Living Alone II

To distract myself from the noise, “So happy I found this place” I sighed, commencing my light tea-time chat with Mamma. “You have no idea how horrible it was at the girl’s hostel.” Mamma smiled knowingly. I could see it in her expression, why she did not feel the need to nag me anymore. “You won’t believe how long the line outside the bathroom was…my bladder control has become excellent because of it though. So, perhaps it’s high time I should stop complaining…”

When the knocking grew louder to the extent that I could not hear my own voice, I decided to open the door. Perhaps someone needed CPR. It turned out to be Mamma. Why didn’t I guess?! I would have tried to escape from the window if I had.

“Are you deaf?!!!” She screamed storming inside. “So, this is your new pigsty. When was the last time you swept the floor? Where on earth is that stink coming from?”

As the venomous attacks continued on my apartment, I went to get the kettle going.

“Tea Mamma?” I asked.

She did not answer, which meant yes. Creasing her nose, she was glaring at the curtains the previous owner had left that must’ve been orange and had turned almost brown. Having inspected the place thoroughly, disapprovingly, with her eyes, Mamma poked, sniffed and shuffled around for a while, and then sat down with a heavy sigh on the green couch I had bought second hand. From the couch her visual inspection continued and her eyes fell on a pile of papers on the table right in front of her.

“I see, you haven’t stopped scribbling nonsense!” She picked up a paper. I thought “no! Please don’t read that.”

“A girl meets boy…” She read. “What rubbish! Which boy? You’ve been meeting boys now? I’m going to remove you from here, if I have to tie you up and gag you!!!”

“Mamma!!! Please…it’s all fiction. These things I scribble are not real.”

“It better not be! You know what will happen even if a tiny bit of that rubbish is true.”

“I know, I know.”

“Why have you painted on the kettle? Don’t you have any work to do? Why waste…”

I could not possibly tell her, what happened after a girl met the boy...or that she got pregnant, and then abortion! And when she turned to another boy, who she thought was the most wonderful human being on this planet, he used her, robbed her and then abandoned her. If two Heart-attacks and a Cancer did not kill Mamma, this certainly would.

“So, where is this person who reminded you of me? You said you live with her? Where is she? I don’t see her…why do you keep looking at the Kettle? I don’t need tea. I need an answer!” Mamma said looking towards the Kettle. And she did not look back.

“Mamma…You too are staring at my Kettle.” I told her.

“That face you painted…it reminds me of someone…can’t remember who though.” She said with two deep lines between her brows.

“Teeeeeeeeeeee!!!” The kettle, the friendlier, non-nagging, metallic version of Mamma, screamed.

Suppressing a smile, “Let’s have some tea Mamma.” I said.

That’s all I said, I did not tell her, in spite of all the horrible experiences the girl loved her life. She liked not having someone constantly remind her of her shortcomings, of her bad choices. She liked living alone.