Work Text:
The clock ticks.
I will inherit this house.
My grandmother still lives and sleeps in the room next to me, my mother I can hear snoring in the room before this one. I hear the clock in the room next to that one ticking through this skinny corridor that I must walk in darkness — there is only one lightswitch, next to the door that separates this hauntingness from the iron stove, watcher of generations, cradle of my grandmother’s worries when she sits next to it every night.
The darkness of the world outside steps into the night without neither invite nor haughtiness. Night comes in as if everything belongs to her, as if things simply are meant to be this way, that they simply are. I, in my pillow and covers, am reminded of my grandma’s stories of wolves for a second. Then, of the brilliant discovery of electricity. Then, of my beating heart.
Nights come with silence. My mother has stopped snoring. I will inherit this house.
The warm water takes time to come to, and your hands hurt if you keep them under the stream for too long. It is winter. It has snowed. It was winter when grandfather died, and I will inherit this house. There can’t be too many things turned on at once or the lights fail, and the TV is tuned always to the news, doom seeping into the tile and enclosing our family meals with the world outside.
The clock ticks and I don’t leave the bed nor turn on the lights and I will inherit this house.
I had been holding a faint hope in my heart that grandfather would haunt us, that a life outside of this own would make itself shown to me, proof to lull the belief I hold near my heart despite everything. Instead, I have walked through the days ever since, and buried my aunt in the meanwhile, and tolerated my grandmother in the south whilst she was bedbound for a day — all I could handle. I will inherit this house. My grandmother reminds me and my mother of the failure I — we, but she says the words when it's with mom and I can defend her — am to her in the patronizing silence of her worry and well-wishes.
I will inherit this house and its faulty foundations. I will hear my grandmother’s voice speaking when I become old and I will look for ghosts. I will avoid the attic of memories and tend to the fire in the stove.
I believed it would get better. My belief in the better day that will come has failed me just as much as it has allowed me to get here, in this bed. The clock ticks, and my grandmother tells me to think of the future. I want to tell her my struggles, but I remember the age my grandma got her first pair of shoes and I shut my mouth. She mentions my cousin and I refrain from telling her she can have a better granddaughter if she so chooses, and I would not hold it against her. We don’t talk about grandfather. I bring mom a sweater for her that I remember all of a sudden to say that reminded me of him when I saw it. I gift it to her. I answer that grandfather must have wanted to do his part in the harvest when I hear the family’s gravestone has broken and mother laughs just a little. I will inherit my mother’s belief in a better future, I have inherited my grandmother’s view of myself.
I have not been here since grandfather died.
The days have intruded upon my life like the night does here. I struggle to remember a day in which I felt emotions that felt my own upon the calling of its memory. I go speechless at the prospect of a future. The year, years, pass like water and my hands hurt. I have been holding hope like a rope, and my hands burn.
I do not remember when I died. I do not recall the day nor the hour. The feeling of lack on my chest has been here since I was born, I think. I can’t recall a funeral, nor my mother weeping. I recall my dad asking me where they had failed as parents. I recall him many years later hugging me in search of anchoring comfort, depositing, for the first time, on his tongue, words of his trust of my success in me. He then begged me for a grandchild. He has begged me for a grandchild many more times since then. I cradle his trust in my success on a corner of my heart, even if it feels like a burden. I grow silent at the request of new blood. Cattle doesn’t speak. I do not tell him I feel like so. I do not remind him of the time I described myself as a stupid, retarded cow during lunch. My father does not remember the moments that made me, or when I died. The clock ticks, the night comes in, the iron stove cradles my grandmother’s expectations of me, the cellphone my rancher’s request for a grandson or granddaughter. Worst, my mother’s hopeful eyes still look to me, and think I am doing my best. I am not.
I will inherit this house, and I will bury my parents. My grandmother accuses me of not thinking of the future, and admonishes me with these words. I will inherit this house and my failures. Even my friends know how broken I am. They hold their tongues and only let them loose when drinking. They refrain again when they see that I know. My mother keeps her hopes. I will inherit this house, and still hope for better days where they finally find my corpse and realize I have been dead this whole time. The clock ticks. The cursor on the page blinks. I cannot write the stories I want to write. I cannot write back to my friends. I am still alive.
I would like to know when I died. When I decided I was not enough anyway and decided to live for others. I have, several times, thought of giving my father the grandson he desired by getting myself bred by whatever guy that seemed halfway decent. I would, then, continue the tradition in my family of having a semi-miserable marriage and become not me, but a Woman. Perhaps I would like that. Perhaps Women don’t get depressed, or think of killing themselves with such incredible violence that their teeth ache. Not that I would do that, of course. I don’t remember a funeral, but I can imagine the scene if there was one now. I will not carry the guilt of causing such grief upon another. But perhaps I could carry a son, a daughter, and become a Woman. And I would stop being the Fool that is good for being funny and helpful to others and little else.
I would like to know where I died. Where the fire that kept me warm against life last had its embers glow. I would like, quite frankly, to love myself, instead of walking the night and the corridor which I walk without turning on any lights. I would like to know where I got lost, and if when I tried to lose my anger and rage I misplaced, misstepped and died. I would like to provoke in myself the same ambition I see in others. I would like to believe tomorrow is my last day and there are no other tries, so I must make the most out of now, you see!
I would like to be a worthy daughter, and I would like to be enough for my father and family.
I would quite like to meet myself.
But I walk the corridor soundlessly, and pass through the doors to check the embers in the stove, and they are cold.
The clock has not struck midnight for a very long time. I have not been exorcized, so I continue to walk. Where is the light.