Footfalls

"WAALLLYYYY," the mother calls from the front porch of her Ranch style home. "Where could that boy be?" she mutters; her voice lightly quivering.

She walks inside, leaving the front door open to the sultry summer heat and the orange and yellow hues of the descending sun. Rivulets of perspiration gather between the creases in her furrowed brow as she paces from the kitchen window to the front door. It was unlike Wally to be this late for dinner, he was usually so punctual.

Not knowing what to do, she balls up her hands and sticks them in her apron pockets. She looks at the telephone hanging on the wall, wondering who she could call; anyone who might help. She lifts her right hand to her forehead and wipes away the sweat with her palm, the droplets of perspiration falling to the floor, creating a small circular pattern near her right foot. She rationalizes that it is too soon to worry, he was only 10 minutes late, yet she stared through the open front door, hoping to see when the boy came running up the long, winding driveway.

Suddenly, like a trained seismologist, the mother senses a light tremor and a look of uncertainty spreads across her concerned visage. The vibration increases until the ground shakes with the force of a minor earthquake.

Unexpectedly, a huge beast bursts through the closed back door, shaking the glassware in the nearby Hutch cabinet as it enters. Eyes glaring wildly, its mouth drooling like an open water main, it grunts an incomprehensible query in the mother's direction.

The mother turns in fright,

"Oh, there you are Wally, you scared me. I didn't expect you to come in from the back!"

The mother goes to hug the lurid, hulking brute, but it brushes her aside with a surly shrug.

"Well go wash up, while I get the dinner on the table."

Setting three plates for dinner, the furrows leave her brow and she contentedly hums a familair tune.

She looks up...her heightened sense of vibration alerted,

"Wally, daddy's home!"

The beast screeches muffled obscenities in reply.

She looks expectantly out the front door, down the twisting drive, toward a huge replica of the infernal creature that was screaming from the bathroom.

"He's home!" she considers, forcing a smile on her face. She sees her reflection in the window of the front door, the smile is actually a grimace.

"This won't do, this won't do!" she speaks in a horrific tone.

Her words flutter into silence as she hurries to the kitchen cabinet and reaches for a small, dark vial hidden inside a seldom used gravy tureen.

She opens the vial and pops a pill in her mouth. She looks toward the bathroom and then in the direction of her husband, walking sternly up the drive. Hands shaking, she pours out another pill and pops it in her mouth. She hurriedly washes them down with a glass of icy water.

She briefly remembers, many years ago, watching a Beckett play, Footfalls and is reminded that she too, like Mary, is the sole figure on the stage and in a sense, was never born.

Wiping drops of liquid from her mouth, she pats lose stands of hair back in place and painstakingly straightens her apron. She stands waiting near the front door and forces the smile back on her face. The pills would kick in soon--she'd just have to pretend until then.