Paperweight mother

She is encased in a mesh of cotton and wool, layered like an angel cake in a pink coat, white hat and yellow boots. She was determined to protect her from the cold, unforgiving January air. Not that it would go appreciated. No doubt it would be criticised, everything was.

I cannot succumb to this. This means nothing.

It would have taken an onset of sightlessness not to notice the looks from the other parents in the street. Oh, she saw them alright. Every bloody day; surveying her mothering skills with their beady eyes each time she stepped out of the house. 'Surely that’s an itchy fabric on a child’s skin……..Cotton? In April! With these showers?.......A wool scarf eh? Tight enough! Goodness, the child’s almost purple.' She could well imagine from the way their robotic, sleep-deprived eyes bore into hers, like extras from a cheap zombie film, how thickly these bitter thoughts twisted in their heads. She knew because she thought them too. Anything to make you feel better when your entire morning has been devoted to dishing up a pureed excuse for breakfast, wiping snot, tears and the dishes on your own clothing and producing a ‘look’ that wouldn’t be a far cry from junkie chic.

This is such a waste of me. How did I become this monster?

Mother and child climb the steep hill towards the park, seeing the greenery of the trees become denser as they leave the suburban streets behind them. Pavement turns to a gravel track which loops its way around the 3 mile wide park. She remembered the way the park used to be, before they redeveloped the centre to create a Chinese garden and water feature. Previously, a wasteland of dry grass, that appeared to have suffered a fire at some point in its lifetime, had stretched brazenly across a vast section of the park. Little plant-life had survived there, scared to emerge into a harsh land of cigarette ends and soft drink cans. Now, soft pastel coloured stones and pebbles mingled around the edges of carefully selected plants: healthy shrubs, hardy perennials, even a few exotic palms littered the scene.

Without her I am liberated.

She breathes a little faster and pushes the buggy forward towards one of the new wooden benches facing the mini-waterfall. The wind has gathered force and whistles against her ears. Her skin feels prickly in the cold. There is a burning sensation in her chest. She sits down.

A moment of rest. So Precious, I yearn to preserve this.

A slight snuffle prompts her to glance down but thankfully the baby is still asleep. The struggle up the hill was always worth it. It must have been the motion of the 10 minute journey, but each time they reached the inner circle of the park, the baby was snoozing. It gave her the valuable time she relished to close her eyes and escape from the manic routine of the day. It would only be a matter of time before the baby would awake and begin crying, a gasping sound at first as though it were difficult to breath and then her peace would be punctuated with high pitched wails. Her moment of serenity in the garden would be a distant memory.

I could have been something, given half the chance. Anything.

At first, she had struggled to bond with her baby. It wasn’t post-natal depression the doctor assured her; it was just that some mothers took a while to hone their maternal instincts. This frustrated her more. A medical term would have meant a prescription and some clear steps to follow. An explanation about her lack of maternal instincts meant it was just her that was the problem. She figured her lack of feeling to be in the planning, or absence of it. Women who planned to have babies had surely already developed their maternal nature to want them in the first place. Women who fell pregnant whilst on a contraceptive pill they had been taking for 8 years were just a little unprepared. For everything. Still, at 29 with a good income and him waiting like a docile Labrador, steady and reliable, there wasn’t another option but to forge ahead and make it work. She was haunted by the thought that if she didn’t have this baby, she may never get another chance, and she would grow to feel happy about it wouldn’t she?

Hope sinks like a paperweight.

Looking at the baby now as she wrinkles her small, pale nose, miniscule tufts of white hair racing as they caught the wind, she waits. The sound of distant traffic can be heard groaning along the heavy streets. The dampness resting on the frosted ground glints underneath the wheels of the pram. Her chest rises and falls, slightly faster thanks to the incline. It doesn’t come. Nothing comes. No warm rush, no surge in her stomach, no prickling in her eyes. Nothing.

Peel me and I am hollow.

The sound of a twig snapping startles her into being and she draws a shuddered breath. A robin, its head jerking, flits amongst some parched leaves and bracken that litter the floor, dipping its beak hopelessly into the lifeless pile then darting in auburn blur into a nearby tree.

I lie restless in the night; a nocturnal athlete, running from reality.

Between collections of trees she can see the skyline of the city emerging. The buildings take on tones of blue and grey, the steel almost majestic against the dull white of the sky. It would make a good painting, she muses, in the right hands; it was a shame they would never be hers now. She hadn’t been able to paint since they baby was born. Much as she envisaged the wildest images, her attempts to create them on canvas were wreckages. Even the still life and scenery she tried to manipulate seemed amateur.

Slivers: a desecrated desire.

She lifts herself up and moves closer to see the view more clearly. Looking left and right, miles of the metropolis come into the frame. A mixture of buildings, a cacophony of architectural styles, has emerged over the decades. She wonders how she fits in with this city now. Her place in it all seems so uncertain. Stuck in the suburbs, her existence was a broken record, jarring out the same scratched melody.

Inhaling slowly, she fills her lungs and closes her eyes. She imagines a piece of headland she had discovered years ago on a visit to Devon, separated from the main beach area. She had crept over narrow passages of rock, stretching out from the sand below to reach the grassy cliff top. The wind had been fierce that day. She had pulled her hat down to cover her ears and sat down as soon as she reached the farthest point, the wind now just skimming the top of her head. Engulfing her was the vast, endless blue of the English Channel in all its majesty. It had been silent apart from the sound of the air and her regular breathing. A few boats, seen in the distance, were her only accompaniment. Being there, consuming her surroundings, she was charged with purpose and existence. She had never felt so alive.

On the mount, through the break in the trees, the mother now turns her body, draped in its uninspiring black coat with the shoulders drooping. She begins to move slowly toward the bench, as though in a trance. She stops and pauses after every other step as if the pressure of her foot on the ground invokes thought. Reaching the pushchair her pale hand, as stiff as a mannequin, grasps the handle and she bends down. She sees the sprawling pattern of daisies on the lining of the pram’s base. The white blanket has been pushed to the right and is crumpled at the side, like a used tissue. The space where she lay is still dented with her tiny imprint.

Emptiness glares up at her; a chasm of nothing. She is gone.

The sky blurs like a drunken haze and she stumbles back, her feet overlapping as she circles herself. Her arms flail at her sides, clutching at the bitter, choking air. At the pit of her stomach nausea brews; bile rises. She steps forward and wavers, as if teetering on an imaginary tightrope. Her body trembling, feet numb on the concrete, she begins to walk, faster and then faster until she lurches forward into a faltering run. From the snarled 'o' of her sunken lips: a wretched, silent scream surges forth upon the vacant earth.

Waste. Monster, Nothing.