An ad popped up as I was scrolling through a family-friendly site: Do you want a mommy? Check out these MILFs in your area!
Do I want a mommy? Do I want a fucking mommy? I had heard something about google selling your data to advertisers or whatever, but this was extremely fucked up.
My mother died last week.
In a desperate attempt to talk with someone who understood what I was going through, I scoured the internet, filling my browser history with mother-related data. And these pricks at Google sold that to the prickettes at Local MILFs dot com?!
Yes I wanted a mommy—my fucking mommy. The audacity of these ads to come at me when I was just about to relieve myself from a stressful week.
I hurled the tissue box and lotion across the room. The lotion bottle hit my wall, exploding from the impact and spewing out as if the entire room was in need of moisturizing. It was. My room was dry and boring with only an unframed bed and a computer monitor. I had to sell everything else to afford my mother’s cremation.
With a sigh, I spun back around in my seat, only to find another ad popped up.
Single MILF who lost her son in your area!
Anger surged through my body to the point my blood boiled and I could’ve sworn steam came out of my ears like in the cartoons. But turning left, I realized it was smoke from the cigarette bud in my ashtray. I took a drag, finishing what was left in one single inhale.
“These cunts want me to press it? I’ll fucking press it alright,” I murmured, while pressing the pop-up ad.
A new tab opened. It was a chatroom, kinda like those ‘family-friendly’ chat rooms, but this one only had one contact named MILF. Which was odd because if it were like the others, a bunch of bots would swarm in, sending messages left and right in hopes to drain your wallet—not that I would know, of course.
An icon popped up which said: MILF is typing…
Before MILF sent the message, the site blurred and a login thingy popped up saying if I wanted to read what she had to say, I needed to make an account. So, my angry ass did. My username was Carlos.
Carlos: Fuck you guys.
MILF: With pleasure.
Carlos: You steal my data with pleasure too, huh?
MILF: I’ve never stolen data, lol. Take it up with my Higher Ups. But hey, look on the bright side, that “stolen data” brought us together. If that’s not fate, I don’t know what is.
Carlos: What the fuck do you mean?
MILF: I lost my son; you lost your mom.
Carlos: So… that ad wasn’t fake?
MILF: The little profile picture they used was fake. That milf is ten times hotter than me. But yes, I really lost my son.
Carlos: Oh, wow… I’m sorry to hear that.
MILF: Don’t be. They do that all the time. People see a hot mom, they’d be more likely to click.
Carlos: I meant sorry about your son.
MILF: Thank you. I’m sorry about your mother.
Carlos: Everyone is.
MILF: Tell me about it haha. It’s all everyone says. “I’m sorry.” “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Carlos: Right? I hear it so much that I sort of defaulted to it.
MILF: Here’s a better question—How are you holding up?
Carlos: Uh… I’m holding up, I guess.
MILF: I know all too well. It’s been over two years and all I’ve been doing is holding up. If you don’t mind me asking, dear, how long has it been since your mother passed?
Carlos: Idk, shouldn’t your stolen data tell you?
MILF: It doesn’t tell me anything; the Higher Ups do. They pay me to text someone and that’s that.
Carlos: So that’s all this is? Them paying you to relate with me so that I could open up my wallet?
MILF: That’s what they wanted it to be. But not me.
Carlos: What did you want this to be?
MILF: What fate intended it to be.
Carlos: Yeah, sure, I totally know what fate intended. When fate killed my mother, I didn’t shed a tear because it was all for the greater good. When fate took everything from me just so I could afford something that should’ve be free, I shrugged because, not to worry, it’ll all fucking work out in the end. I just need to believe, isn’t that right?
MILF: No, dear, fate brought you to me for another reason.
Carlos: And what the fuck is that, huh?
MILF: Wouldn’t you like a mother figure again?
I sat there looking at the message for what felt like hours, thinking she had to be some sort of new AI technology or someone roleplaying as a sonless mother to get my money or just an asshole getting a kick out of this.
Carlos: Fuck you.
MILF: I will always be here for you.
I closed out of the tab.
Around two days later, I hit the bottom beneath rock bottom and desperately yearned to talk with my mother. Driving home from the bar that night, the conversation I had with MILF popped up in my drunken mind. A mother figure, she said. Part of me was furious at the idea that MILF was only trying to get my money or that she was some sort of AI. But in a moment of stupidity and utter hopelessness, I clung onto the idea that she was a real person that really cared.
So, I texted her.
Carlos: Are you real? Like a real person?
MILF: Of course I am, son.
Son? An illogical idea popped up in my mind at that moment.
Carlos: Can you change your profile pic to my mothers?
MILF: Of course, sweetie.
As much as I hate to admit it, our conversation went well. I cleared a lot of stuff off of my chest and MILF, with my mother’s profile pic, cheered me up by saying she was in a better place now and still loved me. Days went by and part of me—the stupidest god damn part of me—wanted MILF to fill the void my mother left behind so badly that I pushed aside any logic.
MILF and I continued texting back and forth. She helped me pull myself together. I stepped out of my bubble and into the real world again, one step at a time, as she would say.
One day, she invited me over for dinner. I was hesitant at first, but she said she made a little too much lasagna and didn’t want it to go to waste. My mother used to hate it when I wasted food, plus, lasagna was my favorite. So after a bit of back and forth, I said sure. We lived in the same area anyway and I was getting more comfortable with her.
Her apartment was in a gated community about a fifteen minute walk from my house. I arrived just as the sun was going down, peering inside as I walked towards the entrance.
I noticed the apartments looked weird. It was as if someone with limited knowledge of architecture, and how the world works, copy-and-pasted a generic gated community into a plot of land by some generic stores like Starbucks and Target.
Even to my untrained eyes, the architectural designs looked impossible. An apartment tilting at an awkward angle, saplings lining the sidewalk with leaves that didn’t sway in the wind, and unnatural patches of grass in the asphalt leading to the entrance booth.
I approached the entrance booth, clutching my jacket as a breeze swept by. The elderly man inside stared at me with eyes that looked as if someone were forcing them. Instead of the regular almond shapes, they were damn near ovals, and the outer skin was stretched like a rubber band that was about to crack. It was unsettling to look at, but I didn’t wanna be mean, so I looked just past him.
“Uh, MILF—I mean, Lisa told me that she’d tell you that I’ll arrive around this time,” I said, awkwardly.
The man jerked his head from me to his notebook then back to me. “Right!” I recoiled at the loudness of his voice. “Something about lasagna, isn’t that so?”
“Yeah, something like—”
“Yummers!” He interrupted, pressing a button for the gates to slide open. “Do me a favor and enjoy that lasagna!”
“T-Thanks,” I said, walking through the gates as they shut behind me like a dog biting at my heels. Weird geezer, I thought. Must be high on caffeine.
I wandered around, glancing from mundane apartment to mundane apartment, looking for Lisa’s. As I did so, something struck me as odd—odder than the architecture and the geezer. Every single apartment light was on and, through the windows, there were silhouetted people sitting at dining tables. Some sitting alone, some sitting as a couple, but every one of them was at a table. And not eating either, no, they looked as if they were waiting for something.
It must be a coincidence, I thought. But then I looked around.
Outside each apartment, the only car any one had in their parking space was a Toyota Prius. Each one appeared to be the same year, just a slightly different color.
My mind naturally tried to find a logical explanation for this. I thought maybe this was an eco-friendly community or there was a killer deal at the local Toyota dealer. I still couldn’t help feeling uneasy. A chill clawed its way up my spine and knots were turning in my stomach.
I glanced at a window that didn’t have anyone sitting at the dining table. It was Lisa’s apartment. My dumbass continued and walked right up to her doorstep. I guess I thought everything would be better as soon as I met with her. She was my new motherly figure after all.
Before I could even knock, the door swung open and light spilled out, blinding me for a second. As I adjusted to the sudden light contrast, Lisa came into view and she looked vastly different than what I expected. Sure, she wasn’t gonna have my mother’s face, but I didn’t expect her skin to be so thin to the point of being translucent. Blue veins bulged out all over her visible body throbbing and squirming around like worms. She smiled, an exaggerated smile, as if someone had their fingers in her mouth and pulled the corners until it couldn’t stretch any further, cracking and chapping her lips.
“Carlos,” she said in an old, raspy voice. “Oh please come on in.”
She stepped aside, staring at me with these doll-like eyes. I hurried inside, just wanting her to stop staring. She couldn’t have meant any harm by it, I’m overreacting, I thought, It must be the way old people are.
Hanging lights tinged the interior in an ugly yellow color—the carpet floors, the striped wallpaper, framed pictures, and even her. Lisa’s skin now looked somewhat like a banana peel. It was unsettling.
She gestured for me to sit at the table. I did, avoiding eye contact all the while and imagining my mother in her place.
As she made her way over to the oven, I glanced around. There were numerous framed pictures of a younger Lisa and a chubby boy. The boy varied in age in all the pictures and looked slightly different. The backgrounds of each picture also looked generic. A picture at a park, one at the ocean, and an amusement park.
“Is-Is that your son?” I asked.
“Was my son, yes,” she sighed, bringing lasagna to the table and sitting down across from me. “This was his favorite.”
I suddenly felt terrible for thinking all those things about her. She lost her son and I was over here judging her appearance? What the hell was my problem? Maybe, like me, she was in a rough patch. A rough patch that still went on after two years. And maybe she was struggling to find somewhere affordable to live. That’d explain the odd architecture, right?
“Well, Lisa, your son had great taste,” I said.
Taking a whiff of the food helped ease me up a bit. I was about to dig in with a fork, but she placed her hand on mine, staring at me unblinking.
“Uh, y-yeah?”
“This is going to sound odd, dear, but can I airplane feed you?” Odd it sounded indeed. What the hell kind of kinky question was that?
She saw the look in my eyes and quickly said, “Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. It’s just, you know, my son used to love it when I airplane fed him.”
“Oh,” I said. “It’s a little—”
“—Weird, I know, I know. It’s a motherly thing.”
“Oh… Uh, my mom never did those kinds of things with me, sorry for assuming something else.”
“Don’t be, dear. We’ve never really talked about this mother of yours—other than having her as my profile picture of course. Tell me more about her.”
“She… She was, uh, well.” I tried to think of something nice she did for me. My mother wasn’t the best of mothers, sure. She’d be as high as a kite all day and night, and though she never said it, I knew she loved me. There was a roof over my head, clothes, food, and that’s pretty much it, but I knew that meant she loved me. “She tried, you know? Her best.”
“A for effort,” she said in a sarcastic tone. “My sons weren’t the best of sons either, I’ll admit. But they were my sons.”
“Yup, and she was my… Wait, hold on, sons?”
“Huh?”
“You-You said sons?”
She took the fork from my hand, scooped up a greasy piece of lasagna, and swerved it about in the air while making these airplane sounds.
“Uh… Okay?” I said, opening my mouth. She roleplayed as my mother; this was the least I could do.
With my mouth flopped open, I was aware of how dumb I must’ve looked from another perspective. That’s when I noticed something move outside the window from the corner of my eye. I jerked my head to the right and, for a second, I could’ve sworn I saw someone duck behind a Prius as if their cover was almost blown.
“Did you see—”
She shoved the lasagna into my mouth mid sentence. I coughed, nearly choking on the loose bits of beef.
“See what, dear?”
“Thar… whas…” I said with a full mouth. I swallowed without even chewing, pointing at the window in a panic. “There was someone watching us.”
“Really?” She said, craning her head to look. “I don’t see anyone.”
“They’re not there anymore, but they were.”
“I’m sure it was a passerby. My neighbors can be a bit nosy—especially when I have guests over.” She chuckled.
“Wha-What do you mean when you have guests over?”
“Guests like you, silly,” she said. “Some of them assume I’ve brought home a man. At my old age? As if.”
“Do you bring home guests often?” I asked.
“On the rare occasion that the stars align,” she said, licking her chapped lips.
“What occasion is that—”
“Anywho! I have something to show you.”
“Lisa,” I drawled. “What occasion?”
She stood up, completely ignoring my question. Something was terribly wrong. What the fuck was my stubborn ass thinking? Under the table, I shifted my legs into a running position.
She pulled open a kitchen drawer. It rolled open upwards and zigzagged, defying my understanding of reality.
Slowly, I pushed the chair back, making it easier for me to take off.
Lisa pulled out a laptop from the drawer and opened it up to a website like the chatroom we messaged through. But instead of a contact named MILF, there was a contact named The Higher Ups and a textbox with some words above reading: How would you like to imagine your family?
What? I glanced around at the framed pictures, realizing the chubby boys didn’t just vary in age and look different… They were different.
“Lisa, I need to… uh, I need to go now. My stomach hurts.”
She ignored me, instead typing a prompt that read: A before and after picture of Carlos with his old mother and Carlos with his new, improved mother.
In the former I was sad with my mother in our childhood home. In the latter I was happy and chubby with lasagna stains on my cheek, standing next to a younger looking Lisa.
“Would you look at that, son, the stars aligned,” said Lisa, turning around and licking her lips.
I shot up off my seat, turning over the table and chair to buy me some time as I dashed to the door. Just then, it swung open and elderly people swarmed in, looking like a bunch of bees under the hanging lights. They were all dressed in khakis and striped polos. And each of them held forks, ready to sting.
I staggered back until I hit the wall. My heart hammered in my chest as they circled me like predators.
The elderly people moved aside, making room for Lisa. She sauntered towards me, cradling the lasagna tray with oven mitts. There were bits of hair and dust in it as if she had scooped it up off the floor. The elderly people each stabbed at the lasagna, bringing up a chunk in their forks, then slowly turning their heads to me.
“Don’t mind my new son,” said Lisa, in a deeper, raspier voice. “He will learn manners.”
Collectively, they made choo-choo and airplane sounds, swerving forks in the air. Specs of saliva gushed out of their mouths and one of them spit out a set of dentures.
I felt around the wall behind me, praying I would find something. My prayers worked. I grabbed a framed picture and yanked it off its hook. I hurdled it at Lisa. It hit her square in the eye, the sharp edge digging in with a squelch. She let out a yelp; all the elderly people turned to look at her, distracted.
I barreled past them and darted out the door.
The neighborhood street lamps, porch lights, and even the Toyota Prius lights were all turned on, leaving zero shadows and zero places to hide. More elderly people crept out of their apartments, holding forks and glaring at me as if I were a meal.
“Shit, shit,” I murmured, eyes darting from left to right looking for an exit. I shut my eyes.
Mom, I prayed, Please, please guide me out. I opened my eyes, looking up at the hoods of all the identical cars. They were parked close enough for…
Someone shoved me from behind. I slammed face first onto the pavement. I turned over on my back, blood trickling down my face, then an elderly man jumped on top of me. He rained down punches with the speed and strength of a young man, cracking me in the face, chin, and forehead. All the while screaming: “Your boy needs to be disciplined!” My eyes watered up. “He will submit to the higher ups!”
Mustering up all my strength, I grabbed his nuts and squeezed them until I felt them squash. He yelled at the top of his lungs and I pushed him off of me only to reveal an elderly woman hovering over me and grinning maniacally.
She clasped my ankles and dragged me. I dug my nails into the pavement. They scraped and scraped, nearly filing off entirely. I waved my arms around looking for something to grip onto.
The woman pulling said, “Turn on the oven, Lisa!”
Another yelled, “I can’t wait to dig in!”
While being pulled through the doorway, I clung to its side. The lower half of my body was inside her apartment getting yanked as if I were being pulled underwater by an ocean current.
I looked back, seeing the elderly woman was pulling with all her might and more elderly people helping her pull from behind. I let go, collapsing on the floor as they tripped over one another because of their pulling force.
I exploded up to my feet, dashing outside.
All the elderly people were crowding closer, licking their chapped lips with forks in hands. I quickly hopped on top of the nearest Prius. Like sharks, they surrounded the car, stabbing at my legs and feet. One of them plunged a fork into my calf and I squealed like a pig.
With blood oozing down my leg, I stomped on as many hands as possible, but they kept stabbing.
Glancing at the Prius to my right, it looked like an easy jump, so, taking a deep breath and stomping on a few more hands, I leapt. I was just about to make it, when one of the elders gripped onto the soles of my feet. My head smacked on the car’s hood and I tumbled down to the asphalt.
They all swarmed around me. I quickly rolled under the Prius, over to the other side, and stood back up. As I did so, they straightened up, peering at me from over the hood with these rabid eyes. I could’ve sworn at that moment their faces morphed like something straight out of those trippy AI videos, zooming in endlessly and turning into something older—less human.
Nearly gagging, I hopped onto the Prius to my side then jumped onto the next and the next. Jumping from hood to hood, I made my way all the way to the exit gates.
The elderly security guard glared at me as I approached. He was on the other side of the fence, sitting in his security booth with kicked up feet. He too was morphing. I noticed he was holding a cellphone with the same chatroom website opened.
He texted the Higher Ups: Imagine a family living inside a gated community with no escape.
It was loading.
I needed to act quickly.
I hopped onto a Prius parked by the fence and grabbed the top rail, hoisting myself up. I was mounted on the top rail, about to climb down, but just then, the fence extended up. I was lifted nearly two feet in seconds. Looking down, I saw the distance to the ground was only getting longer.
It was either jumping or psycho elderly people for eternity. “Fuck it,” I yelled.
I jumped down, aiming for the entrance booth’s roof.
Air slashed past my face for what felt like a minute before I slammed feet first through the roof. It caved in. The rubble squashed that elderly man to a pulp. And the impact shattered my legs, sending a shockwave of pain throughout my body. Fragments of bones stuck out of my legs in something that resembled a porcupine.
My head spun vigorously. But I knew if I acknowledged the injury for any longer I would pass out, so, wincing and groaning, I crawled over to the twisted mass of limbs that remained of the elderly man.
I snatched his phone from a pool of clumpy blood. It was opened up to the website.
With trembling fingers and tears streaming down my cheek, I subconsciously typed in: Return my mother to me.
But before I pressed enter, I saw on the bottom right of the screen that this was the last wish the Higher Ups would grant. 1 out of 5 remained. I snapped out of it. What the fuck was I doing? No, she’s gone and I need to end this.
I deleted the message and instead typed in: Erase this place from existence.
The ground trembled and, as I glanced out the entrance booth window, I saw the apartments disappearing one by one. After every apartment but Lisa’s had vanished, the fence, entrance booth and rubble went as well, plopping me down onto a field of dry grass. Turning left and right, I saw there was nothing in this plot of land—No Starbucks, no Target, no gated community, nothing.
I turned back to the only remaining apartment—Lisa’s.
Elderly were crowded around Lisa, waving goodbye with these wicked grins as if it wouldn’t be the last. Lisa glared at me with her one eye, holding lasagna, lips dry, and before disappearing, she morphed into something resembling my mother in the blink of an eye.