Milk

2/10/22 - this is a follow up piece to Bone, a horror story I workshopped for ASAM173. I think Bone is a little too raw and abstract for me to share here, but Milk captures the same macabre imagery that I wanted to showcase in the first piece anyway

There is a wound that has festered in our home. Its pus has hidden itself in toothpaste, which we scrub against our gums every morning. 

At dinner, I have replaced your face with boiled eggs, your sharp mouth with beef tongue. We, a house of three now that you left, have become numbed to silence at the table. My son, your brother, never raises his eyes from a screen to greet mine. My husband, your father, picks at scabs on his face, old habit, and complains about my cooking, old habit. Your Wai-po prepared me well for this role amongst men; her death was the catalyst for the rest of my life. I stayed behind, leaving our family’s survival to your father, so that I could harbor you and your brother in our home. Because it is duty, and duty is the most steadfast form of love.

(Ma—)

When you were small enough to tuck under my arms, when you were young enough to still believe we could protect you, your father would say “I’m off to fight the wolves!” instead of “goodnight.” It was meant to make you feel safe. We would never let anything unsavory step inside. 

In Canada, when the frost would climb the windows of our old eggplant-purple room, I wonder what you saw out the windows, whether you conjured the wolves from our stories onto the snow. The world is treacherous, daughter, and I fear it would suckle you to the bone as it has so many others if we were to let you out.

Migraines have become my tithe to keep this house together. Ants and cockroaches now litter the corners, their dead bodies curled up and hard shelled on the floor. I have set iron grates on our windows, nailed boards across the doors, taped cabinets shut so the china would not break. You are familiar with this sight, yes? Hurricane procedure. (Ma—it’s cold—). I will light candles in our darkest corners and stash food in the freezer because there is nowhere safer than here. The only ones who can leave are me and your father; we can weather it.

A moan in the basement sends up a hot gust of air, and our floorboards rattle. The doors swing rapidly in their hinges, chattering amongst themselves. In a fluid moment, the ripple of wind ends, and stillness settles once more.

(Ma, I cannot stay here.)

We are your anchor. Let me circle the chains around your ankle—once, twice, thrice, a bind for each of us—so you may always find your way home. My one ask: keep this ship afloat. We have named you two accordingly: an oozing happiness and a red sail. In short, it is a purpose and a destiny, one to provide joy and one who will set out into the world. Do you not see that you got the better half of the deal? We have kept the lights on so you will not get lost.

A spot of black mold has crusted along our home’s foundations. Water damage has seeped into this house’s skeletal frame, and I am hip-elbow-deep weeding the spores from wood. 

Do you not hear the enemies at our door? I’m chopping fruit to drown out the sound of a knob shaking. Whoever is outside has a grip so fierce that I imagine, by pressing my entire weight into the cutting board, only I can fend them off. 

Bǎobèi, stay here.

(Ma—) Bǎobèi, please don’t move. Whoever is outside is now slamming their entire body against the wood. (—I hate—) The voice downstairs moans again. The kitchen, two rooms over: a chair rasps against the tile as if dragged.

A hand, all bone, grips me by the wrist so hard that I bruise. It is followed by a skull, only half-eaten by death as the smell of rotten flesh hits my nose, and it breathes out a hot gust of air right into my face, and it opens its twisted, terrible red wound of a mouth to croak in your voice: “Fuck, Ma, I don’t think you have ever tried to understand. We have left this unresolved for my young lifetime because you refuse to bridge the chasm between knowing and understanding. You know I feel suffocated here. You know it is an act of active murder to keep me here. I know you don’t get it, but do you really need to? I am so tired of fighting you. Rather than slamming the doors shut, I am choosing to slip away. “

The skull says, “Do you know what my dream is? That I can separate myself from this house and go where no one knows me. So that you can never find me.”

A brown iris, eye as plump as a grape, rolls loosely in its socket. “Do you know what makes it bearable? I imagine that I write a letter titled To the girl my mother once was, and in it I say, Mother, did you know you would be an echo of your parents? Mother, have you ever wanted anything for yourself? Mom, I am scared to become you; have you always wanted to be just this, just my ma? Ma, it’s too much for me to think you were someone before you were my mother. I’m sure you hate yourself in the same ways that I hate me.”

I wait to see if the house creaks, because that is how you know your father is listening for you to say the wrong thing, because his paranoia has only heightened with age (old habit), but there is only the moan from the basement.

“So ungrateful,” I hiss. “You’re so naive. How can you be so stupid? The world is not going to be so easy on you. Why don’t you just go and see for yourself, huh? You live so sheltered; you are not going to be prepared for the real world. Be grateful we never forced you to suffer.”

An expression of shock crosses that half-dead face. The grip loosens, and in the next moment, the apparition of all bones disappears.

Why did I say that? I am fearful and anxious that you will not survive once you leave. If I must be the one to strike that fear in you, to protect you, then I will. No one else loves you as much as I do. If I need to be the striking hand so as to prevent you from being eaten in this world, then it is my duty to be the first to show you pain.

I look around at the empty hallways around me. They go off in every direction, impossible and endless. The floor collapses into a stairway for me, and I descend. When I take that first step, the house plunges itself into darkness. The smell of decay, with the pungent odor of fermentation, eats at the inside of my nostrils. My candles have become the only sources of light.

I know the exact point when the catacombs begin. Each skull is polished, and hair, dark and silken, has been preserved perfectly on every one. Some still have eyes that follow my movement, attention caught by the flame. The further I walk, the yellower the bone.

At the end of the crypt, there is an urn. An empty canister of gasoline is nestled next to it alongside piles of pink skin. Plates of peeled grapefruit, my offerings. I am fascinated by the new skulls that emerge from this urn every night, like clockwork. And every time, I answer the same, until the words feel like muscle-memory to my lips. It seems that though each iteration reaffirms my belief in the rules of this world, I am befuddled by how it seems to have the opposite effect on you. 

I just want you to be safe. If that means keeping you, your mind, inside forever, then it is worth it. Please, Bǎobèi have some common sense. You are too different and that is dangerous. 

I stare as the body builds itself in front of me, part by part. It is quick work, and I see you standing before me, waiting with that usual side-eyed glare. Knowing what comes next, I look away before you can douse yourself in gasoline and set yourself on fire once more. You have always wanted to escape.

Quietly, I creep up the stairs again. The house floods with light as I emerge, and the floorboards smooth over. Briefly, the mold recedes and the furniture moves itself back into place. It is only when that precious body, made part of my own flesh, is burning that her ghost does not color this home. She, you, are the only one who can destroy the catacombs and yourself so thoroughly, because I will admit I do not and will never understand you.

As the house moves back into decay and I wait for my husband’s lumbering steps, I wonder if my Bǎobèi knows how proud I am.