Ghost Bird | ✔

Eleven

  I blink my eyes a bit, but I can only see out of the one. Looking into the mirror, I wince a little at my reflection. The girl in the mirror stares back at me, but I don't recognize her. Surely, I don't have a scar slicing my left eyebrow in two. That scar on running from my lip to my chin wasn't there. Of my bright green eyes, one of them is murky, slightly clouded over.

For the first time in almost three years, I study my reflection in the mirror.

Mother removed all the mirrors in the house except the one in her bedroom saying that sluts like me like their body too much. We don't need to look at it anymore.

Finally, after living in her own filth for so long, she is having me clean her room and the attached bathroom while she takes a nap on the couch. It is awful. There are clothes everywhere, dirty dishes stacked on her nightstand, and old food on her bed and nightstand. There are stains on the walls that I don't want to know what are from. Literally, the room smells of death. I don't know how else to describe the terrible smell, but I do know that being in here for too long will cause me to pass out from the fumes alone, it smells that bad.

I swallow and turn away from the mirror, steeling myself for the grisly task ahead. Cleaning my mother's room.

Quickly, I place all of her clothes in a pile in the hall and get the washing machine started on the first load. While that is running, I add her sheets to the pile and scrub her mattress as best as I can without ruining it. I douse the room in disinfectant and open up the lone window, hoping that it will vent out at least some of the smell. Gathering up all the dishes, I lug them downstairs as quietly as possible so that Mother does not wake up because of me.

Racing back upstairs, I grab a few garbage bags and start removing all the trash that I can find. Which is a lot. I scrub every surface of the room and bathroom with ammonia, the smell filling the room. I even moved all the furniture and vacuumed. Now, I am moving all the furniture back. As I struggle to push the dresser, it tips falls over with a mighty crash before I can righten it. Thankfully, it just narrowly missed the wall.

Unfortunately, there is no way that Mother could have slept through that sound. Vacuuming was pushing it, but it was necessary to thoroughly clean the room. Frantically, I try to right the dresser so that I can at least try and claim that the crash wasn't from me.

Sure enough, Mother bursts into the room. Her eyes are red from just waking up, making her green irises stand out as they land on me struggling to fix the dresser. Mother's face is contorted with anger and a shade of purple.

"What do you think you are doing?!" Mother roars. "Don't you know I was sleeping?"

"I'm sorry, Mother," I whimper. "I didn't mean to. It was an accident, I'm sorry."

"An accident?!" She exclaims.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" I repeat frantically.

Mother shoves me into the wall and yells, "SHUT UP! I DON'T WANT TO HEAR YOUR VOICE!!"

"I'm sorry..." I whisper before I can stop myself.

Instantly, her rage turns into calm, scaring me even further.

"Bring me the bleach," Mother orders, her voice and features blank of any emotion.

Her eyes, though, are full of emotion. Giddiness. She has an idea in mind and excited. And if Mother is excited, I need to be worried. But I am not worried. I am terrified. Pure, undiluted terror filled me to the core.

Nervously, I bring her the bleach, my throat already throbbing in anticipation. However, she does not make me drink it.

Mother dumps the bleach into the bowl that held the ammonia. The toxic fumes of the two mixing fill the air that was already threatening to make me pass out.

"Have fun cleaning!" She calls closing and locking the door as she walks out of the room laughing.

Thankfully, Mother does not read as many books as I do. It is a common misbelief that bleach and ammonia produce chlorine gas when mixed together. In reality, the effects are more like tear gas, driving people away, but it rarely will kill someone which I believe her intent was. To kill me.

I shake my head, knowing that is not true. Mother wouldn't kill me. It would be too much trouble. She would have to dispose of the body which would be a bit difficult without leaving the house. Although, she could just stick me down the garbage disposal and grind me up bit by bit. Or chop me up and put a chunk of me out in the garbage can each week. Or—you know what? I don't want to keep thinking of ways that Mother could get away with killing me. What's keeping her from killing me is the fact that she needs me. Who else would do the cooking and the cleaning? Who else would Mother take her frustrations out on? Who else would take the trash to the curb and retrieve the groceries? Mother has a hard time even opening the front door, she is so agoraphobic. After being held prisoner in her own home for so long, Mother now fears ever leaving the house, a fear that is starting to project to me.

I stay away from the ground as much as possible, knowing that the gas is dense and sinks to the ground. Unfortunately, my short height does not help me out. Hurriedly, I stick the bowl in the cabinet in the bathroom to contain the fumes at least somewhat.

Taking a towel from my cleaning supplies, I soak it in the bathroom and tie it around my face so it covers my nose and mouth. Hopefully, it will help keep the rest of the gas and fumes at bay.

I clean the room as fast as I can, knowing that I will not last much longer without passing out. Thankfully, I was almost finished when I woke Mother up and it does not take me too long to clean. I set the bowl back where it was and put the towel away, blinking away spots and using the walls to guide me as I make my way there to fight back the lightheadedness that threatens to overcome me.

"Mother!" I yell as loud as I can. "I'm sorry for waking you up! Your room is clean now!"

After about fifteen minutes, Mother stumbles into the room. The first thing she does is check that the bowl is exactly how it was.

Inspecting the room, she grunts, "Close enough. Fan the door a bit and get the hell out of my room with these supplies."

I do as she says, like the obedient child I strive to be.

I just wish that once she would thank me for my work. The work that I do for her.

But I know that I do not deserve a thank you.