I have have night terrors, and when I wake up, someone is…
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I have have night terrors, and when I wake up, someone is always there to lull me back to sleep.
It’s embarrassing to say, but I was tucked into bed probably until the end of middle school. I had these terrible night terrors that really made it hard to fall asleep on my own. It’d be multiple times a night I’d wake up, then be unable to fall back asleep, so often my parents would just regularly come in and help me do so. My father stopped aiding with the nightly bedtime rituals pretty quickly, telling me I needed to grow up even though I was like seven at the time, but my mother continued way into my teenage years. I think he only expected to be having to get up regularly in the middle of the night when I was a toddler.
At first it was the typical bed time story, or she’d read a chapter from a book or something like that to me, but as I moved into the final years of elementary school and into middle school she ended up just sitting there with me, talking with me, or sometimes reviewing flash cards and other study materials for school until I fell asleep. Bed time stories fell out of style.
It was about when I started my freshman year of high school that those nightly rituals stopped. It wasn’t because I didn’t want them anymore. I wasn’t worried about being cool (surprisingly), or just didn’t need them anymore, I still very much needed the aid.
It was because my mother had to pick up a second job. A nightshift. My father left the picture around middle school and just stopped supporting me and my mother all around. We think he left the country. Her salary as a teacher wasn’t enough on its own, and I had hit the age where I could take care of myself fairly well for dinner and things like that.
We started medicating me to help me sleep, which my mother had always been against, but due to our current situation she was left with no choice. I was glad to start them though. I guess before, although I said I wasn’t worried about being cool, I think I was a little. The idea of being able to finally switch away from the childlike coddling at night felt like a big step forward in my life.
While it helped me fall asleep at first, their effects started to weaken. I couldn’t really do anything about it. I guess I could have taken another pill, but instead I’d often just lay and stare at the ceiling, waiting for my mom to come home. I hoped that she would pop her head in, and sometimes she did, and those times she’d lull me back to sleep, but more often than not I wouldn’t see her until the sun rose the next morning. Both of us were failing to get any sleep at all. And it showed.
I was falling asleep in almost every class, my grades were dropping, and my ability to play football for the school’s team was waning. I got kicked off anyway due to my falling grades, but it didn’t matter much, I don’t know if at that rate I would have been able to continue. Getting kicked off was much better than becoming a bench warmer.
My mother just slept when she wasn’t working. She also stopped popping her head into my room to make sure I hadn’t woken up in the middle of the night. She told me the same thing my dad did at one point. To just grow up, take my meds and deal with it. It wasn’t like my mother at all.
While her perpetual weariness helped her easily fall asleep, mine meant nothing. Maybe I had a little insomnia or something like that, but I had never been diagnosed for it. My mother had talked to people at the school and a few different doctors about doing a sleep study, but we never went through with it.
That was because I began getting my sleep again. Even though I was still waking up in the middle of the night, I was easily able to fall back asleep.
When I’d wake up, sweaty and shaking like a scared little dog with his tail between his legs, I’d always see someone sitting at the end of my bed. In the darkness it was often hard to make out, at first I just assumed it was my mom.
The silhouette at the end of my bed had long hair, down to her hips, which was odd. At one point my mother had similar, very long hair, but she cut it for the purpose of her second job. At that time, her hair should have been about half that length. Everything else was about the same though; her long night gown she always wore to bed and her slightly plump figure, it was the spitting image. Well, at least through my groggy, sleep deprived eyes. Then it spoke to me.
“You’re alright…” It said to me. It sounded like my mother too, but its voice was a little raspy. Sounded like if my mother had been a lifetime smoker.
It reached its hand out to me. Its body didn’t move, it stayed upright, didn’t look at me, far away at the end of the bed. But its arm extended with this soft cracking and crunching sound, like stepping on little twigs and dead leaves while hiking through the cool fall woods. It touched me with a cold hand, wiped a tear from my cheek. Everything about it should have scared me, but I felt calm, and I was almost immediately getting drowsy.
“Have I ever told you about the cat and the mouse?” It asked me.
“No…” I yawned.
“Well, there used to be this little mouse that ran about my house. It ate all my food and would leave little droppings all throughout my house. So I got a cat. But the cat was lazy, it didn’t want to chase the mouse. The mouse continued to eat all my food and so too did the cat. The cat got fat and the mouse got fatter.” She told me.
It was about at that point her words began to get mumbled, and I began to drift off back to sleep. She continued her story about her cat and mouse, but I was barely making any of it out. More stuff about eating and getting fat. Sounded like that was basically the whole story anyway, so I don’t think I missed out on much.
I didn’t see my mom the following morning. Normally she’d be around with a slice of peanut butter toast and a little coffee for me, ready to send me off to school. But she wasn’t there. I just got all that stuff myself and got on with my day. If I were to see her, it’d be around dinner time as she popped into the house to get ready for her second job.
And that I did, I saw her as she tiredly stumbled into the house and sat down at the kitchen counter. I hadn’t ever seen her like that before. I knew she was tired all the time, working two jobs, one a very stressful job, the second I didn’t know much about. Suppose I had seen her crash on the couch from time to time, guess how tired she was never really hit me until I saw her awake.
She walked in like she was drunk, her eyes almost completely shut, her steps a little irregular. It felt like I was looking at my dad for a second. She rested her head on the cold counter and looked at me. Smiled softly. It was a sad sight.
“What's for dinner tonight, my baby boy?” She asked. There was a bit of a rasp in her voice, but her hair was just as short as I had remembered it being.
“I made spaghetti.” I told her, filling my plate. Once I had a mountain of undercooked pasta and overcooked meatballs, I moved to sit next to her.
“It smells good.” She said as she stretched a little and sat upright.
“Do you want some?”
“No, thank you though. They had pizza at the conference. I think I ate too much, my stomach's hurting a little.” She let out an exaggerated, deep exhale.
We sat in silence for a moment. But the thought of the story last night, the person at the end of my bed, was still churning in my mind. It had been all day. Maybe I was a little mad at my mom at the moment. She now seemed like herself, despite her exhaustion.
I knew my mom was tired and overworking, but it didn’t mean I didn’t like her change of attitude. Probably a little teen angst. I felt I was seeing my mom change into my dad. There was a mix of emotions with her attitude towards my sleep problems, a sadness watching her kill herself over her work, and her sober drunkenness as she crashed on the couch all the time and stumbled tiredly throughout the house.
More so, I think I was mad at myself for being such a problem to her, a burden, but I took it out on her at that moment.
“What was with that stupid story about the cat and the mouse?” I set my fork down and looked over at her.
“What?” She furrowed her brow in confusion.
“Well, I don’t know, you say just the exact same thing dad said to me when I was seven god damn years old! ‘Grow up’, then you put me on these meds and just send me to bed, that's not like you! And-and…” I pause, stuttering a little, trying not to cry as I spout my mess of emotions. “You stopped helping me when I needed you, you stopped checking on me at night! Then all the sudden you decide to help me again? Tell me a stupid story about a cat and mouse eating food and getting fat?”
She just stared at me in silence. The confusion on her face had faded and there was a great sadness washing over her.
“You’re turning into dad! All inconsistent, never around, what's next, you going to disappear on me too?”
And that was that. I said what I shouldn’t have said. But I said it. I said the worst thing I could have said to my mother. A woman who I know was giving her all to take care of me. Giving her life almost. But in my anger I stabbed deep.
“You know we don’t use words like ‘damn’ in this house.” She said to me as tears clearly entered her eyes. “I have to get ready for work.”
She didn’t yell back anything. She never was the kind of person to argue with me, or anyone for that matter. Even when my dad was terrible to her and to me, she never argued. She criticized for sure, but never truly argued.
And I felt terrible. That may have been my one chance to properly talk with my mom that I would have gotten in the next month or so, and I ruined it. And too now, I knew that that thing last night wasn’t my mother.
She quickly left after barely freshening up. I hadn’t moved from the kitchen counter, I didn’t look at her as she left. It was silent throughout the house, I just stared at the oven across from me. My eyes kept spinning around and around the dials. I was still trying to hold back my tears, but it was inevitable. They came, pouring out as strong as the falls of Niagara. I ran to my room and just jumped into bed.
I never fell asleep. I heard my mom come in around three in the morning. I watched her shadow pass my room. That was about the same time the stranger appeared again.
The weight of their body was definitely heavier than before. Just barely, but just enough that I could tell. Their arms cracked and popped outward towards my face again. Rubbing my cheek and wiping the tears away that just wouldn’t stop.
“It’s alright…” They consoled me. Their voice sounded the exact same as the previous night, almost like a video being replayed.
“It’s not alright.” I mumbled.
“Have I ever told you about the cat and the mouse?” It asked me.
“You told me about it last night.” I told it.
It began retelling the story. Every word was spoken the exact same way. I felt myself getting drowsy at about the exact same point in the story. And without meds, I fell asleep. I knew it wasn’t my mother. But the way I felt at that moment, made me care not about what it was.
It felt like a mother, and that was enough.
It went on for about a week. Every night it would tell me the same story, every night it spoke the exact same way. Same intonations, the same pace of speech, the exact same words spoken every night. Even the way it caressed my face was the exact same. I think the way my tears fell down my face, they may have even been following the same path towards my chin, every single time.
Every night too, the weight of their body was always just a little heavier on the end of my bed. Every night, the mattress dipped deeper around her. Over the week too, a small indentation began to form at the corner of the bed she always sat at. The creek of my wooden bedframe became a bit heavier each time she appeared too, as her body would sink into the mattress.
Eventually I got to hear the next part of the story. It was about half way through the second week of her presence at night. I wasn’t getting as sleepy as fast anymore, though I was still very tired. It took me a little longer for my eyes to close and my ears to shut out any noise around me.
“...My fridge became emptier and emptier. And I became skinny. My fat cat was taking all my food, and so was the fatter mouse. I wanted to eat so, so very bad. My stomach would growl and growl, like an angry dog. But I let the mouse eat more and more, and I let the cat eat more and more too. Until there was nothing left in the fridge…” Her story continued. It was at about that point where I drifted off.
Every night I would fall asleep there for about another week or so. During that week my mom and I never really saw each other. Maybe I was avoiding her without thinking, maybe she was avoiding me. Maybe it was both.
We finally crossed paths on a similar day. She had a later start to her night job, and got home around dinner time from work at the local school. I was cooking spaghetti again, the noodles still under cooked, and the meatballs still over cooked. I loaded my plate up, and sat next to her at the kitchen counter. The silence between us was heavy for a moment, until she spoke.
“My grandma used to tell me that story. About the cat and the mouse…” She said.
“That’s cool…” I replied.
“It was a really weird story, a little messed up for me to be hearing when I was five.” She snagged a noodle from my plate and slurped it up. “It’s good. But you need to cook the noodles a little longer.”
“I like them like that.” I told her.
She let out a sigh while I just stared down at my plate.
“You know, I would never leave you.” She choked a little on her words. “I can’t really explain what happened with your father, I’m not really sure what happened to begin with. He’s always been like that. Even when we were dating all the way back in high school. My mother, your grandmother, was like that too. She would care when it felt like the time to care, and when that time passed, she would just stop. She’d get cold and harsh with her words and actions.
“When you were born, she took up that caring mantle. A little too much. She was always so overbearing with you. She would fight me on who would bathe you, who would change your diaper. From what I remember my father telling me, she was never like that with me. Maybe she wanted to care properly for a change, but it all came off wrong.
“I was surprised she didn’t try to breast feed you.” She laughed, although it was clear it was hurting her to talk about this. “To an extent, I’m glad she passed while you were still young. I fear what kind of woman she would have turned into.”
“I’m sorry I was so awful to you the other day.” I told her. “I’m just…”
“I know.” She paused. “My salary has gone up at work. So I think I’m going to quit my other job. I know recently I haven’t been the best. And I hope you’ll forgive me. I’m always so scared I’ll turn into someone like my mother was, and for a moment I was scared I’d turn into someone like your father. But I would never hurt you, I never want to hurt you. I’m just trying to be the best mom I can be. And sometimes that's hard.”
I didn’t know what to say. Her hand rested on my shoulder gently and she gave it a squeeze.
“It’ll only be a few more weeks that I’ll be working the second job, I’m going to put my two weeks in today.” She stood up, “do you want me to tuck you in tonight?”
“Y-yeah…” I stuttered. “That’d be nice.”
So, I got ready for bed and she came in a little after. She sat close next to me, looking down at the foot of my bed.
“You know, when we did this when you were around four, she would sit at the edge of the bed, while I sat around this close to you.” She grabbed my hand that was resting on my chest. I just stared into the ceiling. “Of course not this same bed, a much smaller one, but I would tell you a bed time story and she would always chime in. There was only one time she told you that story, about the cat and the mouse, but I cut her off once I realized what she was saying. I stopped letting her come in and help with bedtime after that.
“You were right, it is a stupid story, a stupid and very terrible story.” She took a look at the alarm clock on my nightstand and stood up. “I’ll come in and check on you once I get off work. Don’t forget to take your pills.”
She gave me a kiss on the forehead and left to go get ready. I sat up and looked down at the little indent in my bed by my feet. I remembered my grandma being around, but not like that. Maybe as a little toddler I didn’t really think much of it. But what I did remember was how she was always there, no matter what we were doing.
Even after taking my pills, it took me a moment to drift off to sleep. My mind was racing with thoughts of my mother, my father, and now my grandma too. To an extent, it almost felt like I was an extra burden on my mother. If my father was always like that, like someone who was only a lover or a father when it was convenient to him; and my grandmother, overburdening her love on me and being a terrible mother, what else would have been weighing down on my mom?
Maybe it was me that was weighing on her. But that was my own brain talking. I knew that much. Having my mother by my side like that once more felt nice. It felt a little stupid at my age, but it was nice. I was still trying to balance the worries of being uncool with the idea of wanting my mother by my side. Did I care or did I not care? I suppose nobody would know unless they were stalking me.
I awoke again around three, sweating profusely and my eyes watering. And there it was, sitting at the end of my bed. Everything played out the same as it always does. Its cracking arms reached towards me, it carefully wiped my tears as it began telling the same story. But I didn’t say anything to it.
I was struggling to fall asleep, so that time, I heard the final part of the story.
“And since the food was now all gone, the three of us became hungrier and hungrier. The cat finally began to look at the mouse. Its fat body looking like a juicy piece of meat. Its round tummy growling. ‘Oh feed me, Mr. Cat, I am getting empty,’ the cat’s tummy told the cat. I began to look at the cat, it too looked like a big, juicy piece of meat.
“‘I am getting empty!’ My tummy told me. As for the mouse, there was nothing it could eat, no where it could move. So the cat finally pounced, and ripped the poor mouse apart. It ate and it ate until now the cat too couldn’t move. His belly too big, and his legs too short. But he was happy, and he slowly fell asleep, his belly now satisfied. And that's… when I pounced!” Her hands that were once caressing my face were now digging into my cheeks. I braced myself for it to jump on me, but it just kept facing the wall while its twisted and elongated arms tore into the skin of my cheeks.
My face started to burn as its grip grew tighter and tighter on my face. I reached up and grabbed for her hands, trying to pull them off of my face. That once calming feeling that would always wash over me, lull me back to sleep, was now replaced with a panic.
I kicked and pulled but she was too strong. Slowly her head began to turn to me, her long hair shifting across the top of my bed. I wanted to scream but through the pain in my face and snotty, scared tears, I found myself choking on my breaths.
“And I tore…” she slowly continued her story, “and I tore… and I tore up the cat. Its meat was so, so tasty, and my tummy was so, so happy…”
I heard someone coming down the hall, my mom was home. She slowly began to approach my door. It seemed it heard too, as there was a pause in its movements. It finally stopped digging into my face, its head froze just barely inches away from finally facing me. Its hair stopped shifting, falling a little off the side of the bed and swaying just a little before it came to a pause. My bedroom door began slowly creaking open, and I finally was able to call out.
“MOM!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. It was enough to send my mother into a panic and she busted the rest of the way through the door.
“What's wrong-” Her eyes quickly shifted to it sitting on the end of my bed, and she let out an ear piercing shriek.
Quickly, its body twisted and turned, its long hair and elegant gown flowing beautifully in contrast to its jerky, aggressive movements as it turned to face my mother. In a split moment, it shifted its hunger from me to my mother, and pounced.
I watched, in my fear and panic unsure of what to do. The sounds of tearing flesh and shrill, pained screams filled my room, bounced down the halls of my house, and out into the dark of the night.
The mess of hair and gown that flowed over my mother like a blanket began to turn red. My breaths hastened and I could feel my face going numb. It was my mother’s words that broke me from my trance.
“Run!” She commanded. And so I did. I ran out of the house and into the night. The closest neighbors had heard the commotion and their lights came on. I went to their homes and began banging on the doors until one finally came to answer. I told them my mother was being attacked and they quickly came to aid. But it was too late. By the time the police arrived and we had returned to the scene, there was almost nothing left.
I went into care under my uncle and aunt. But they were so estranged it almost felt like I was in foster care. We held a funeral for my mother, but it felt meaningless. What was the point of burying someone if there was only a hand left to bury.
It's been a few years since then. Surprisingly my night terrors have calmed down. But I keep seeing every night, in the corner of my room, I keep seeing it. Its long flowing hair, its summer night gown, and its disgusting, bulbous gut. I just hope it doesn’t get hungry again any time soon.
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It’s embarrassing to say, but I was tucked into bed probably until the end of middle school. I had these terrible night terrors that really made it hard to fall asleep on my own. It’d be multiple times a night I’d wake up, then be unable to fall back asleep, so often my parents would just regularly come in and help me do so. My father stopped aiding with the nightly bedtime rituals pretty quickly, telling me I needed to grow up even though I was like seven at the time, but my mother continued way into my teenage years. I think he only expected to be having to get up regularly in the middle of the night when I was a toddler.
At first it was the typical bed time story, or she’d read a chapter from a book or something like that to me, but as I moved into the final years of elementary school and into middle school she ended up just sitting there with me, talking with me, or sometimes reviewing flash cards and other study materials for school until I fell asleep. Bed time stories fell out of style.
It was about when I started my freshman year of high school that those nightly rituals stopped. It wasn’t because I didn’t want them anymore. I wasn’t worried about being cool (surprisingly), or just didn’t need them anymore, I still very much needed the aid.
It was because my mother had to pick up a second job. A nightshift. My father left the picture around middle school and just stopped supporting me and my mother all around. We think he left the country. Her salary as a teacher wasn’t enough on its own, and I had hit the age where I could take care of myself fairly well for dinner and things like that.
We started medicating me to help me sleep, which my mother had always been against, but due to our current situation she was left with no choice. I was glad to start them though. I guess before, although I said I wasn’t worried about being cool, I think I was a little. The idea of being able to finally switch away from the childlike coddling at night felt like a big step forward in my life.
While it helped me fall asleep at first, their effects started to weaken. I couldn’t really do anything about it. I guess I could have taken another pill, but instead I’d often just lay and stare at the ceiling, waiting for my mom to come home. I hoped that she would pop her head in, and sometimes she did, and those times she’d lull me back to sleep, but more often than not I wouldn’t see her until the sun rose the next morning. Both of us were failing to get any sleep at all. And it showed.
I was falling asleep in almost every class, my grades were dropping, and my ability to play football for the school’s team was waning. I got kicked off anyway due to my falling grades, but it didn’t matter much, I don’t know if at that rate I would have been able to continue. Getting kicked off was much better than becoming a bench warmer.
My mother just slept when she wasn’t working. She also stopped popping her head into my room to make sure I hadn’t woken up in the middle of the night. She told me the same thing my dad did at one point. To just grow up, take my meds and deal with it. It wasn’t like my mother at all.
While her perpetual weariness helped her easily fall asleep, mine meant nothing. Maybe I had a little insomnia or something like that, but I had never been diagnosed for it. My mother had talked to people at the school and a few different doctors about doing a sleep study, but we never went through with it.
That was because I began getting my sleep again. Even though I was still waking up in the middle of the night, I was easily able to fall back asleep.
When I’d wake up, sweaty and shaking like a scared little dog with his tail between his legs, I’d always see someone sitting at the end of my bed. In the darkness it was often hard to make out, at first I just assumed it was my mom.
The silhouette at the end of my bed had long hair, down to her hips, which was odd. At one point my mother had similar, very long hair, but she cut it for the purpose of her second job. At that time, her hair should have been about half that length. Everything else was about the same though; her long night gown she always wore to bed and her slightly plump figure, it was the spitting image. Well, at least through my groggy, sleep deprived eyes. Then it spoke to me.
“You’re alright…” It said to me. It sounded like my mother too, but its voice was a little raspy. Sounded like if my mother had been a lifetime smoker.
It reached its hand out to me. Its body didn’t move, it stayed upright, didn’t look at me, far away at the end of the bed. But its arm extended with this soft cracking and crunching sound, like stepping on little twigs and dead leaves while hiking through the cool fall woods. It touched me with a cold hand, wiped a tear from my cheek. Everything about it should have scared me, but I felt calm, and I was almost immediately getting drowsy.
“Have I ever told you about the cat and the mouse?” It asked me.
“No…” I yawned.
“Well, there used to be this little mouse that ran about my house. It ate all my food and would leave little droppings all throughout my house. So I got a cat. But the cat was lazy, it didn’t want to chase the mouse. The mouse continued to eat all my food and so too did the cat. The cat got fat and the mouse got fatter.” She told me.
It was about at that point her words began to get mumbled, and I began to drift off back to sleep. She continued her story about her cat and mouse, but I was barely making any of it out. More stuff about eating and getting fat. Sounded like that was basically the whole story anyway, so I don’t think I missed out on much.
I didn’t see my mom the following morning. Normally she’d be around with a slice of peanut butter toast and a little coffee for me, ready to send me off to school. But she wasn’t there. I just got all that stuff myself and got on with my day. If I were to see her, it’d be around dinner time as she popped into the house to get ready for her second job.
And that I did, I saw her as she tiredly stumbled into the house and sat down at the kitchen counter. I hadn’t ever seen her like that before. I knew she was tired all the time, working two jobs, one a very stressful job, the second I didn’t know much about. Suppose I had seen her crash on the couch from time to time, guess how tired she was never really hit me until I saw her awake.
She walked in like she was drunk, her eyes almost completely shut, her steps a little irregular. It felt like I was looking at my dad for a second. She rested her head on the cold counter and looked at me. Smiled softly. It was a sad sight.
“What's for dinner tonight, my baby boy?” She asked. There was a bit of a rasp in her voice, but her hair was just as short as I had remembered it being.
“I made spaghetti.” I told her, filling my plate. Once I had a mountain of undercooked pasta and overcooked meatballs, I moved to sit next to her.
“It smells good.” She said as she stretched a little and sat upright.
“Do you want some?”
“No, thank you though. They had pizza at the conference. I think I ate too much, my stomach's hurting a little.” She let out an exaggerated, deep exhale.
We sat in silence for a moment. But the thought of the story last night, the person at the end of my bed, was still churning in my mind. It had been all day. Maybe I was a little mad at my mom at the moment. She now seemed like herself, despite her exhaustion.
I knew my mom was tired and overworking, but it didn’t mean I didn’t like her change of attitude. Probably a little teen angst. I felt I was seeing my mom change into my dad. There was a mix of emotions with her attitude towards my sleep problems, a sadness watching her kill herself over her work, and her sober drunkenness as she crashed on the couch all the time and stumbled tiredly throughout the house.
More so, I think I was mad at myself for being such a problem to her, a burden, but I took it out on her at that moment.
“What was with that stupid story about the cat and the mouse?” I set my fork down and looked over at her.
“What?” She furrowed her brow in confusion.
“Well, I don’t know, you say just the exact same thing dad said to me when I was seven god damn years old! ‘Grow up’, then you put me on these meds and just send me to bed, that's not like you! And-and…” I pause, stuttering a little, trying not to cry as I spout my mess of emotions. “You stopped helping me when I needed you, you stopped checking on me at night! Then all the sudden you decide to help me again? Tell me a stupid story about a cat and mouse eating food and getting fat?”
She just stared at me in silence. The confusion on her face had faded and there was a great sadness washing over her.
“You’re turning into dad! All inconsistent, never around, what's next, you going to disappear on me too?”
And that was that. I said what I shouldn’t have said. But I said it. I said the worst thing I could have said to my mother. A woman who I know was giving her all to take care of me. Giving her life almost. But in my anger I stabbed deep.
“You know we don’t use words like ‘damn’ in this house.” She said to me as tears clearly entered her eyes. “I have to get ready for work.”
She didn’t yell back anything. She never was the kind of person to argue with me, or anyone for that matter. Even when my dad was terrible to her and to me, she never argued. She criticized for sure, but never truly argued.
And I felt terrible. That may have been my one chance to properly talk with my mom that I would have gotten in the next month or so, and I ruined it. And too now, I knew that that thing last night wasn’t my mother.
She quickly left after barely freshening up. I hadn’t moved from the kitchen counter, I didn’t look at her as she left. It was silent throughout the house, I just stared at the oven across from me. My eyes kept spinning around and around the dials. I was still trying to hold back my tears, but it was inevitable. They came, pouring out as strong as the falls of Niagara. I ran to my room and just jumped into bed.
I never fell asleep. I heard my mom come in around three in the morning. I watched her shadow pass my room. That was about the same time the stranger appeared again.
The weight of their body was definitely heavier than before. Just barely, but just enough that I could tell. Their arms cracked and popped outward towards my face again. Rubbing my cheek and wiping the tears away that just wouldn’t stop.
“It’s alright…” They consoled me. Their voice sounded the exact same as the previous night, almost like a video being replayed.
“It’s not alright.” I mumbled.
“Have I ever told you about the cat and the mouse?” It asked me.
“You told me about it last night.” I told it.
It began retelling the story. Every word was spoken the exact same way. I felt myself getting drowsy at about the exact same point in the story. And without meds, I fell asleep. I knew it wasn’t my mother. But the way I felt at that moment, made me care not about what it was.
It felt like a mother, and that was enough.
It went on for about a week. Every night it would tell me the same story, every night it spoke the exact same way. Same intonations, the same pace of speech, the exact same words spoken every night. Even the way it caressed my face was the exact same. I think the way my tears fell down my face, they may have even been following the same path towards my chin, every single time.
Every night too, the weight of their body was always just a little heavier on the end of my bed. Every night, the mattress dipped deeper around her. Over the week too, a small indentation began to form at the corner of the bed she always sat at. The creek of my wooden bedframe became a bit heavier each time she appeared too, as her body would sink into the mattress.
Eventually I got to hear the next part of the story. It was about half way through the second week of her presence at night. I wasn’t getting as sleepy as fast anymore, though I was still very tired. It took me a little longer for my eyes to close and my ears to shut out any noise around me.
“...My fridge became emptier and emptier. And I became skinny. My fat cat was taking all my food, and so was the fatter mouse. I wanted to eat so, so very bad. My stomach would growl and growl, like an angry dog. But I let the mouse eat more and more, and I let the cat eat more and more too. Until there was nothing left in the fridge…” Her story continued. It was at about that point where I drifted off.
Every night I would fall asleep there for about another week or so. During that week my mom and I never really saw each other. Maybe I was avoiding her without thinking, maybe she was avoiding me. Maybe it was both.
We finally crossed paths on a similar day. She had a later start to her night job, and got home around dinner time from work at the local school. I was cooking spaghetti again, the noodles still under cooked, and the meatballs still over cooked. I loaded my plate up, and sat next to her at the kitchen counter. The silence between us was heavy for a moment, until she spoke.
“My grandma used to tell me that story. About the cat and the mouse…” She said.
“That’s cool…” I replied.
“It was a really weird story, a little messed up for me to be hearing when I was five.” She snagged a noodle from my plate and slurped it up. “It’s good. But you need to cook the noodles a little longer.”
“I like them like that.” I told her.
She let out a sigh while I just stared down at my plate.
“You know, I would never leave you.” She choked a little on her words. “I can’t really explain what happened with your father, I’m not really sure what happened to begin with. He’s always been like that. Even when we were dating all the way back in high school. My mother, your grandmother, was like that too. She would care when it felt like the time to care, and when that time passed, she would just stop. She’d get cold and harsh with her words and actions.
“When you were born, she took up that caring mantle. A little too much. She was always so overbearing with you. She would fight me on who would bathe you, who would change your diaper. From what I remember my father telling me, she was never like that with me. Maybe she wanted to care properly for a change, but it all came off wrong.
“I was surprised she didn’t try to breast feed you.” She laughed, although it was clear it was hurting her to talk about this. “To an extent, I’m glad she passed while you were still young. I fear what kind of woman she would have turned into.”
“I’m sorry I was so awful to you the other day.” I told her. “I’m just…”
“I know.” She paused. “My salary has gone up at work. So I think I’m going to quit my other job. I know recently I haven’t been the best. And I hope you’ll forgive me. I’m always so scared I’ll turn into someone like my mother was, and for a moment I was scared I’d turn into someone like your father. But I would never hurt you, I never want to hurt you. I’m just trying to be the best mom I can be. And sometimes that's hard.”
I didn’t know what to say. Her hand rested on my shoulder gently and she gave it a squeeze.
“It’ll only be a few more weeks that I’ll be working the second job, I’m going to put my two weeks in today.” She stood up, “do you want me to tuck you in tonight?”
“Y-yeah…” I stuttered. “That’d be nice.”
So, I got ready for bed and she came in a little after. She sat close next to me, looking down at the foot of my bed.
“You know, when we did this when you were around four, she would sit at the edge of the bed, while I sat around this close to you.” She grabbed my hand that was resting on my chest. I just stared into the ceiling. “Of course not this same bed, a much smaller one, but I would tell you a bed time story and she would always chime in. There was only one time she told you that story, about the cat and the mouse, but I cut her off once I realized what she was saying. I stopped letting her come in and help with bedtime after that.
“You were right, it is a stupid story, a stupid and very terrible story.” She took a look at the alarm clock on my nightstand and stood up. “I’ll come in and check on you once I get off work. Don’t forget to take your pills.”
She gave me a kiss on the forehead and left to go get ready. I sat up and looked down at the little indent in my bed by my feet. I remembered my grandma being around, but not like that. Maybe as a little toddler I didn’t really think much of it. But what I did remember was how she was always there, no matter what we were doing.
Even after taking my pills, it took me a moment to drift off to sleep. My mind was racing with thoughts of my mother, my father, and now my grandma too. To an extent, it almost felt like I was an extra burden on my mother. If my father was always like that, like someone who was only a lover or a father when it was convenient to him; and my grandmother, overburdening her love on me and being a terrible mother, what else would have been weighing down on my mom?
Maybe it was me that was weighing on her. But that was my own brain talking. I knew that much. Having my mother by my side like that once more felt nice. It felt a little stupid at my age, but it was nice. I was still trying to balance the worries of being uncool with the idea of wanting my mother by my side. Did I care or did I not care? I suppose nobody would know unless they were stalking me.
I awoke again around three, sweating profusely and my eyes watering. And there it was, sitting at the end of my bed. Everything played out the same as it always does. Its cracking arms reached towards me, it carefully wiped my tears as it began telling the same story. But I didn’t say anything to it.
I was struggling to fall asleep, so that time, I heard the final part of the story.
“And since the food was now all gone, the three of us became hungrier and hungrier. The cat finally began to look at the mouse. Its fat body looking like a juicy piece of meat. Its round tummy growling. ‘Oh feed me, Mr. Cat, I am getting empty,’ the cat’s tummy told the cat. I began to look at the cat, it too looked like a big, juicy piece of meat.
“‘I am getting empty!’ My tummy told me. As for the mouse, there was nothing it could eat, no where it could move. So the cat finally pounced, and ripped the poor mouse apart. It ate and it ate until now the cat too couldn’t move. His belly too big, and his legs too short. But he was happy, and he slowly fell asleep, his belly now satisfied. And that's… when I pounced!” Her hands that were once caressing my face were now digging into my cheeks. I braced myself for it to jump on me, but it just kept facing the wall while its twisted and elongated arms tore into the skin of my cheeks.
My face started to burn as its grip grew tighter and tighter on my face. I reached up and grabbed for her hands, trying to pull them off of my face. That once calming feeling that would always wash over me, lull me back to sleep, was now replaced with a panic.
I kicked and pulled but she was too strong. Slowly her head began to turn to me, her long hair shifting across the top of my bed. I wanted to scream but through the pain in my face and snotty, scared tears, I found myself choking on my breaths.
“And I tore…” she slowly continued her story, “and I tore… and I tore up the cat. Its meat was so, so tasty, and my tummy was so, so happy…”
I heard someone coming down the hall, my mom was home. She slowly began to approach my door. It seemed it heard too, as there was a pause in its movements. It finally stopped digging into my face, its head froze just barely inches away from finally facing me. Its hair stopped shifting, falling a little off the side of the bed and swaying just a little before it came to a pause. My bedroom door began slowly creaking open, and I finally was able to call out.
“MOM!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. It was enough to send my mother into a panic and she busted the rest of the way through the door.
“What's wrong-” Her eyes quickly shifted to it sitting on the end of my bed, and she let out an ear piercing shriek.
Quickly, its body twisted and turned, its long hair and elegant gown flowing beautifully in contrast to its jerky, aggressive movements as it turned to face my mother. In a split moment, it shifted its hunger from me to my mother, and pounced.
I watched, in my fear and panic unsure of what to do. The sounds of tearing flesh and shrill, pained screams filled my room, bounced down the halls of my house, and out into the dark of the night.
The mess of hair and gown that flowed over my mother like a blanket began to turn red. My breaths hastened and I could feel my face going numb. It was my mother’s words that broke me from my trance.
“Run!” She commanded. And so I did. I ran out of the house and into the night. The closest neighbors had heard the commotion and their lights came on. I went to their homes and began banging on the doors until one finally came to answer. I told them my mother was being attacked and they quickly came to aid. But it was too late. By the time the police arrived and we had returned to the scene, there was almost nothing left.
I went into care under my uncle and aunt. But they were so estranged it almost felt like I was in foster care. We held a funeral for my mother, but it felt meaningless. What was the point of burying someone if there was only a hand left to bury.
It's been a few years since then. Surprisingly my night terrors have calmed down. But I keep seeing every night, in the corner of my room, I keep seeing it. Its long flowing hair, its summer night gown, and its disgusting, bulbous gut. I just hope it doesn’t get hungry again any time soon.
#entertainment
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