Mileva Anastasiadou
1. THE DISPATCHWhen You Get Lost, I’ll Be Your Map
On New Year’s Eve I am the villain in mom’s story. I wouldn’t mind the villain part in anybody else’s story, but this hurts big time, like a huge rock has landed on my chest. Mom whispers about me, about how evil I am and how she hates me. Dad looks my way, then stares back at mom, he nods and swallows a sip of wine. He doesn’t care, he’ll soon be gone after the clock strikes midnight. I pretend I don’t hear a word and head to the kitchen, to bring the roasted beef and pull myself together. Dad slowly stands up and follows me. I don’t want to but I fall into his arms. Hey, he says, you do well, but when I look up at him, I see doubt. There’s a rat inside her brain, he says, and I nod, there is a rat that feeds on memories and twists the plot.
I wonder why mom trusts dad more than she trusts me. I’ve been taking care of her for three years, since I left my husband and came back home, while dad left a year later, when he was certain I’d stay. Mom doesn’t remember what happened, she knows dad longer than she knows me, but I’ve known mom my whole life, she is the person who’d never fail me. Once we were family, but we are fragmented now, like mom’s mind is fragmented, like a jigsaw puzzle falling apart, parts missing one by one, the picture blurring until it makes no sense at all.
* * *
On New Year’s Eve I am the beast in mom’s story. She storms into the kitchen and pulls dad away from me. Don’t believe anything she says, she yells, and dad grabs her shoulders, but mom won’t calm down, she yells and shouts, she says I’m evil, and I yell too, mom, that’s enough, then she escapes dad’s arms, she heads my way, she tries to slap me but I catch her hand midway to my cheek, which makes her more furious, and dad comes between us, calm down, dear, he tells her gently, then turns my way, rolls his eyes, like I should have known better, but this is too much and I can’t handle it, I may have lost my patience for a minute, and now that’s all mom remembers of me, and I miss the time when she was my safe place, and she keeps yelling, she doesn’t stop, and I say, fine, I’m out of here, and dad laughs, like he knows better, he doesn’t talk, but his words are already in his eyes, he knows I’m trapped, that I belong here, after we’ve all abandoned each other, and the world has abandoned us, I’m stuck with mom, for she’s all I have, while mom shouts she wants me out, that I have mistreated her, like her mind is a train in full speed and this story is a run-on sentence.
Dad takes her out of the kitchen. She’s calm when I get back, like it all goes back to normal, like the story is made of small, structured sentences, normal pace, as if time isn’t running out. Dad puts on his coat, he says he has to leave, but what he means is, I expected more from you.
* * *
On New Year’s Eve, I am the werewolf in mom’s story. I shape-shift back to human, once the full moon hides behind the clouds. We watch TV for a while and we laugh. It’s nice to see there’s life outside the trap. She touches my chin gently, and she stands up and follows me when we head to the bedroom, but she doesn’t stop staring, like my eyes are her anchor, like they’re her map back to the world.
She’s calm now, like she knows something is wrong but the confusion doesn’t bother her, because we’re still in Chrimbo Limbo, the time between Christmas and New Year, the haziest season of all, when everything is still festive, but it is all fading, and the new year hasn’t yet begun, the last moments of the year feel like the darkness before the new dawning, a darkness you have no idea what to do with, so you celebrate it, you embrace the confusion, with the certainty that the a new dawn is about to come.
* * *
Mom falls asleep before I do. Her snoring sounds like a lullaby, a way for her to tell me, I’m there for you while I sleep, you’re safe. The rat eats her alive day by day, until there’s nothing left of her. At night I hear his tiny little teeth chewing her brain. Some parts of her that don’t taste good the rat spits out, and mom tries, she does her best to put them back together, piece by piece, to fill the gaps, sometimes it works, and then we’re winning, we beat the rat, disease, time, but mostly it doesn’t and we both know we will lose the war.
Mom cries in her sleep. Her fists clenched, she fights the rat, she can’t find peace, not even in dreams, that little monster won’t leave her alone. She shifts from growing old to falling apart, while I shift from growing up to growing old, broken, alone, and all she wants to know is if I’ll still love her when she’s but rat’s vomit and poo and she gets scared sometimes that I won’t. I sit beside her and hold her hand, in this trap, we are together, I say. We are exiled, deserted, but we are together, still breathing. That is the fate of all. We are all refugees, if not displaced in space, we are displaced in time, by time, forced to move forward, away from the past, our past. I want to wish her a happy new year, a new dawning awaits us, but I remain silent. I’ll be your map, I say instead.
2. BUREAU INVENTORYCoffee
Laptop
A tiny Christmas tree for inspiration
Books for inspiration
My glasses
3. BIOGRAPHYMileva Anastasiadou is a neurologist from Athens, Greece, and the author of WE FADE WITH TIME (Alien Buddha Press). A Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and Best Small Fictions nominated writer, her work can be found in many journals, such as Chestnut Review, New World Writing, HAD, Lost Balloon, and others.