday abandon me.
That was the hunch I had.
You can only be kind to people when you can afford to.
My mother said nothing. And yet without words, I saw her tightly-pursed lips blaming me, and was frightened.
No. I don’t want to be abandoned.
It screamed through my body.
I believe that was when those signals started to fly in my head.
Starting the next day, I stopped going to play outside. I just obediently waited in bed for mother to return from work. I would get itchy, but refrained from scratching. I wanted to keep the time she spent tending to me to a minimum.
She thought it odd to see me do this, but only at first. Soon enough, she stopped paying it any mind.
In fact, she seemed to become kinder than usual. Perhaps only my imagination, but it didn’t matter. I was much, much more terrified of losing my mother’s love than of not being able to play outside.
By the time I turned seven, I was a prisoner.
I had chosen the foolish path of a prisoner, bound by the chains of bandages, given only the food of my mother’s love.
“There we go.”
Mother adjusted my ribbon and held up a hand mirror.
I saw in the reflection a skinny girl with face wrapped up in bandages. Light purple hair decorated with a red ribbon. Beside me, a woman with rustling light brown hair, quietly smiling.
She hugged me from behind, and gently swung my body like a cradle.
“My dear Ellen…”
I was put at ease in my mother’s sweet aroma. I grabbed her thin arms and closed my eyes.
My mother. Mother who had loved me.
I loved her as well.
To be abandoned by my mother would be the same as death.
Because she was the only one who loved me.
If she wasn’t smiling, then neither could I. If she wasn’t loving me, I couldn’t breathe.
Like such a weakling desperate to have something to hold on to, I clung to my mother’s love.
Because these were the slums.
Just like everyone here was desperate to live, I was desperate to have her love.
“…Dammit! You gotta be s.h.i.ttin’ me!”
The sound of the front door violently opening told me that father had come home.
Mother and I parted in surprise. Or rather, it was she who immediately let go.
She held my hand, and the slight shaking of her own told me her nervousness.
It was a small house, so the entryway and where I slept were nearly connected. There was a big table in the middle of the room; father sat and slammed a bottle he was carrying down on it.
I didn’t know what kind of job my father had. I recall he came home later than mother.
His short hair and worn clothes were always dirty with soil or whatnot.
“Gonna have to take out another loan…”
He muttered something. I knew that he wasn’t talking to himself, but directing it at mother.
She talked to him questioningly.
“What about the union?”
Father just shook his head.
“Not gonna happen, they won’t talk. And they knew we got nowhere else to go, so - dammit!”
As if angered by the memory, he kicked a nearby bucket.
Mother squeezed my hand tightly.
Time pa.s.sed awkwardly. The tick, tick of the clock echoed through the room.
Father let out a big sigh, and his gaze wandered. He looked past my downturned mother into my eyes.
I was startled, and opened my mouth to say something. But in a moment, he looked away with annoyance, taking a swig of the drink he had with him.
My heart sank deep.
It was always this way.
My father didn’t look at me.
He treated me like I didn’t even exist.
He never said he loved me and hugged me, but he never said he hated me and scolded me. There was no doubt he was consciously aware of me. In fact, it seemed he did all he could to keep me out of his vision entirely.
I once asked my mother, “Does father hate me?” She solemnly shook her head no. “Certainly not. Your father works for you, Ellen.”
“Then why won’t he talk to me?” She laughed a little and said, “He’s just shy.”
I wanted to believe her. I wanted to think that my father loved me.
And when I hoped that his glances at me had meaning, I generally found myself disappointed.
My father never said my name.
He only said my mother’s.
At length, he rose from the chair and approached.
His target wasn’t me. It was mother.
He roughly pulled her by the hand. My hand and hers were separated, like we were lovers torn asunder.
Father dragged her into the other room - the only other room - and closed the door. Afterward, I heard the sound of a lock from inside.
And then I was left alone.
I heard a clamor through the wall. The noises became quiet, then changed to speaking voices.
This was the usual.
They would always talk where I couldn’t see them.
I didn’t know what they were doing. But I felt like it was something necessary for relationships between a man and a woman.
I once asked my mother when she exited, “What were you doing?” She just worriedly laughed.
At these times, I could smell something distinct from her sweet confection smell from around the back of her neck. I supposed it might have been father’s smell.
While they were talking, I wasted time pointlessly looking outside and scratching away the labels on medicine bottles.
I wanted to say that I had been given some time to be free.
In truth, I was being left behind. But it made me sad to think about that.
When I got bored of scratching labels, I reached for an old doll I kept underneath my bed.
It was a doll of a blonde-haired girl. She wore a purple dress and a hat, not to mention an eerie smile.
Mother had given it to me, saying “There weren’t any dolls with hair like yours, Ellen. But her clothes are the same color as your hair!”
I accepted it, feigning happiness. I didn’t care what color the doll’s hair was. After all, I didn’t exactly like my own hair.
My hair was the same faint purple as my father’s. But I would have liked it to be light brown like mother’s. Maybe then, if I had hair like hers, father might deign to look at me.
I brushed the doll’s hair with my hand. The golden yarn was all knotted up, making it tricky for my fingers to pa.s.s through.
I grew annoyed. I pushed my way through to force the knots out. The doll’s inorganic eyes seemed to speak to me.
…“That hurts.”
Shut up. It can’t hurt. You’re a doll.
…“And aren’t you a doll yourself?”
I was no doll.
I denied it, deep in my heart, but recalled myself as mother combed my hair.
I was perfectly still, letting her do as she liked. I just sat waiting for her to move the comb from top to bottom.
Am I a doll?
…“You are.”
Wrong.
I continued to pull away the knots in the yarn.
My eyes aren’t dead like yours. My eyes can see all sorts of things, all sorts of places.
Heeheehee.
The doll giggled, its neck turned in an odd direction, and its face the same as ever.
…“Places like that back alley? And what else?”
I felt the blood rise to my face.
I immediately threw the doll. It hit a wall and landed on a pile of clothes on the floor.
I hid my head under the covers, not wanting to hear anything.
I hated being alone. It made me think too much. It made me hear too much.
I prayed for mother to come to my side soon, and shut my eyes tight. I wasn’t cold, but my body shivered. Soon enough, I fell asleep.
When I came to, mother was stroking my cheek with the palm of her hand. Her expression was hollow, but when she saw me, she smiled.
“You’re awake?”
I silently nodded.
Just looking at her face calmed me.
“I’ll bring you some water.”
She stood up from the chair and went to the sink.
Come to think of it, it was medicine time.
I looked out the window. Night had yet to fall. It must not have been too long that I was asleep. I stared off into s.p.a.ce as I thought, still drowsy from my nap.
My eyes casually followed my mother’s back.
I wonder why? It looked to me less like she was working for my sake, and more like she was fleeing from something.
But from what?
I saw past the door of the other room. Father, who was surely still there, wouldn’t drag my mother by the hand again.
Finally, my mother returned with a cup of water and a powder medicine. I slowly sat up in bed and took them.
Then, when I absentmindedly looked at mother’s face, I was taken aback.
I caught my breath, as if I’d realized a staggering fact.
My mother looked incredibly beautiful.
It wasn’t the structure of her face. Her hair was a mess, and she scarcely wore any makeup. She just feebly smiled.
But her lower lip was red from being chewed too much, and that red felt like the only color in this dark room.
Her downcast eyelashes sometimes shook with remembrance. Her gaze, breathing, clasped hands, they all seemed to have significance.
This woman is alive, I felt.
I gulped down the medicine. But it didn’t taste bitter. My stomach had long become accustomed to bitter things.
Yet the water in the bottom of my stomach became like a writhing snake, and tried to escape out my throat.
“…Mother!”
I was going to scream, but instead called for her.
My voice trembled. I was about to cry any second.
As mother must have seen it, I was a child worried for her. She held my hand and gently hugged me.
Unable to express the feelings I had just realized, I desperately clung to her body.
Was I unable to express them? I don’t know why I thought so. To be exact, I wanted to pretend I couldn’t.
Even wrapped in mother’s aroma, the blackness in my chest didn’t go away. In fact, it only seemed to deepen.
I was fl.u.s.tered by this feeling I’d never felt before.
This thing born in my chest.
It was hatred.
I loathed her. My mother who made me feel that she was alive. My mother who continued to accept love from a father who wouldn’t give any to me.
I was confused to feel such a brutal emotion.
How could I hate my mother, who was so kind and adoring? I sternly admonished myself.
To do away with the bitter thoughts, I clung tighter to her arm.
Even if mother is the only one who seems to have color, that’s fine.
As she embraces me like this, she’s coloring me, too.
I am Ellen. Mother’s beloved daughter. I don’t need anything but that.
I desperately convinced myself that.
And yet still, hatred coiled around my leg, trying to drag me into the depths of the sea.
It even came up to my ears to whisper, so that I’d notice it.
“Do you really?”
I resisted the urge to scream, and pressed my face into mother’s chest.
2
There was something amiss that afternoon.
I saw a dark ma.s.s in the usual back alley. It looked like a black piece of cloth, or something covered in black paint.
I had a bad feeling.
In the back of my mind came the image of the beautiful black cat who caught the mouse. Perhaps it was that black cat’s corpse.
I became unable to see it as anything but a cat then, and I was unable to calm down.
Finding it unbearable, I got off the bed. Putting all my weight on my legs made me cower with intense pain. The pain in my legs shot up to my head, and tears formed in my eyes.
It hurt. But not enough that I couldn’t walk.
Supporting myself with the nearby chair, I staggered to my feet.
I took a look around the room, but my shoes were nowhere to be seen.
They must have been put away. Mother figured I would never need to leave, after all. I had wanted it myself, but it still made me a little sad.
I went outside barefoot.
The sun shone down on me, almost directly overhead. The bright rays hurt my eyes.
Hand along the walls of the house, I proceeded to the back alley.
I saw the black shape at once. As I approached, it became increasingly evident it was a cat.
As I thought, it was a black cat’s corpse.
The cat lay on her side on the pavement. One of her eyeb.a.l.l.s had popped out like an overturned bowl, and above the other, her skull was cracked and b.l.o.o.d.y.
I stopped a few steps away from the cat, repunged.
I looked at her, dumbfounded by the difference from when I first saw her. I couldn’t run, but neither could I get any nearer.
I was reminded of the stunning sight of her catching the mouse.
Why, and how had this happened?
Was she run over by a wagon? Or was she knocked from a high-up place to the ground?
How could such a lively creature be reduced to this awful state?
I was saddened.
I didn’t so much hate whoever had done this to her. It was this town, which forced you to accept that these things just happen, which I hated.
I heard a crow above me caw. I looked up and saw it up on a tall fence, stretching its wings. It was after her flesh.
…You think I’ll let you?
I approached the black cat. I felt like I couldn’t leave her like this. I lifted her up in both arms, to protect her.
She was light. And stiff. The cat’s body had stiffened into the position I saw her lying on the ground in.
The eyeball sticking out made it almost comically evident she would live no more, yet when I touched her… It was like she was a thing. An object. It was then I learned how when creatures die, they become mere things.
I’ll return you to the earth, I vowed, carrying the thing that was once a cat.
The surrounding area was all paved. No place to bury a cat. But there should be a park with soil nearby. Relying on memories from infancy, I walked in search of a park.
Every step I took, there was stabbing pain in my bones. And as I was walking around the pebble-covered ground barefoot, I wasn’t sure how much of it was my legs themselves. I bit my lip and desperately walked.
Finally, I entered the park.
There was a large tree in the center. Its leaves were green and full of life; it felt entirely out of place in this town.
There was no play equipment worthy of calling it a park, only an empty expanse, the tree, and a bench.
An old woman dressed in rags sat on the bench, fiddling with her purse. When she noticed me, she took a look, then disinterestedly looked back at her purse.
I entered the shade of the tree. Soil extended out from the base, as if encircling it.
It looked to be a flower bed. But the flowers had all wilted, and it smelled of rotten trash. It was clearly not well attended to.
I found a spot where nothing seemed to be buried and crouched down.
I put down the cat and dug the ground.
The soil was surprisingly soft. It had a pleasant cool touch. I dug like I’d become a mole.
My arms were free.
My arms were free.
They showed few symptoms of the illness. I was grateful I could move them both freely.
Sweat ran over my bandages, making them start to slip. I rubbed my nose, getting dirt on my face. I roughly wiped it with my sleeve, messing up the bandages further.
When sweat touched the inflamed skin, it stung. I clenched my teeth and endured the pain, continuing to dig.
Once I’d dug a deep enough hole, I took a long breath.
I placed the black cat inside and carefully filled the hole.
Finally, I put my hands together and closed my eyes. I didn’t know the meaning of it, but I knew that you were supposed to do this gesture for dead… “things.”
I didn’t hear the crow cawing anymore.
I stood up to go back home. In mere seconds, I couldn’t move out of dizziness. I forcefully blinked, and managed to start walking.
I was struck with sudden fatigue as soon as I exited the shade of the tree. I felt like an entire day had pa.s.sed. Yet the sun was still high in the sky, still scorching the pavement before me.
My entire body hurt, but I was greatly satisfied.
…Now, the black cat can return to the earth.
Of course, I didn’t think that was what she wanted, to return to the earth. It was my own selfishness. I just didn’t want to see her, that once-lively creature, lying in a cold back alley, pecked at by crows, stepped on by people.
As I walked, my mouth forming a slight smile, I pa.s.sed by a middle-aged woman who gave me a strange look.
I hurried to straighten my lips. But thinking back on it, she wasn’t questioning my expression, but my appearance.
I stopped and looked myself over.
My bandages were frayed, my clothes covered with strange stains from mixing blood and dirt. Both hands were all black. I looked like a child who’d escaped from a hospital and played in mud.
What would mother say?
I shivered imagining it.
I hurried home.
Suddenly, it felt like such a long distance away.
I had to get home before mother did. I had to change clothes, wash my hands and feet, and change my bandages. I had to be a child who didn’t take a lot of effort.
I had completely forgotten that I was a prisoner. To have my mother’s love, I had chosen to become a creature forever stuck to her bed. How could I have forgotten that? I was in a cold sweat.
Finally, I arrived home.
There was plenty of time before the sun set. I opened the front door feeling relieved, then hardened in place.
I felt like I heard the sound of the afternoon sunlight congealing.
Mother was there.
She was sitting in a chair, staring off into s.p.a.ce.
I immediately looked at the clock.
It wasn’t time for her to be home. Why?
Suddenly, I smelled something sweet. There was a basket of pastries on the table.
That’s right. From time to time, very rarely, mother would get off work early and bring home some pastries.
…But why did it have to be today?
Noticing the front door a few seconds later, she slowly looked toward me.
It took some time before her lips opened and she spoke.
“Ellen… Where did you go?”
I hadn’t seen her face look so emaciated in a long time. Something cold ran down my back.
“I b-b… buried a cat.”
“A cat?” She raised an eyebrow.
No. No, don’t look at me like that.
I resisted the urge to cry and made a desperate smile.
“Yeah, a black cat died… so I went to bury it. …I-I’m so sorry. For going outside. B-But, I, I can walk. It hurts, but I can bear it. I can walk on my own, so, so I can do a lot of things on my own now, or help out…”
I despaired as I spoke.
Because mother just stared at me with the same expression.
Hollow eyes. Fixed gaze. She was looking at my muddy clothes. My dirty soil-stained fingers. My b.l.o.o.d.y legs.
Mother looked at me as - as not Ellen, but a sickly child who would waste her time.
I realized I had done something there would be no taking back.
But even knowing her mood, I desperately spun words. The signals kept flying in my head. Next word. Next word. Make sure to pick the right word.
But I knew none of them would have any effect. And yet my mouth would not stop moving.
Mother loved me.
But that love was kept afloat by a delicate balance. A home with nothing to spare, expensive medicines, the effort of replacing bandages.
I had just destroyed that balance.
I cursed that black cat.
No amount of respect for the dead could stop my hatred.
Why did you die today? Why did you die where I could see you?
It was undoubtedly me who had wanted to bury her. But my foolish brain couldn’t help wanting to blame it on something else.
Finally, mother got out of the chair. She prepared a bucket of water and began washing my hands.
She wasn’t rough about it in the least. It was as meticulous as ever.
I looked at her in desperation. She was smiling.
But I saw no trace of the mother who had said she loved me.
Signals continued to fly in my head. But like a broken clock which can only spin its hands, I could come up with nothing.
I realized I had done something there would be no taking back.
And as if to immediately prove the validity of that hunch,
mother stopped coming home.
3
Father was the one most disturbed by my mother’s absence.
Someone from mother’s work came by the house, and father just shouted and cried, refusing to talk. The coworker ended up pacifying father instead, then left.
Father, crumpled on the ground in tears as if praying to G.o.d, seemed like he wouldn’t even allow me time to mourn.
Her disappearance had been very sudden.
She left no letter, said nothing, left all her belongings. She didn’t take so much as a hair clip from the house.
I wasn’t “sad,” but rather, part of my body was consumed with a sense of emptiness.
…Surely, one would call this feeling despair.
My throat was dry, and I couldn’t sleep. I had no energy to get up, or to eat anything.
But as this went on for two or three days, I considered something.
Maybe mother was just a little tired.
Maybe she just needed a break from her exhausting life with me.
Once she got some rest, she’d remember me and father who she’d deserted and hurry back home.
Because I was her dear Ellen. Because surely, I was too precious to leave behind.
That dim idea gradually became a conviction, calming me. Imagining mother coming home, I could sleep peacefully.
Of course mother will return. She’ll regret ever leaving, apologize, and hug me. And wrapped up in her aroma, I would smile and forgive my mother.
That’s right.
I pulled away the blanket and got out of bed.
For that, I would have to be a non-time-consuming child.
For several days, I changed my own bandages, as I’d been neglecting to do. I even endured the pain in my legs to pump water. Copying what I’d seen, I prepared my own meals.
I imagined the best child mother could want, and would accept, and began to play that role.
Though father and I lived together, we still never said a word to each other. He would talk to objects, but he never talked to me. Perhaps he found it eerie how I didn’t cry and took it calmly.
Perhaps I should have cried like a child, and said selfish things.
But I couldn’t do that then.
Too used to the situation between father and I, I couldn’t break the silence myself. I was immobilized by fear that if I used tears to have his concern, I would be increasingly ignored.
Having already made my mistake, I was terribly timid.
Father was constantly at home. Perhaps he had been fired from his job.
Soon, a man I didn’t know came to visit him.
Father received something from the man and paid him money. Once he had it in hand, he seemed restless and went into the other room, and would not come out for a while.
As this kept happening, father came out of the room less and less.
The sweet smell wafting from the other room seemed to get stronger by the day.
I earnestly waited for mother’s return.
I fell asleep imagining her coming home, and woke up praying that she would be stroking my cheek.
Sometimes I would wake up thinking she was there, but it was only the wind on my cheek.
The doll which I’d thrown to the wall tilted her head and looked at me.
I felt a chill. Before I could hear her laughing, I dove under the covers and covered my ears.
Once I started pumping my own water, it seemed to make my legs worse.
My hands became rough like I saw mother’s hands.
I wasn’t able to tie my hair very well.
We only had a few bandages and medicines left.
…Eventually, father stopped coming out of the room.
4
It was in the dead of night.
I woke up feeling thirsty.
I headed for the sink with an unsteady gait. Lit faintly by the moon through the window, my room was a pale white.
Trembling from the cold, I pumped out some water, scooped it with my hands, and drank.
Thinking I should bring some bandages while I was at it, I opened a dresser drawer. I was surprised by its lightness, and found there were only two or three rolls left.
In fact, the medicine I drank this morning was the last as well.
What would happen if I didn’t drink my medicine? I remembered mother saying, “If you don’t drink this, it’ll get worse.” Was it just an excuse to get me to drink the bitter medicine? Or maybe because it really had been getting worse.
…I didn’t want to think about it.
I shivered, and not from the cold.
I was suffering quite enough already. Even if it got worse, things couldn’t change all that much.
I was utterly exhausted.
I started to walk back to bed.
On the way, I stumbled into a wall and dropped the bandages. They rolled off toward the entryway.
As I went after them, suddenly, I noticed a faint light near the front door.
…It couldn’t be.
My heart beat fast with hope.
My eyes and legs naturally turned toward the source of the light.
“Mother…?”
I felt like it had been so long since I’d heard my own voice.
I saw the shadow just as I spoke.
Mother stood at the door. She looked at me with much surprise. A lamp on a low table vaguely illuminated the scene.
You came back?
I couldn’t voice the question.
I should have been overjoyed and hugging her, but I couldn’t move my feet.
Why?
It was the woman I saw before me who caused me to do so.
Mother’s appearance was much more orderly, like she was a different person. Her formerly unkempt hair was neatly tied up with a barrette, and she wore an unfamiliar scarf around her neck.
With a large bag by her feet, she looked just as if she were getting ready to go out.
“Are you… going somewhere?”, I plainly asked.
I wasn’t pressing her for information, nor trying to make her uneasy. It was just a question that came to mind.
Mother’s expression darkened. After some hesitation, she gestured to come closer, so I ran over and hugged her.
My skinny legs hurt. But wrapped up in mother’s smell, I could forget the pain right away.
“Ellen…”
Mother hugged me. I could feel her trembling. She cried without making a sound.
Was she sad? If not, why? I didn’t know.
But I found myself sad as well, and held mother tighter.
“I’m sorry, Ellen…”
Sorry?
In my imagination, I forgave my apologizing mother again and again. But now, I felt like she was apologizing for a different reason.
I looked at her like I didn’t understand. She averted her eyes, unable to look directly at me.
The moment I saw it, my chest tightened.
Suddenly, I started to view the situation I was in objectively.
My mother hadn’t been coming home. She was dressed orderly. She had a large bag. And she came in the middle of night when father would be sleeping -
I dropped my gaze.
Mother was wearing pretty shoes.
White shoes I’d never seen before. Father wasn’t the kind of person who would buy these. We would never have enough money to spare for such expensive shoes.
So someone besides father had bought her these shoes. And whoever it was, mother planned to leave the house with them.
I didn’t want to understand.
My body screamed. But I could come up with no answer for the situation.
Mother -
Mother meant to abandon me.
Mother’s scent, which had given me such comfort, rapidly became something detestable.
The mist like white milk cleared, and I noticed the night air brushed my skin. The sadness in me had vanished.
The flame of the lamp wavered in the corner of my vision.
Beside it, there was a small knife used for crafts.
“Get along with father, won’t you?”
I doubted my ears.
What nonsense was this woman saying? I looked at her skeptically.
Father saw nothing but you, mother.
Don’t you know how much he loved you?
Don’t you know how much father doesn’t love me?
Does this woman really think father and I can get along?
Even though he wants you so much, and loves you so much,
are you going to just give up on accepting his love?
And -
you’re going to give up on loving me too, aren’t you?
Mother slowly parted from me and elegantly wiped her tears. She had the face of a caring mother.
But I gazed at her like she was a woman I never knew.
“Be well, Ellen.”
She picked up her bag and turned to leave.
“Mother.”
I stopped her at once. There was no emotion in it; in fact, it felt like someone else was saying that word.
She put her hand on the front door and hesitated for a few moments. She looked back with a face full of affection.
I hung my head, and muttered something in a voice mother couldn’t hear.
She squatted down to hear me.
Then -
I stabbed her in the throat.
With the little knife nearby.
Red blood spurted out. The woman tried to scream. I didn’t stop. I kept attacking her neck. Relentlessly. Again and again. At every possible angle. The woman collapsed. I shifted my grip to hold the knife underhand. I came down upon her. I bathed in the bloodspray.
I knew that the neck was weak.
Because the cat had attacked the mouse’s neck, and rendered it immobile.
My arms were free.
My arms were free.
I was reminded of the black cat. The beautiful black cat that caught the mouse. Her weapon was her fangs. I thought I had no such weapon. That wasn’t so. My weapon was always so close at hand.
If you won’t love me, I don’t need you.
If you’re loved, but you won’t accept it, I’ll never forgive you.
I admitted it. I admitted I hated mother. And that I was jealous of her, as a woman myself, for being loved by father.
But if only mother could have kept loving me, it would have kept a lid on that hatred.
I could have loved her then.
I let go of my mother’s love. From the thing I had desperately clung to.
As I swallowed her warm blood, I realized.
I could breathe. And yet I had convinced myself that if I let go, I wouldn’t be able to.
In the depths of a sea of blood, I held my knee and sobbed.
That was the real me.
I was the same as the people in the back alley. I avoided looking at the things I didn’t want to see. I wanted to feign ignorance. It certainly existed, but all I did was acknowledge it was there.
When I raised my tear-stained face and smiled, a hand reached for me. I took her hand. Just then, the hand became a b.l.o.o.d.y knife, and I was standing in the entryway.
The woman before me sat against the door and spoke no longer.
I couldn’t move my limbs, and I felt a bubble in my throat.
I felt disgusting. I felt alive. Living shouldn’t have felt this dirty.
I had learned from the mouse who had promptly gone limp. But still, had my method been wrong? …Tell me, black cat.
Still gripping the knife tightly, I sat down on the floor.
Breaths came from the pit of my stomach. My whole body was hot with pain and fatigue, yet my head alone was peaceful.
The woman, who was my mother, was now a ma.s.s that emitted an awful odor.
Dirty.
The sight incited no particular emotion.
I looked at her feet.
The white shoes were now completely red with blood.
I gently picked up one of the shoes between my fingers and gazed at it. I would have to inform the man who bought the shoes. “I’m sorry, but you can’t go together anymore.”
A drop of blood dripped off the end of the shoe like a tear -
Clatter.
It came from behind. I heard a door opening from the back of the room.
I turned only my head around.
Father.
He slowly emerged from the room, looking at me.
The shoe slipped out of my fingers and fell to the floor.
What made my hand slip wasn’t haste, regret, or fear.
…It was a feeling of exaltation.
A smile flowed from my mouth. I almost yelped in delight. But I stayed my beating heart to do it. To stand up and move, so father had a good view of mother’s corpse.
Father’s eyes wavered. He pointed to the corpse with one hand and approached. The light from the lamp clearly illuminated his emaciated body. He was like a worn husk.
His sunken eyes had a strange glow as he looked at the blood-soaked woman’s face.
I was excited.
Because he might shout “Did you do this?!” Because he might raise his hand and hit me.
Because finally, I might have father’s attention.
Father powerlessly kneeled beside the corpse. He held the woman’s chin with a shaking hand. Once he confirmed the face, he hugged the body and began to cry like a beast.
It briefly surprised me, but he quickly turned to quieter sobbing and moaning.
I made an effort to be calm as I whispered,
“I did this.”
I told him.
I tried to hide how much I enjoyed it.
“I did this, father.”
I trembled saying the last word. I had called out that word “father” countless times in dreams, but never before had I actually said it. I was almost moved to tears.
Father looked up briefly, but his wet eyes did not look at me. They returned again to the woman’s corpse.
I had a bad feeling.
My heart had beat with expectation, but my chest filled with something else.
Father kept calling the woman’s name. As if to show my unrest, the flame of the lamp wavered.
“It was me! I did this!”
I spread out my arms. A speck of blood flew off. In my wounded right hand, there was still the knife I tightly gripped. My weapon.
But father only continued to cry, and didn’t move an inch.
My face went pale.
“Father.”
My shouting had become crying.
No matter how much I called at him, he wouldn’t even look at me.
…Why?
Why won’t you look at me? Why that woman?
Why - why must you keep proving how you don’t love me?
“Stop.”
Stop. Don’t look at her. I don’t want to see this.
As father’s wailing grew louder, my despair increased. There was noise welling in my ears.
My teeth clattered.
My whole body shook, and I screamed
“STOP!!”
And I swung the knife down to draw the curtain on the h.e.l.lish scene.
5
I stood in a daze.
My right arm was heavy, as if taken by a demonic spirit. Blood - who knows whose - dripped off the end of the knife, making stains on the floor.
Father collapsed on top of mother. I saw the two overlapping corpses as leaving no room for me to come between, and it irritated me.
He clung onto mother to his last moments.
Father saw nothing but mother. A life without her was too painful for him. Right. So this is for the best.
I slowly backed away. Then I noticed that the door to the other room remained half-open.
Father’s room. To be exact, father and the woman who was once mother’s room.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the crack in the door. My heart beat fast, yet steady.
There was a sweet scent unlike mother’s coming from the room. As if being pushed from behind, I opened the door with my knife-holding hand and stepped inside.
All I could hear was the creaking of the door. The room was filled with the sweet scent. Enough to make you choke.
It was very dark inside.
There was a single bed along the far wall. A candle on a table cast an unreliable light on the interior of the cramped room.
On the table were plates and bowls, as well as a thin cylindrical object. Smoke fumed out of one end, and I knew that it was a smoking pipe.
Father’s, I suppose.
This was where the sweet scent came from.
I sluggishly walked to the bed. Things were scattered all over the floor, so I could trip if I wasn’t careful.
I reached the bed and sat down. It was harder than my bed, and uncomfortable to sit on. Did they give the good bed to me? Thinking that made it hard to breathe.
I couldn’t know for sure anymore.
I gazed at the smoke from the pipe. Soon, I felt like I saw a vision through the smoke. A smiling father, mother, and me. We looked like a happy family.
Ahh…
I sniffled.
Why did this have to happen?
The illusion of the happy family vanished, and I became aware of the two corpses in the entryway, and the knife I held in my lap.
Why did it end up like this?
I just wanted to be loved.
I wanted to love them.
But n.o.body loved me.
My eyes hurt. Perhaps the smoke was seeping into them. Every time I blinked, my vision seemed to get blurrier.
n.o.body loved me.
Why?
…Because I was sick?
I touched the bandages on my face, a mess of sweat, tears, sprayed blood. As if checking something, I touched my cracked skin.
“Uuugh…”
I scratched my reptile-like sore skin. It hurt. Yet as if possessed, I kept scratching.
Because I was sick - because of this -
n.o.body loved me. Everyone ran from me.
Father didn’t look at me.
Mother abandoned me.
What am I?
Ellen. That’s my name. But what is Ellen?
An awful, ugly, sick child? A doll who just stares at back alleys? A girl, who will never, ever be loved?
“AaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”
Unable to stop with just my face, I started tearing at my hair. My hair went in my mouth, becoming covered in drool. It hurt. It hurt. But my heart screamed louder.
Just then, I heard a window clatter open, and I returned to my senses.
A strong wind blew in from the window. Just then, the lit pipe fell off the table and started to scorch a piece of cloth on the floor.
A few seconds later, my brain reacted. It was going to cause a fire. I hurried to my feet.
…It has to vanish.
Suddenly, my thoughts stopped.
Vanish?
Why?
…There’s nothing left in this house, is there?
I backed away from the fire, spreading and burning hotter, then sped out of the house.
In a back alley in the dead of night.
I was quickly short of breath, and couldn’t even run more than two houses away.
My bare feet struck the chilly pavement.
They were dyed red with my blood, and the blood of others. Surely, I was leaving footprints. Perhaps I had been born wearing red shoes. I walked as I thought.
The knife I gripped melted into the darkness and became a part of my body.
There were no streetlights in the slums. It was the middle of the night, so there wasn’t even any light from the houses.
All that illuminated me was dim moonlight. No one was around to blame me for my actions. Those who would judge me had put away the scales and slept.
On the way, I tripped and fell over in a place full of garbage.
There were piles of raw trash, sc.r.a.p metal, and other junk.
My chest and stomach hurt, and I lied down face-first. I had no energy to get myself back up, only turning my head aside.
I let out a cold white breath and was suddenly overcome with fatigue.
In my right hand, I still gripped the knife.
The dirty blade dully glowed, and my exhausted fingers trembled.
“Will you die?”
The knife seemed to ask me.
I feebly shook my head.
I can’t do that. Because you are my fangs. A cat can’t bite its throat with its own teeth, can it?
I closed my eyes.
What would I do now? I’ll wake up tomorrow, first of all. But what about the day after? Or the day after that?
Shivering in the cold, weeping from the pain in my legs, facing sleepless nights with an empty stomach, I would soon cease moving, no doubt.
And then perhaps someone would bury me.
Perhaps a kind hand would guide me to a bed in the soil.
I knew that wouldn’t happen.
I buried the black cat because she was a very small, frail creature. Because she was fleeting enough to carry in my arms.
And I knew the cat’s beautiful figure. I knew her beautiful way of life. So I wanted to embrace her.
In my case, who would even know me? Who would have watched me? And even if they were watching, who would think I’m beautiful?
No one would lend a hand for me. Even if someone did, I would foolishly turn it away.
I imagined myself in the place of that black cat in the alley.
Ah… Perhaps it does suit me after all.
I stopped thinking about it.
Just then -
“Yo.”
A sudden voice dragged me back to consciousness.
It sounded like a young boy, yet it had an oddly composed tone. I felt somehow stimulated and picked my body up.
I looked around for the owner of the voice, but saw no one.
“Over here, Ellen.”
The voice spoke my name as if we had long known each other.
I looked up toward it, and found a black cat sitting up on a crumbling fence. I didn’t know when it got there.
The moon floated just behind the cat, the same color as its eyes.
Naturally, I was reminded of the black cat I had buried. Its eyes were gold like hers.
But it was different. It wasn’t her. Because she was a “cat.”
The thing before me now was not a “cat.” Cats can’t speak like humans.
“You’re a real help. I was gonna die, I was so hungry.”
He licked his front paws with satisfaction. The movement was just like what a real cat would do.
I rubbed my eyes. It was no illusion.
“I…” I muttered absentmindedly.
“Did I give you something?”
Perhaps happy that I responded, the cat leapt as he spoke.
“Yep! To the tune of two tasty souls.”
I raised an eyebrow at his statement.
What did he just say? Souls?
“Yeah, humans are made up of souls and bodies. Didja know?”
I shook my head slightly.
The cat cleared its throat - “A-hem!” - and spoke.
“A human consists of a soul and a body. You can’t eat them while they’re alive. But when they die, you can suck the soul right out and eat it. They aren’t easy for us to come upon. That’s why we do this, having somebody kill ‘em so we can chow. Which you happened to do today, which sure saved my b.u.t.t! But if you weren’t there, I dunno what I’d do… Hey Ellen, what’s up?”
I stood up, my feet still trembling. My face was probably as pale as the night air.
“…You ate father?”
I didn’t know what these so-called souls were. But it seemed like it was something important to a person.
And he ate it?
I felt like the oddly-shaped creature before me had tainted my father. Oddly, the woman who was once my mother didn’t come to mind.
“Well, yeah, but…”
He showed the appearance of concern. But it was certainly only the appearance. He didn’t actually seem concerned.
“…Ellen. Yeah, it might seem selfish that we do whatever with stuff that’s out of reach for guys and gals like you. But even if I told you I didn’t eat "im, how’d you know for sure? And what does it matter to you if I ate him or not?”
The cat swung his long tail.
I couldn’t say anything back.
It was just as the cat said.
The black cat looked down on me in silence. His eyes had a coldness like a doll’s, and I was uneasy. I unconsciously looked away. My lips trembled from either cold or fear.
What exactly was I even talking to?
I sighed to push away the feeling of having no refuge.
I felt the pain in my legs coming back. My right arm ached with each beat of my heart. Thinking about how I was standing on cold hard pavement, I wanted to cry.
What was I going to do now?
I thought as I looked at the moon behind the black cat. The moon seemed to have turned an eerie red, as if a blood vessel were pa.s.sing by.
“So hey, I want to thank you.”
“Huh?”
The cat’s slightly high voice brought me back.
“Demons like us can get souls from kids like you. And then we can give them magic as thanks. I was thinkin’ I could give you a very special spell, Ellen.”
“…”
I raised an eyebrow, not bothered to do much more.
I didn’t even feel like speaking.
“Ellen, I’m giving you a house.”
…A house.
It made my eyes open just a little bit.
The black cat seemed to notice.
“You got nowhere to go back to, yeah? Can you keep living like this? You’ll just drag your rotten legs and die in this dirty ol’ town. Kinda sucks a bunch, huh? I don’t wanna see that for you. Come with me. I welcome ya.”
The cat’s words rang pleasantly in my ears, blooming a flower in my head. A place of warmth. That’s what my cold body wanted more than anything else right now…
“It’s a fire!”
Suddenly, I heard a scream.
I turned toward it and saw flames where my house had been.
The flames rose up, parting the clouds around, incapable of being stopped, burning away with a thunderous roar.
I watched the fire in amazement.
The house which there was no going back to.
The house that never loved me.
Father and mother’s faces came to mind. They were stained red in my memory, overlapping with the fire in the distance.
My eyes hurt, and not because of the smoke.
“How "bout it?”, the black cat asked.
I turned back to him.
I didn’t care about demon this, magic that. I just knew that if I said no, I would become a cold corpse in a back alley.
…I didn’t like the cold.
So I nodded.
It was a faint action, and probably only looked like I was lowering my head.
But the cat took it as acceptance, and my senses cut out like a string snapping.
People came and went, hurrying to the fire or watching it from a distance.
But no one noticed, off in a back alley, a girl and a black cat vanishing as if swallowed up by the darkness.