I only heard it happen because I couldn’t fall asleep.
I heard their voices rise to various unnerving octaves, though they were evidently trying their hardest to be as hushed as possible. Their attempts quickly proved that silence was not something they could conquer just then. In my head I gave each level of their voices a color. Breathy yet strong, mom achieved a dark orange and a head-splitting yellow, if colors could split heads that is. On the other hand, dad received a dark, deep blue, his fight to achieve calmness also granting him a foaming green. Drumming my fingers on my bed stand, I listened intently to the zippers zipping, the hangers being hastily dropped to the floor, and all the while I imagined them whipping into different shapes on their descent towards the hardwood. I saw white stars and hearts sifting through the air in slow motion, only to bend and break when they clattered noisily on the ground. Covers pulled up to my chin, I gathered that mom was the one leaving, for she was sobbing incoherently and didn’t open my door to take one last look at me, which was the deciding factor, of course. Had dad been the one on the run he would have taken fifteen seconds to gaze upon his only son.
So it was right then, at a mere eleven years of age, that I decided I was better off without her.
I woke up the next morning to the sound of pots banging and the scent of cheese omelet, and I walked into the kitchen to my father cooking a meaty breakfast, and the table set for three. Quickly I assessed, mom had left, so did that mean the reason for her departure was here? Was everything dad’s mistake, was there another woman? Then I heard soft tapping coming down the hallway, I smelled a scent of lilac and daisies, and I knew before she came into view that my mother was walking into the kitchen, and apparently back into my life, not that anyone was aware that I was aware she had left it, even if it had been such a short amount of time.
For the five and a half years ensuing, I simply ignored her. She was a ghost to me, though I could see her, smell her, sense her even, she was transparent, I forced myself to believe that I was only imagining her, that the smell was wafting through the open windows, that the presence I felt was either my father or I was just being paranoid. Hearing her, however, was another story. It took me years to finally block out the sing-song of her voice entirely, to stop cringing whenever she called my name or actually be tempted to pass her the butter.
I can’t hear her. I can’t hear her because she’s not here. And she’s not here because she left.
My mother had always been inspired by self-help books and billionaires like Donald Trump. There were always highlighted articles and notes scattered around the house, always pads of paper with quotes such as “to love what one does” and “get back on the horse” to be found laying around. After she left I’d find piles of her old scribbles, and later I found more and more, and all they ever said was “I love you” and “I’m always here.” It was like she was trying to talk to me or something.
I had many methods of forgetting her presence, mostly internal, but other times when the pain was too much, when she attempted to embrace me before I dodged her and her hand managed to grasp my arm, or when she cooked me my favorite dinner and I had to pretend like it wasn’t getting cold right in front of my eyes, or that it wasn’t right in front of me in the first place, I did other things. I’d calmly walk into my room and rock myself to sleep, or I’d find a single parent chat room online and find other people with one parent like me, or sometimes I’d stop eating for a few days.
After dad stopped taking me to therapists and realized I wasn’t going to take any of the drugs they prescribed me without vigorous protest, and that was four full years after mom left us, he stopped trying to get me to see her. None of the doctors could really prescribe me much, because I was completely normal and healthy, except that I refused to see my so called-mother even while she was supposedly standing right in front of me. And then around my 16th birthday, I literally stopped seeing her all together. I wasn’t dis-imagining her, either. I could hear her, but it was as if my eyes had adapted to what my brain kept telling it, and she was officially invisible to me. That night I went into my room and cried. I imagined myself hanging upside-down by the knees from monkey bars, my tears falling the wrong way, up and over my eyelids and the creases by my temples, falling into my hairline. My frown, etched deep into my face, was a wide, gaping smile then, and even my stifled sobs seemed to sound more like chuckles, with the air getting caught in my throat and all.
____________________I think of interviewing random people I want to befriend about trivial things, just to get to know them, to give them a sense of trust in me, to give myself the hope of a flame igniting and a friendship blossoming. I’d tell them all it’s for something important, for a magazine or an internet feature, so they’d trust me and so I could witness their eyes sparkle and their faces light up as they take pride in the fact that someone thought they had something significant to share with the rest of the world, flattered that they’d been picked out of who knows how many to give their account of something. Really I’d just keep all the answers to myself and invent personalities behind them, learn and learn more about people, until there’s no one left unknown to me.
____________________Some people say love is black and white. For me, everything is black and white. The sky is always shades of gray, the ocean is always coal and vanilla with every crash of a wave, and my mother’s eyes are always the purest shade of night. She tells me mine are a bright green, the hue of the grass after a morning rain. I imagine the color of grass in my eyes, but that just seems faded and dull to me. I imagine fire in my hair, like my mother insists it looks like, but all I get from that is sinewy strands of ash and slivers of onyx flowing from my scalp. I’ve seen men give women lustful black roses, running children with the darkest cheeks, colorless and blended sunsets, all in shades of gray and white. My whole life is a no man’s land, seamless, a full-fledged gray area. Although, there was one time in my whole life of twenty-seven years that I did see color, except it wasn’t one of those colors with a name. I couldn’t put a name to it if I tried, and I have tried, for the past ten years I’ve been trying.
_________________________Personally, I think that superheroes would be amongst the most depressed category of people to ever exist in this world, if in fact, superheroes did exist. I find it very naïve of people to only think of the good a superhero would feel after saving a litter of kittens from a fateful fall down a waterfall or a bus load of children from cruising onto a bridge lacking the middle. What of the poor superhero’s faith in humanity? Isn’t it logical to assume that the modern day Spiderman thinks of the trouble some poor soul went through to piece together a raft, find an array of gorgeous and rare kittens, place them all in a single cardboard box and send them on their way down a waterway ending in, ironically enough, fish food? Honestly, how is it the public can’t ever see the downside to being an inch and a half away from death, disaster, and destruction at all times? If I were a superhero, if such things were ever to even exist, I’d be devastated. Unlike so many people who wish and pray for extra human qualities and abilities to save the world, I shy away from such responsibility and pain and even guilt. Being super is simply just not for me.
