Lighting fixture
Genre: coming of age,contemporary,Fiction
This story contains themes or mentions of physical violence, gore, or abuse.
Chapter 1: Just beyond my front door, in the chandelier, were jewels. I knew I shouldn't have touched the sparkling stones hanging there, but I would push a chair up and clamber on the shaky wood to brush them with my fingers. The act of painting my fingerprints along the surface became compulsive. On date evenings, Mama would leave the home wearing a black cocktail dress, her best pearls, and the smokey aroma of her pricey perfume. I would turn on the lights and watch them swing, picturing my mother on the dance floor.
There was no escaping the fact that they made me think of Mama; the clacking sound her heels made on the ballroom floor as they hit was exactly the same. My favourite time to observe her dancing lessons was when she was partnered with a man who had an accent and had an oceanic scent. Whenever I saw her dance, even when she was just practising, I felt aches in my heart and yearned to be as flexible as she was.
If I could get away with it, I would pick up the little hook that held the jewel and tuck it in my palm while admiring the crimson lines it punctured on my skin, leaving behind stunning marks. Oh, the way the gold glistened—orange and as brilliant as a flame—like if the sun were setting and the waters were blue. I desired those scars because they made me look more like Mama, who had scars across her tummy from where the skin had strained and made me, as well as the furious indent from her bra that she had sighingly taken off. Oh my God, I would have done the cutting. I was never brave enough to apply her lotion or go beyond what she
I would search the pharmaceutical cabinet for the tape and wrap my flat torso after unscrewing the smeared lid. I was going to use her restroom. I used to steal her razor and do my best to shave my legs the same way she did, and she always knew when she saw three red lines on my skin when she got home.
I stored everything in the jewellery box she had given me, tucked away in a little area of my bedside drawer. She never searched, thus she never found it. However, she would take a seat on my bed.
Carefully unwrap the tape with your fingers. After bandaging my wounds, she will embrace me close, envelop me in the smoothness of her flesh, and press her lips into my hair.
She would remark, "You don't have to shave yet, darling, or wear a bra." I used to tell her that I wished I could have her looks, and I could feel the pull of her frown on my roots. 'Like me' Yes. She used to comment, "Shaving isn't pleasant; it's a chore. It's not anything to desire. However, she never looked for the razor or the tape, and I never gave up trying to do it correctly.
She once caught me robbing the chandelier. On that particular night, the rain battered on the windows like sheets of wax paper. Thunder rumbled across the sky, and distant flashes of lightning revealed glimpses of the dimly lit hall. She had lines down her neck, a spill on her cheek, and makeup all over her face. She stumbled out of her bedroom with her eyes watering and I could still hear Daddy moaning like he did when the beer bottles in the dining room shone like copper. Some of her tears even made me cry.
She froze when she saw me, and we both fixed our eyes on each other. From the chair, she appeared quite little, and the moonlight was insufficient to illuminate the hallway, allowing the shadows to spread out and engulf her completely. She shed one tear, all of them. When I pulled too quickly, the chandelier trembled and a chorus of clinks burst forth, wiggling like the sparkle that was gliding down her wet cheek.
Father yelled something from the adjacent room. We both sprang back, and I saw that her cheek wasn't stained, but rather bruised, and that the lines on her neck were just like the ones the gems had left on me—dotted with blood. My tummy turned over. She spoke to me in a voice I had never heard before, a whisper. She questioned my activities. I had extended out my legs to brush on the tiles, sat down in the chair, and stood with my hair in my eyes. Even when she was furious, Mama was attractive. Not like Daddy, who had a blister-like face enlargement, a wrinkled mouth, and a fist-like voice.
Without expressing a single word, Mama's rage burned me from the inside out like smoke. My legs trembled, my hands trembled, and the protruding joint trembled uncontrollably.
As she shuffled forward, the nightgown hissed against the carpet. I shut my eyes. Her fingers traced down my neck while rubbing against my jaw. Her nails left white streaks running down my arm, into the jut of my elbow, and around my wrist, closing like jaws. She looked at the patterns the diamonds' drops had left on the ground.
Why are you gripping them so tightly? She muttered. Her voice was not her own. She had a young voice. young and in pain.
I was unable to open my eyes and I had no response. Now that the tears started pouring, they were dropping like pearls on the floor. Thunder struck once more. She glanced out the window while her long hair touched the top of my head. She was reserved. There was not a breath to be heard. I was dragged outside as she opened the door after ducking to grab the chain.
As she shut the door, the sound of the rain increased threefold, folding and storing the silence inside the house. As the rain started to fall, she pulled us both into the dirt and grass. Pine trees, leaves, dirt, and worms were all mixed together in a wet trench that was excavated into my chest.
Does it hurt? she questioned me. To be heard over the rain, she had to speak louder. "Shave to? encircle your chest? To grip it so firmly?
Of sure," I said.
Chapter 2: Before me, she knelt down. The light cotton of her nightgown, which was covered in mud, stuck to her while soaking up the rain. She was trembling, as I could see. You want to learn a secret, little one?
My lips trembled as I nodded. I simply couldn't stop crying.
"Only when you're the one watching do I enjoy dancing. It only feels authentic at that moment.
She stood up after encircling my hands in her own. She swayed and shoved my face into her belly. She was speaking softly in my ear. She said words like, "You're my everything," and "I wouldn't be here without you," which assaulted my nostrils with the acidic scent of red wine. She
tried to teach me the steps: left leg forward, right leg to the right, left leg over, and right leg back, but I didn't understand; I didn't understand them. I faltered as I tried to follow along as she slipped the instructions in between "I love you's". I continued to look at them while they
It hurt to see our bare feet bury themselves in the grass. I pictured how I would look as a grownup with her by my side, ageless and magnificent as she was then, while her grip was firm on my hand with a small piece of the chandelier dangling between us. The words echoed in my head exactly as she murmured them to me, the gold digging into our joined fingers, and I saw us dancing together till the music ended;
Doesn't growing up hurt, baby?