by B Latif
I think from a philosophical point of view, she was right. I’m not a judge, so I remained stoic.
“For hating your parents.”
“Wrong, I don’t hate them.” She was denying the sins she had committed. “I hate the system. Giving birth doesn’t actually make you a mother.”
I frowned.
Rose.
I asked her impatiently, “Then what makes you a mother?”
She licked her lips, swallowed, and drew back from me, “Sacrifice and understanding.”
For some time, I looked at her.
“For blaming God,” I tried to trap her, but that that sly rat of a human kept denying.
“No, wrong use of the word ‘blame.’ I would say that God is responsible for my life and saying this is not a sin.”
I became angry.
I became angry?
I became angry!
“Okay, for lying. Lying every day. Lying all the time. What kind of person tells lies and not even thinks once?”
As I stared at her in anger, tears welled in her eyes. She had been denying all the indictments, but now she was going to surrender.
“A desperate kind.” She whispered and closed her eyes.
My frown vanished at her answer. Tears formed beads on her lashes. I narrowed my eyes and she twitched.
A lifeless body lay in front of me. The tears remained suspended in her eyes and she would grieve no more.
I kept sitting there, thinking about Rose and myself.
Will she behave this way when I tell her who I am? Will I be the kind of mother this girl had?
That day, I decided I would never be the kind of mother humans have. Never.
Chapter 5
Funeral.
Are they here for the dead or the living? I am still thinking about that one.
Because the girl’s death brought many people. Perhaps, more than, she would have expected when she was alive.
OBSERVATION No. 10
“People seem to hate a person when he is alive and never bother to visit them. It seems odd that they would suddenly start loving the person after they are dead! Is it right that they should show up just once at the funeral, bringing flowers for the dead person when they really needed them when they were alive? They say a eulogy when it can’t be heard by the person to whom it is addressed. What they needed were kind words and thoughts when they were living a life of hell.”
It was the first funeral I ever attended. I wanted to look at her mother, who was crying hard.
I frowned.
Strange creatures, humans.
Why cry now when it was far too late? Whose fault was it that she was no longer here?
Her family had played a part in it all.
I left like a shadow, unnoticed and unseen.
***
It was night
I was lying on the grass in the castle grounds and Rose was by my side, studying her book and I was thinking about the dead girl.
All I know is I was trying to send her a message that she would be punished for disobeying her parents. And the message she conveyed to me through her eyes asked, ‘what about the parents who made this child’s life hell?’
I vowed I would never make Rose’s life hell.
“What are you doing?” Rose asked, turning towards me.
My eyes were on the cloudless sky, illuminated by the stars.
“Thinking.”
Rose drew closer to me, “Mama… you don’t look happy.”
“Umm…” I stayed motionless, “Yeah… it’s umm… thinking is what’s troubling me…”
“I know what will cheer you up!”
“What?” I asked, in a trance.
“You can unthink the thing you are thinking!”
Finally, she made me smile. I turned towards her, facing her twinkling eyes that were just like the stars above.
“Okay,” I sighed and changed the topic, “So, how was your day, Rose?”
“It was good.”
“Let me see your book.”
I took it from her. There were words and their meanings in her dictionary. I had defined all of them for her. It ended with the stars.
“Why haven’t you written the meaning of stars?”
“Because I was waiting for you to tell me the meaning of stars.”
“No,” I teased her, “I won’t.”
“Mama! Tell me!”
“What if I don’t?”
She folded her arms angrily, “I’m not talking to you now.”
I waited. No, she didn’t talk to me.
“Rose?”
No response. I laughed.
“C’mon, Rose!”
“I won’t talk, Mama!” she sounded annoyed.
“Oh, you’re already are talking, baby. Let’s go inside, it’s getting cold.”
She didn’t move. I tickled her but she didn’t laugh.
“Rose is going to laugh now, give me your sweet cackle! Give up, baby!”
First, she resisted, but then outbursts of laughter rippled from her, and we laughed until we were tired. In the dark, moonless night, no human heard her. I had never laughed before, and now it felt good to laugh.
Happiness felt good.
We both lay there, watching the stars. For some time, we stayed quiet.
“Mama?”
I knew what she was about to say now, “Hmm?”
“Stars?”
I laughed silently, “Yes, what about them?”
“Tell me!”
She embraced me in her little arms, but I held my answer back as I wanted to see her curiosity.
“Sleep now, goodnight, Rose.”
I watched her sleep with a feeling of euphoria. I loved to watch her sleeping.
She was growing, inheriting her father’s white skin and her mother’s beautiful, black hair. She was also learning as she was growing. I taught her about everything except three topics: sin, humans, and materialistic things. I planned to make her strong like the storming sea and as elegant as an eagle’s soaring flight.
Rose slept, hugging me, and I witnessed the break of dawn, the chirping of birds awakening her.
“Good morning, flower,” I said cheerfully, “Did you sleep well?”
She smiled, yawning, “Yes… I wish it was always like this.”
“Like what?”
“Sleeping with you.” She said, not letting go of me. “Did you sleep well?”
I had no answer as I couldn’t sleep. Stroking her pink cheeks, which gleamed in the early morning sunlight, I answered, “Err… I didn’t sleep.”
Rose frowned and then asked slyly, “Why? Was I troubling you?”
“Yes,” I teased, “Can’t you control your legs when you’re asleep? It seemed as if you were playing football.”
“But, “she protested, “there’s no ball here!”
I laughed faintly, “As in, I was your football.”
Rose blushed, I grinned.
“You see that big ball of light, Rose?” I tried to divert her attention by pointing at the sun.
“That? No.” She blinked, unable to look directly at the sun.
“No, what I mean is… every time that big ball of light brightens the morning.”
“So! That is the ball!”
I laughed, “That is the Sun.”
Rose quickly grappled to find her book in the grass, sat upright and began to write.
“Not S-N. It’s S-U-N,” I informed her.
“Oh,” she uttered quietly, “What’s its meaning?”
I sighed seriously now. I looked straight at the sun without blinking. She waited for my answer and looked at me.
“Mama?”
No, this time I wasn’t going to tease her. I was just thinking of an appropriate answer to her question.
“Life,” I told her, “Sun means life.”
“Good,” Rose seemed happy with my answer. Then she asked, “And what is life exactly?”
I got up and held out my hand, “Come on,
I’ll show you.”
She held my forefinger and I led her into the forest, for the first time.
I was going to show her life. Until then, she had just seen insects, flowers, sky, Sun, stars, Moon, birds, and some animals.
Now, it was time for her to experience the wonder of nature.
As we passed the graves spread across acres of land, which I had shrouded in a permanent state of total darkness, Rose looked around in amazement.
“Mama,” she stopped, “What are these?”
She wasn’t afraid. I hadn’t taught her to be afraid of anything. She was simply pointing at the graves.
“These are…” I thought. I had created them to terrify any human who accidently stepped in my area or trespassed there, “These are rocks, Rose… but…”
I crouched to say the important thing, “You won’t go near them, okay?”
“Okay.”
“No, I mean it. Promise me that you won’t go near them?”
“Okay, Mama, pinky promise.”
“Now that’s my girl!” I fluffed her hair.
The reason was that I didn’t want my daughter to go near any human, dead or alive. I didn’t want her to be influenced by them. Not yet.
It was a long way. I had made our home in seclusion and there was a great distance between the forest and the castle.
“I’m tired,” Rose looked exhausted.
“Come on,” I lifted her, and she put her arm around my neck, her head on my shoulder. I continued the walk.
“Oh, we forgot breakfast.” I remembered.
“I’m hungry.”
“Well, eat me then.” I joked.
“Yuck… now that would taste bad,” Rose grimaced.
She kept talking. She talked a lot, she asked a lot of questions, which seemed endless.
“Mama, why didn’t you tell me about stars last night?”
“Didn’t I?”
“No, you have to tell me now!”
“Do you want to see the stars or see the thing that eats light?”
“Both—wait a minute—eats light? Why can’t I eat light?”
And she opened her mouth and began to chew. I laughed at her little act.
“You can’t, Rose…”
“But why can that thing eat light and not me? I thought things can only eat apples, bananas, strawberries…”
“Yeah, I said that, but that thing isn’t like you. Hey, are you getting heavy or is it my imagination?”
“What is imagination?”
“Thinking about unexpected things, I guess,” I told her meditatively, “Oh, no, not now. Don’t write it now!”
“But I’ll forget it later!”
And she wrote it while I was carrying her, and I never became tired.
We reached the proximity of the forest, finding the lush green trees wet with dew. I placed Rose on her feet on the forest floor.
Her eyes opened wide and she looked at me for permission.
“Run as far as you want!”
Her small feet weren’t tired as she ran towards the forest.
“Wow… what is this big thing, Mama?”
“This,” I came towards her, “is a tree.”
She began to run around its trunk. I watched that eight-year-old girl circling the tree cheerfully.
“This is so big, big, BIG!” she was laughing, “This is amazing!”
She held my hand in both of hers and pulled me into the forest.
“I guess you have enough space for all of this in your notebook?”
“He-he-he! What is that? Did you see it? Oh, there’s a butterfly as well! Apples… wait, why are they on a tree?”
She stumbled while skipping steps, tripping over an outgrown root and fell, looking up at me, “Oops!”
Her frock was covered with mud. She wiped her hands on it.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and I knew she was hyper-excited, “But this is so amazing, Mama! Can we take this tree home?”
I controlled my amusement.
“If you can lift it,” as soon as I said it, she embraced the trunk and tried to pull it. I watched, controlling my laughter.
“This is so heavy. I need six more arms and ten more hands.” She said innocently, not giving up.
I laughed loudly, and once I started it was difficult to stop.
“Oh, no… where will we find six arms and ten hands?”
Upon my refusal, Rose looked upset. She brought up an idea and bawled, “We can ask the Lord for extra pairs!”
There.
I was trapped.
“Err… no, Rose. Trees can’t move from their place.
“But…” she stopped and left the tree.
“But I’ll show you the flower that is also called rose!”
“The tree…”
“And some animals.”
“The tree… I want it.”
“Okay, you can see this tree every day.”
“That means?” she raised her eyebrows.
“That means yes. You can visit this forest every day.”
Her eyes sparkled brighter than the sun at this and she beamed, hugging my waist, “This is amazing, Mama!”
“Okay, kiddo.”
I was very frank with Rose. I didn’t want to be the kind of mother who was always very serious with her child so that they never expressed themselves in front of the parent.
“Let’s go and see roses!” I said.
We moved deeper into the forest. She was so excited that she let go of my finger and explored everything herself, even the leaves.
OBSERVATION No. 11
Humans are born with a deep-rooted curiosity in their souls. They aren’t afraid of anything when they’re curious.
Nothing frightened her, not even insects that humans considered nasty or animals humans termed as wild.
Ha. Ha. Ha. Nasty, wild humans.
Excuse my words.
How far her could her little legs carry her? She became tired soon and slowed down, panting. I smiled.
“So, kid, what’s your plan?”
“What is a plan?”
I thought. Something humans try to accomplish and mostly fail to achieve. But I didn’t tell her that. She would then ask me a hundred questions, which I was in no mood to answer. Such as, ‘what is human? What is accomplish?’ And the tricky one would be, ‘why?’
Now that why…
Because the Lord had already planned the future, which changes the plans of humans.
Who is the smarter planner? The Lord or humans?
“Plan is something you want to do.”
“I want to rest and eat and sleep and play and write the meaning of plan in my book,” she slumped at the foot of a willow tree.
“Hmm,” I sat beside her,” you forgot, you wanted to see the roses as well.”
“Oh… that too,” she said as she scribbled in her book.
And that is how we roamed the forest for a while, searching for roses. Every time she found a flower, she rushed to me and asked if it was rose, the answer was always negative.
But she discovered many things. I was glad that she discovered the things invented by the Creator, not like humans who become creators by inventing the things and letting Him discover them.
Chapter 6
Just another night, I was staring at the moon, singing a lullaby, and thinking of Rose who was sleeping beside me.
I couldn’t sleep. After so much work, I still couldn’t sleep.
There are some things about humans that I can’t appreciate: sleep, taste, see my own reflection in the mirror, smell.
And there are some of my traits that humans can’t appreciate either: traveling the world at the speed of light, read minds, freedom, live to see the future becoming history.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Rose asked and I looked at her sideways. She was awake and I hadn’t known. I rolled over my side, facing her and curled my elbow beneath my head.
“Because I was imagining what you were dreaming.�
�
I stared at her as she quickly pulled out the book from her pocket and opened it, going through the pages. When she said the next words, I laughed softly.
“Imagine: thinking about unexpected things.” She read and bit her lip. Looking at me, she said, “You were thinking about what I was dreaming?”
“Yeah.”
“So, Mama?”
“What do you want to hear?”
“What was I dreaming about?
“How would I know, Rose? You tell me,” I asked and felt curious.
“But promise me, if I tell you, you’ll answer my question,” she imposed her condition.
I agreed, nodding.
“I was dreaming that I was sitting on a giant butterfly and flying through the clouds.”
“That is so mean, Rose. Where was your mother in your dream?”
She was taken aback, “I don’t know… but don’t be upset, Mama. You had gone to your work as always! Yes?”
I nodded, amused. What funny little creatures human children are!
“Okay… so what is your question?”
“Stars?” she said tentatively.
I laughed aloud, facing the stars again. Some things humans never forget. I have never been able to understand if oblivion is positive or negative.
“Come off it, Rose!”
“Mama!” she exclaimed exaggeratedly, “You said you’d tell me!”
“Okay. Stars are lots of glitter. Lots of it...” I made up.
“So, why doesn’t the glitter fall down?” she asked with a crease between her eyebrows.
Children always trap you, by treachery, by questions, or by pure innocence.
“Because… the Lord has a… glue, which attaches them permanently to the sky.”
“So, why does the glitter disappear when the Sun brings morning?”
“Because the Lord says, ‘look at the Sun now, the stars are resting’,” I told her, thinking fast. Before she could ask me another question, I quickly asked her one.
“Hey, you made up the part in the dream where I had gone to work, didn’t you?”
“Err… yes. But Mama, you weren’t there, so it means you were at work, right?”
“Right.” I laughed. “Now, close your eyes and sleep, or I won’t let you go to the forest again… and also your mouth.” I finished, thinking quickly.
She took it as a warning and closed her eyes. I couldn’t even manage a yawn.