"There it was again," Vision thought, squaring up the stance of the mirror. She squirmed her entire body, the glare from the mirror remaining in eye contact.
"And again." She could see clearly what it was, the seemingly odd reflection in her shape. It was a sudden in movement. She appeared bigger than the last time she looked, her eyes looking away from the mirror for a hiding space. But there was nowhere she could hide. She was bigger now; even bigger than in the instance that she moved her eyes back and forth. But how was that possible, for her to just increase in size out of thin air. All she could do was stare. If she thought she was big before, she was mistaken because she was extremely big now.
Vision bounced up, and down to see if the fat would follow, to see if it was actually real or some sort of dream. The screeching noise suddenly stopped as she no longer heard it through the window. At least she thought it was coming from outside. She continued in her bounce, rubbing her sides, pinching her belly.
"Hurry up, Vision. The food's almost cold." It was her mother.
"Ok," she yelled back, stopping her bounce, the bounce of fat shaping around her waist. It was real. Soft to touch. No longer cute, but nasty, to the point where in some places, her skin overlapped.
Vision eyed the door. It seemed to be too far on the other side of the room; way too far on the other side.
"Hurry up, Vision." She couldn't really tell which parent that had been. Their voices muffled by the stare at the door. This time she could almost feel herself grow wider, heavier, becoming scared at the uncontrollable growth. She thought of the childish laughter from the children at school. There was no way she would be able to hide this, again looking at her naked flesh. Her eyes stared at the figure that stood in the glass. She was staring back at herself, but it wasn't her. It couldn't be her. The young Black girl elongated, the mirror remaining perfectly still.
She wanted to cover her eyes from the pain, and sickening of her outer appearance that devoured all the inner beauty she knew she had. She wanted to cover her eyes from the whistle of the train. Everything was scary, and different, and quiet, and loud, and still.
The train sounded as if the tracks led through her bedroom window. Covering her ears, her palms sucked on the exposed air of her face. She pressed hard. She wanted her head to stop hearing, stop searching, to stop thinking.
The high pitch sound vibrated Vision's body. It echoed inside her, all around her. Then there was the quiet inside the close of her palms. She heard nothing. The mirror reappeared under the silence. She could only stare with her hands covered over her ears. She wanted to scream at what she saw. Through her eyes, Vision shaped the entire mirror, having outgrown the mirror sides. She was more of a reflection of the mirror than the mirror was of her.
She breathed in deeply, disgusting to look at. She felt sad, depressed, unmotivated. Her soul dropped to her feet, flowing out onto the floor. The feeling of strain in her eyes as if they would bust. What energy she had, from the depths of her spirit, she covered her eyes. The screech from the train sounded into the opening of her ears. She shivered violently, pressing into her face with both hands. The heels of her palms dug heavy into the fat of her cheeks. She wanted to give up. Tired of running away from the feeling of being a reject. To be left alone where she could just find somewhere to sit, and rest, and live, and die. They would laugh, and tease, so what. It was true anyway. She was fat. Ugly. She ate too much. She was lazy, and she would always be like that until she was no longer around.
"Believe that, Vision, and the sadness will go away." She no longer wanted to live in a world where she would everyday wake up, and respect herself, but rather live with the disrespect she created in thought, and action.
Through the peek of her fingers, Vision could no longer see her arms or waist in the mirror. Maybe she had always been this disgusting, but had never noticed it. She had always been this person that she saw in the mirror, but was hiding it from herself. She was sick, feeling the pull of the cushion bed drag at her bottom, and back. She decided she would just lie down, and cry. And maybe, just maybe, if she cried long enough she would die, and her parents would find her dead, and everything would be ok. She should put on the new dress her mother brought her to die in, thinking the dress wouldn't fit her now.
Vision fell into the downward pull of the bed. She was falling, weightless.
"Did she really want to die?" is what she asked herself, to ask herself a better question. "Did she really have to die to end her sadness?" she thought. "She didn't have to die," she told herself. She didn't have to die.
The weightless fall stopped. Vision woke from her dream; a nightmare. The bed covers rolled from the nape of her neck in her lap. It had all been a horrible dream. A long confusion of darkness, kicking the blankets from around her legs with her feet. She was awake, and she was excited. A beautiful morning. It had just been a dream. No loud awkward train screeching. They didn't even have a train in the neighborhood. She felt light, lighter than usual. And as always the first thing on her mind every morning after waking up; her weight, looking down at the shirt that laced the bottom edges covering her waist. She even looked slimmer, she thought. Maybe she had lost weight, a large amount of weight, while she slept. Maybe the dream was an opposite sign of what was actually happening to her body.
Picking herself up on the bed mattress, standing, bouncing on the cushion, the young Black girl jumped onto the wood floor. The full length standing mirror lay vertical on the other side of the bedroom bathroom.It had turned into an early morning ritual as soon as she had first got the mirror herself. Sort of a birthday gift to herself because she was beautiful. Her skin. Her smile. She knew she was, walking over to the mirror, stopping, and standing directly in front of her reflection. The shirt dropped to the wood floor, gathering around her ankles. Stepping out of the neck of the shirt, it was as if she had her eyes closed the entire time. Afraid to look.
Her eyes glanced quickly at first, finally resting on her mirror reflection. No. No. No. No. It was the same as it had always been, every morning, since the first day she had purchased the mirror, that hurt her every morning with what she hated. Vision was still fat, and the mirror made sure she knew it. That she lived it. Her head fell silently to her chest. Her hair draped across the bare of her breast like curtains. She was alone.
"Vision, breakfast is ready."
"Yeah, breakfast," crying to herself. No one heard her.
The pain increased quickly at first. Vanity couldn't believe the pain, so much pain. The small flesh wound in her chest had changed into a a large open wound.
Through the pain, Vanity imagined the open flesh. So much pain. Screaming would no longer relieve the anguish. How could she be trapped in the mercy of something as merciless as this? Inconceivable
"It wasn't fair," in thought, the holler of fire, and burn. The necklace continued its dig into the envelope wound that dropped blood like pouring water. She had yet to pass out from the escape of large amounts of blood that had, since the beginning of this nightmare, gathered up around the lower base of her ankles. The blood accumulated in thickness, so much around the inside base of the great oak that Vanity no longer sensed the emergency in the flow of blood, but rather the quiet splash of cool dark blue water that had picked up in the inside of the tree, flowing from the tree roots that hid underneath the dirt. It was no longer blood that she bled, but water. Blue water that eased the pain that told, and showed her that she was not going to be free. She was not going to live. She was going to die.
The thick water cooled her feet, her chest, and breast; the necklace digging into the flesh, deep, splashing the cool water on her lips. Vanity's tongue fluttered the taste nervously. Funny how the water tasted like blood, thick like blood; thick like her blood. The cool blue sky that lived in her tormented mind changed to fiery reds of pain, and destruction. The thick blood that layered Vanity's lips, struck as bitter, sour in taste. The thick moisture was not water, the sour taste lingering in her spirit, her soul tasting the bitter disgust of her death. Yet she was not dead. Her blood still pumped. The necklaces still swung back, and forth, melodically, with music unheard, and Vanity, after hours of staggering contemplation; life, death, life, death, freedom, torture, life, death, figured she would first pass out from the lost of blood, and simply die in her unconscious craziness. At least there would be no pain that she would feel. That would be her only place of peace, where the craziness was no longer crazy, the insanity of the situation no longer insane. Everything made perfect sense. She was simply trapped in the inside of a tree that was not hollow, yet she was not solid. The dream had keep her from passing out, but the taste of blood had taken her away from fantasy, awaking her into her spiritual despair. Everything was numb, and dark. And everything was wrong.
Vision pressed the palms of her hands into the rough exterior of the great oak tree. The soles of her bare feet dug into the loose soil of the ground, into the dirt of the roots. She sneaked a peak to see if Zulu still watched from across from the edge of the river, unattentive to the fact that he was blind, unable to see the nakedness of her flesh. The tickle of grass rubbed across the the ankles of her body. Moving awkwardly, Vision grabbed full strength on the great oak. Her feet lazily stepped, snapping the smaller branches that fell from the tree.
"There is was again," Vanity stopping all processes of thought. It was the same sound as before. Someone was hugging the great oak from the outside. It was help to come to save her from her death. She was no longer vulnerable to the circumstances of what seemed to be a new direction of her destiny. "It was help," creating the thoughts slowly. Thinking about nothing to create a way to communicate with the help intelligently, all she could really think to do was scream. "It was help." And scream. And scream.
And Vanity screamed some more. The scream felt powerful, full of desperation, shaking the foundation of her inner soul. The great oak shook to a scary tremor. She felt the cold air, created from the blood at the bottom of her footing, blow inward into the hollow wound of her chest. The pain was so great it was terror. The necklace continued its swing.
Vision had heard the scream of the young woman that laid standing just on the inside of the tree. She could not see the torture or begin to try to help. Not that she was even aware that something or someone else existed outside of her naked flesh, and the young child across the other side of the river.
"Is there someone out there? I'm not playing. I'm blind, and I'm crabbing." It was like hide, and seek. One of those games that his cousin, Lisa, had told him about that he couldn't play, but could only imagine. Except this was not fun, and not fair since he really couldn't see. He knew he had heard something definite this time. It sounded like branches breaking. He knew the sound distinctly, the way the high pitched snap entered into the air, especially when everything was quiet, and dark. Next time, most definitely, he would bring Lisa.
She stared at the poster that hung from the ceiling. She had taken the time to make sure not to damage the picture by taping or gluing it to the wall like normal. Painstakingly, Lisa had hooked the very tip corners of the poster with a plastic, elastic material that was so smooth it could glue to water. She sucked her teeth louder this time, hoping her father could hear her, eyeing the entire make up of her room. Her whole bedroom was painted purple. She had been younger when she had finally convinced her father to paint the wall the dark color. At first, it was nice. When her, and Zulu cut the lights off, the entire room would glow black where you could not see your hands in front of your face. But that had been when she was younger. And now in the midst of her punishment, the color seemed boring, pale, bizarre. It's a god thing Zu was blind or else she knew the purple color would be a constant tease.
Thinking of her cousin, she sucked her teeth again. After all, it was his idea to splash her mother with the water balloons. And of course since he always claimed to be smarter of the two, he was the one that engineered the entire trap they had set for her mother to enter into the backyard. And since he was blind, of course she was the one who would have to implement, and follow through on his intents of action. But like the painted purple room, she realized it was one of the worst ideas she had ever followed through on. Maybe Zulu had planned it like that. He was pretty smart that way. And she hadn't known what was worse. To hear her mother scream a real scream after the initial water balloon hit her or to hear Zulu's laughter at the hysteria of her mother's turmoil. He had sat quiet through the entire scolding by her father. Her mother embarrassed that she had been frightened by a balloon filled with water. It had made a perfect hit too, directly in the afro. It was a good thing her mother keep a natural. But the fun was over. Zulu had to go home early because of his cousin's reckless behavior, and she would be punished with the rest of her day spent in the confinements of her room. Which would have been ok if her mother hadn't taken the television, and radio. It was suppose to have been funny is what she had tried to tell them, but the response was met with watery drips of hair, and a television in one hand, and a radio in the other, followed by the slam of her bedroom door.
"It was Zu's fault. He planned the whole thing," is what she said to herself. And even though she loved to see Zulu get fussed at, and in trouble. She loved him way more. Besides, it just didn't feel right to tell, especially when trouble was around the corner. So just like many, many times before, she would carry the blame. She would be aright, and outside tomorrow. Life was not over. In the mean time, she would think of a way. No. She would think of many ways to get him back. Lisa stood up from the corner of her room. Funny how she had come, and sat in the corner for punishment just like they did at school.
"A bad habit," she thought, laughing to herself at the conditioning the school system had on her. "Maybe school worked after all," she concluded. Either that or she was crazy. And she wasn't crazy. The day was Tuesday. The time, staring at the clock on the wall, was 5:34 pm, and they were having hamburgers for dinner or leftover turkey from Sunday. So on, she wasn't crazy, falling backwards on top her bed, staring at the purple of the wall. She loved her poster, whatever that meant. And she loved Zu, and she knew what that meant. But only one was going to pay the price, and the one she was thinking of stood from the ground up. The question was how she was going to do it, when and where she was going to do it, and what degree of pain was going to be inflicted. Lisa's eyes closed quietly as the excitement of the day finally took it toll. She had only been tired. And the gentle snore indicated that.
He hated when he parents scolded him for actions that they were present to witness for themselves. What did granddaddy call it? Esp or something like that, as if they could see, and hear things that weren't there or things far away. But they didn't have esp, and they were not blind. And they didn't know. They were fussing because of assumptions.
"And we know you put those crazy ideas in your cousin's head, and she's so crazy that she always does them, and then takes the trouble for the both of you. But this time you getting it too."
"But I didn't do anything." The car was quiet. They seemed to act like they knew how he, and Lisa worked. They were only assuming so he had to stay strong, and not let them break him. He would have to accept the punishment with an angry face. No doubt, Lisa was planning right now in her purple factory for some type retaliation. He hadn't meant to laugh when his uncle was fussing at her, but hearing his auntie's scream, and holler, and hearing the water balloon splash was too much to keep inside. And really both he, and Lisa had both started laughing initially until they both realized that auntie was not laughing, had found nothing funny, and was quite scared at what her daughter had done. The laughter stopping immediately once his uncle came into the backyard to awkward scream. So Lisa had said payback before smiling as the door to her room closed for punishment. And as auntie gathered her thoughts from the craziness of her daughter, Zulu stared in the darkness for contemplation. Her punishment would be over tomorrow.
Harlem could sort of hear the simmer of peace, and the splash of water. It appeared as sound, and a distinct vision against the darkness that in her closed eyes. She dreamed that the water she heard was cool, the hot summer night redefining for the beauty of something natural; the sound of water splashing, relaxing her in her sleep. She was not pregnant. She was not lost. She was not away from her husband, and family. She was just by herself because she wanted to be. Peace, and quiet. A trance that allowed her to slip further, and further into herself. But as she began to move, Harlem could feel the tension grow stronger from the center of she lay. The position was awkward to her unconscious state. She heard the water splash loud as if it wanted her to sleep. To continue in her rest that seemed desperately needed. There was something wrong. And in the comfort of her resting eyes, her body told her so.
"Awwwwww," the hollow holler reawakened the violence of the environment that had at first appeared as a friend. The birds that occupied the tree that Harlem sat under reemerged into the live movements of the woods. They too having seemed to rest into a sleep only to flutter, and flap at the abrupt noise. Only the drain, and splash of the waterfall continued in its rhythm.
The two twins entangled in one another, kicked, and pushed violently within the womb of their mother. Isaiah, from his entangled position, realized that the opening that gave way to a hue of dark light seemed to open wider. More peculiar was that it also seemed to allow his sister to escape slow movement at a time. Sister was leaving the womb, the dark light slowly blanking the soft light of naked skin against the inner tissue of the womb. Isaiah realized that he too was to follow in that path.
The slow pull of the womb opened, pulling at the tuck of his legs, the umbilical cord intertwining further around the unborn's neck, around his hands, further around his feet, and head. The cord appeared to swallow him whole, pulling tighter in its tangle.
Harlem slowly eased back into the vision of her eyes from inside the back of her mind. It was the pain of the tree bark in her spine that at first reintroduced her immediate dilemma. She moaned stiffly, sliding up further into the support of the base of the tree. Her legs straddled apart.
"Awwwwwww," the holler appeared more as a cry fro help than a sigh of relief. No one heard her. Her energy drained from the pain. She didn't know how long she had been unconscious or asleep or both, the pain coming from her belly, and thighs stronger, appearing, and disappearing into her flesh. The breathing was all that keep Harlem from passing out, her hands pressed firmly against her belly for support. Her eyes were not fully open, yet Harlem realized she was pregnant about to deliver. It was only her whereabouts that lay dizzy in the sleep of her mind.
Isaiah pulled on the cord that lay wrapped around his neck. The exit of his sister from the would had come to a complete stop. The sudden movement of their mother shaking both children, taking away what little control Isaiah thought he had. The umbilical cord drifted slowly away from his neck. The cord positioned itself to loop completely free of the unborn's tiny head. Harlem reached up, and down with both hands to try to balance herself, the weight of her belly, and the pain, with the tree, and the ground. The moist of the ground slipped away underneath the pressure of her hands. Her bottom slammed to the ground, dragging the nails of her hands against the tree. She felt each nail break at the fingertip. She wanted to scream.
Isaiah could see the cord around his eyes from around his neck to tangle again his forehead, sliding down, around, and hooking up under his arms as the womb dropped from the sudden fall of their mother. He could no longer see his sister or the hue of dark light that was his freedom into another life.
Through the pain, she would try to stand again. The blood dripped from her hand, and legs. Harlem could almost feel the flesh from both places sting at the bite of cool air that no longer provided peace. And she cursed it. Her bloody hand snatching on the tree for support, Harlem pushed up, using her back to straighten her squat, and stance.
"I'm going to make it," she thought to herself., one pull at a time, one step at a time. Through the pain, she was going to make it. The umbilical cord pulled up quickly, tightening around the face of Isaiah at first, settling around the neck of the infant to finally strain the life out of the child from the weight of his mother. Sister could see over the knees of her twin brother into the eyes of his strangulation. She looked deep into the eyes that did not know how to explain horror yet it showed horror. She watched as her brother's entire body strained, and stretched out, gasping, as the unborn gave up the little life that had a chance to just happen, and nothing else. Sister could not discern between what should happen, and what shouldn't happen. Just movements of circumstance defining itself for the first time. And she watched as the umbilical cord that they shared strangled her brother to his death. His body lay floating inside the womb of the belly, lifeless. And she watched the lifeless eyes of her brother. The sudden pull from the opening of the womb drawing her further from a old world, and further into a new world, the dark light shining further across the top of her head. She was almost there.
Harlem felt that there was something wrong. Something was wrong. The dark cloud of misery, and destruction had created itself in her womb, and she prayed that her child was ok in a situation that had not presented itself as protection. Fully standing, she leaned against the support of one of the many oaks that stood tallest in the forest. She could feel the pain in her belly. She could feel the pain of her head. She could feel the pain of her legs. And she felt the head of a child make its way through the opening of her vagina, and she knew she that something was wrong.
Zulu had let everything go. He no longer cared about what was caught in the bucket as the small crab continued its claw at the bottom of the bucket. There was something out there in the woods with him, and he wanted to be sure of what it was, dropping the net carelessly to the ground. Stranding fully straight again, Zulu called out quietly at first, finally in a talking shout.
Harlem heard a shout, distinct. Faded, and far away, but she had heard it, and it presented itself as help. Vision moved quickly back behind the great oak, the branches of the great tree jabbing up into her feet, her eyes peeking around to see. The moon appeared high, and slanted directly overhead. And then she saw it. Clear at first, and even clearer as she refocused a second time to make sure her childish play was not interfering with her sight. And in the midst of the light of the moon that reflected the wildly in the water, a white grizzly bear emerged from the dress of the trees into the excitement of the river. The bear turned to look directly at the blind child who had come to crab by himself. All Vision could do was react, and wave violently, snatching her hands away from the great oak, charging toward the river, Zulu, and the bear.
The white grizzly exited from the seclusion of the forest into the opening of the vast freedom that the river provided, eyeing the reassurance of the water. She was hungry, and she was ready to eat, not bothering to look around, and see the inquisitive young child that stood a few yards up stream.
Zulu could hear the awkward brush away of bushes followed by what sounded like something he had never heard before. The sound was faint of heavy footsteps. The whole world was shaking under each move forward, and then a loud splash sounding from the center of the river.
Initially, she had just wanted to scream at the top of her lungs, at Zulu who stood a couple of yards from the unsuspecting animal. She had heard many stories of wild animals the frequented the river; bears mostly. Maybe a bobcat or two. Only once had she heard of the grizzlies that dwelled high up in the mountains. The talk of the white grizzly that appeared not to be of a natural color. Many said that the animal came from another planet, having paid no attention to the stories that were used many times to get the young children out of the deepest parts of the wilderness. But there she was; all claws, and fur. Vision wanted to stop. She wanted to stop, and turn around. She wanted to run the other way. Pass the great oak. Pass the tall shrubbery of bushes that lined the oak trees, into the light area of the forest that led into town. She wanted to run away, stumbling the thick of the oak root, jumping over the extended end of the tree, clearing the cliff of ground that trailed into the water. She breathed in deeply, tucking her legs, catching her weight against the water surface, straightening into the watery field. She was in the river not wanting to continue. She didn't want to yell for fear of scaring their presence to the animal as aggression. She realized that the river had never been as deep as it had always appeared, the water coming to her waist.
The white grizzly dipped her nose into the river water. It was warm. The food would still be out, and seeing how the big light shined just overhead, she would be able to eat in large amounts. The splash sounded loud to the ears of the white grizzly, the grizzly appearing startled at first. Not knowing where the loud splash originated, hoping that no one was out there with her. Her head looked up quickly, first looking downstream at the small appearance of the river that disappeared into the night air. She could only imagine the drop of the waterfall. It looked very tiny from upstream, barely visible with even her eyes.
The grizzly turned, and directly in front of her stood a little child camouflaged in the tint of the night darkness . . . . page continue