After my mother got a foot infection, and I hadn’t heard from her, I called the cops to do a welfare check. They found her outside her house, naked, bleeding everywhere from cuts with her eyes ripped out of their sockets. When I asked her about what happened this is what she told me…
Frann was an elderly woman who lived alone in the woods of Montana. Although her husband George died of prostate cancer two years ago, she couldn’t fathom breaking her habit of preparing before their scheduled activity every Tuesday afternoon, so she did like she always would. She drained the juices and seasonings from her rack of butchered chickens: chicken lipids, cottonwood oil, and lemon zest, polishing the red hues in the cherry wood block.
It was a quarter to three when she prowled out her bedroom with tight rollers in her hair and layers of smeared on foundation. She used the lightest shades of pink for blush since nothing was sweeter than the orchid petals on her cheeks. Pouting her lips, she untied her bathrobe and threw it on the kitchen table as the musky air from the open window seeped into the crevices of her sagging skin.
The phone rang, throwing her out of routine. It went to voicemail as she heard her daughter’s nagging voice—Stacey. Hey mom, just checking in, it’s been a few weeks since we went to the doctor for your foot infection, and I know how bad you are about taking medication and I haven’t heard from you since then, call me. Stacey never wanted to talk to before George passed; she was selfish, entitled and a control freak. Good at ruining the moment like she always did.
Refocusing her energy on her routine, she turned on some music, sat on the kitchen counter and put her feet in the aluminum sink, filling it up halfway before she turned it off. Although George was no longer in the physical realm, she swore he was reincarnated as a flock of robins. Like the ones he’d watch and wait for every morning after filling a tray table with seeds and worms.
“There is nothing for me but to love you, and the way you look tonight, “Frann sang as the robins chimed in, whistling to every night note, and bobbing their heads in a circle like George always did.
She massaged the bottom of her feet and grabbed a razor blade from the window still slicing off a thick yellow toenail. Beauty is pain, she reminded herself. But was it really pain when she liked it? She sucked on her blackened, hardened toes, like George used to. He had such a foot fetish. She loved the flakes; it reminded her of charred chicken that’s soft in the middle where the charcoal shaving melted into her mouth from the grill. She bit even harder, and a thick liquid oozed into her mouth; she loved sucking out the sticky fluid; like a socket of vinegar and salt exploded into her mouth. No matter how many times she swallowed it never fully went down; it dripped in gallops like her mother’s chunky gravy.
While sucking on her raw pinky toe, a rattling disturbed her. It was a pack of crows outside in the tree by the window. She believed in finessing the toe, just like George did, licking her way up from the toenail bed before sucking on her entire foot. Where the dry skin flakes flurried in her mouth like when she shook her Christmas snow globe. The crows screeched over Fred Astaire and she raged.
“What in god’s name are you bastards doing? This is my time!” She yelled as the crows clustered around the robin’s and scared them off, “How dare you ruin this for me!”
The crows cackled.
“Oh, you think it’s a joke?” She jumped off the countertop as the room spun. She grinded her remaining teeth into her gums as their cackling continued.
She picked herself up, leaning against the wall as she made her way over to the closet, grabbing George’s double-barrel shotgun he used to use on rapid animals and threw the front door open. The thick oakwood tree trunks swiveled side to side, their withered branches reaching out like they were extending their arms. Black speckles screeched as tried to aim at them until a pair of bulging grey eyes the size of cantaloupes stared into her soul. She reached out at the ginormous crows, grabbing onto its wing as she threw up and fell into it. She couldn’t stop the neon green fluid projecting out of her mouth and nostrils as it submerged her deeper into it.
She looked around at the pack of ginormous crows watching her. She wanted to pick herself up, but she couldn’t move; she couldn’t feel her body anymore. A crow walked towards her, moving its head side to side, almost studying her. It cawed as a tornado of black feathers swirled around her. Through the reflection in its eyes, she watched the crows dived down, ripping out her flesh before it ripped out her eyes with its massive beak, slurping down her optic nerve. She tried to scream but swallowed more of her throw up. All she heard was her pulpy insides getting ripped out of her before everything went black.
…and now she’s sitting here in the hospital. Telling the story over and over again to every nurse and doctor that visits her. While her story hasn’t changed, no one believes her–myself included. Perhaps I’m more frightened of what’s she’s admitted to.. and I’m so ridden with guilt for leaving her alone for too long after dad died. This is my fault. It’s all my fault.