After I blew them out, Ma reached under the table and pulled out a crinkled birthday bag. As she handed it to me, I saw it: her fingers were mummified in Handiplus bandages.
Mummy pain pain?
Ma brushed my cheek, her skin smelling of flour and antiseptic. "What's wrong, dear? Open the bag."
I opened it. Inside sat a creature of black and white skin, silky and cool to the touch. It had glassy blue eyes that stared back with a quiet, gentle look. But it wasn't a racoon. I glanced at Ma’s bandaged fingers again, then back at the gift.
"Ma..."
She raised a hand to stop me. "Hold on. I know it doesn't look exactly like a raccoon. It looks more like a..." She trailed off. It doesn't really look like anything, honestly. Monster would be the perfect answer.
"What do you think it looks like?" she pressed, her voice hopeful.
I analyzed it. It had pointy ears and a coat stitched together in soft, irregular patches. Its small plush tail was curled slightly, caught in a permanent, stiff wag. After a long silence, I cheered, "A dog!"
A dog? I guess it is. Ma pinched my cheek, a small, weary smile tugging at her lips. "That's right, dear."
She pulled me into a hug, squeezing tight. As she held me, her eyes went distant, staring at the wall as if she could see right through the wallpaper to the week before.
Ma marched into the children’s store with the confidence of someone who had already decided to spend money she didn’t have.
Bright colors assaulted her eyes. Shelves overflowed with toys, craft kits, felt boards, miniature furniture, and things labeled educational in fonts far too cheerful to be honest. A bell chimed behind her as the door closed. She went straight for the toys section. Her fingers skimmed over toys, thinking which one is worthy to be sacrificed to her child.
She picked up a small, stuffed cat. Checked the tag. Her smile froze. She picked up a second toy. Her lips twitched. A third. Her vision dimmed. For a brief, terrifying moment, Ma felt something rise violently from the depths of her chest.
Blood.
She swallowed it back with sheer willpower.
What atrocity is this? How could it costs this much? This was robbery. Daylight robbery. Robbery wrapped in pastel colors and smiling mascots. Buying these one time toys would cost more than sourcing them myself. More than cutting, sanding, sewing, and assembling everything by hand. More than the value of my time, my sweat, and possibly my sanity combined.
Capitalism stared back at her from the shelf, unblinking. Ma placed the toys back. Carefully. Politely. With the restraint of someone choosing not to commit a felony. She turned around and walked out of the store, spine straight, expression calm, dignity intact. Behind her, the bell chimed again. She did not look back.
Surely, she thought, this was an exception. The next store would be reasonable.
The second children’s store proved her wrong. So did the third. And the fourth. Different layouts. Different colors. Different mascots. Identical prices. By the fifth store, Ma no longer checked tags with hope. Only with confirmation. Each number hammered the same truth deeper into her bones.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
They think parents are fools. Well... most are.
She left the final store without hesitation. Outside, the air felt cleaner. Honest. Free of price tags and forced cheer. Ma exhaled slowly, her decision settling like cooled metal.
Fine. If the world insisted on selling childhood at an inflated price, I would simply refuse to buy it.
Ma rolled up her sleeves.
I would make it myself. And when I do, it would be sturdier. Cheaper. Better. Just like everything else in my house.
"I'm so proud of myself," Ma whispered into my hair, still lost in the memory.
Beside me, Sis sighed. We both watched Ma’s face cycle through expressions of anger, triumph, and exhaustion.
She's doing that movie thing again, isn't she?
We had asked her about it once, and she told us that when people get old, their brains start replaying the past like a movie they can’t turn off. A symptom of surviving, she’d called it.
"How old do you have to be to have them every day?" Sis whispered to me. "Even the neighborhood grandma doesn't do it this often."
I shrugged. We just waited for the movie to finish.
Once Ma "returned," she released me and asked, "Have you thought of a name?"
I pointed at the dark window. "Night!"
Ma stared at the darkness outside, looking petrified. It's night already? How long was I... She shook her head, clearing the fog.
"Night is a weird name. Nox is better. It sounds more... like a name."
If she was going to name it, why did she ask me? I just shrugged. "Okie dokie."
That night, the house was quiet except for Ma’s voice drifting from the hallway. She was on the phone again. "Why did you give her that raccoon mask, Fi? Now she’s obsessed. Everything is raccoon this, raccoon that." There was a pause. "The Doctor? That round piggy? Anyway—"
Ma turned and saw me standing in the doorway, clutching my old raccoon toy in one hand and Nox in the other. She instantly covered the receiver. "What's wrong, dear? Can't sleep?"
I said nothing. I just stared.
"I'll call you back," Ma muttered into the phone. She picked me up and tucked me into bed, her touch gentle but her mind clearly elsewhere.
I lay there wondering. Who was Ma talking to? How did the other person know about my racoon mask? Who was this 'The Doctor'? Is it a pig? I wonder how it taste like. Must be juicy. A drool formed at the corner of my mouth.
Then my stomach growled. I gripped my stomach and wiggled my toes. I better stop thinking and sleep or else I'll go hungry.
I gave Racoonie and Nox a few quick punches—a habit that always helped me settle—and drifted off.
In her room, Ma redialed. "I'm back. Ow... my back. I swear these kids grow too fast."
"The younger one especially," Fi’s voice crackled through the receiver—a clean, surgical sound. "I’m amazed how much she’s grown... horizontally."
Ma laughed, but it died in the back of her throat. She looked at her bandaged fingers, the 'Handiplus' stained with a faint, rusty brown. "They make me worry about all the time."
"Of course. You're their mother."
Ma’s smile wasn't happy; it was heavy with a sorrow that didn't belong in a birthday house. Oh. If only you knew.
Ma leaned her head against the wall. The plaster was ice-cold, leaching the heat from her scalp. "Did you... ever regret being my friend?"
Silence. Not the silence of a bad connection, but the heavy, suffocating silence of a truth being weighed. Ma waited patiently, her breath shallow.
"No," Fi finally said. Cold. Resolute.
Ma chuckled darkly. Oh. Fi. You will. Her eyes wandered to the empty side of her bed. You will.
"But looking at your needlework..." Fi continued, "maybe I do."
Ma bolted upright, her voice rising several notes. "Hey! I—"
"Shh. The kids are asleep."
Ma clenched her fist, her eyebrows twitching. She let out a long breath and collapsed back into her chair. "I wasn't trained for needles, Fi. You know that."
"Even a child could do better."
"Your people are monsters," Ma retorted. She glanced at the clock. The night was slipping away. "Well, got to go. Talk next time."
At the other end of the line, the woman sat in a dark silhouette. Her office smelled of ozone and old, dusty fabric. Between two fingers, she held the limp, mismatched arm of a toy—a thing of jagged seams and crooked buttons.
She glanced at the corner of the room. There, piled like a mass grave, were dozens of them—the horrendous, limping shapes Ma had sent over the week.
The woman took a slow sip of tea, her eyes fixed on the window. The moon was a bleached bone in the sky, unnaturally bright. A full moon.
"I wonder how it will turn out this time," she whispered to the light. "Isn't that right?"
The moon seemed to pulse, its glow spilling across the desk like spilled milk, illuminating the crooked, stitched smile of the toy in her hand.
“I’d like to see you try,” I retort in English, without thinking.
Ayesha stares at me out of disbelief, and the Shopkeeper gives me a rather malicious smile.
“I’ll do my best, Doctor,” He replies, somewhat amused, “Rest assured, I’ll make you pay for what you’ve done.”
- Marbles
- A shopkeeper who makes random death threats (according to the MC)
- A dystopian future that holds the Ordinance of Time in high esteem
- Starring a girl who got a bit too curious
and paralyzed a human.