It’s been seven weeks now, and Staicy’s room is still empty.
Her make ups miss her gently touch; the mirror miss her stares; the clothes miss her body that could befit them; her dolls, her bed miss her warmth. More than we do. Her picture lays beside the bed. The curtains to her rooms have not been raised since she left. Her room is stuffy, colourless, odourless yet still holds her scent.
Mom thinks that Staicy has gone to school, that when the school semester ends, she’ll come home. Or when it’s visiting hours she’ll go and pay her a visit. Mom thinks that Staicy has gone to some business trip, and that when the business ends, she’ll come back home, with enough money and fund my rehabilitation. Mom thinks that Staicy has been married to a family that lives out of town, she wonders if the other family will treat her as good. She thinks if Staicy has settled down, she will come visiting. Staicy is just 12 years old.
Staicy always loved music. Her piano rests desolately in the middle of her room. I can still hear the synchronising harmony of her nodes through the cracks of the walls of my room. Times that sleep deserted me, they could always hum me to sleep.
“Do…Re…Mi….Fa….Sa….La…Ti…Doo…”
I can still hear her voice. Staicy was always cheerful, that explains why mom loved her more.
Mom and I don’t speak any more. She doesn’t shout at me like she always did when Staicy was around. I remember this time, I left the shower running as I went back to fetch my towel. Somehow, I don’t know how, I blacked out. I fell asleep. Even the loud music that was playing in my room couldn’t wake me. The house flooded. And mom was the first to notice when she came back home. She stormed into my room, shouting some of the most beautiful words that she ever told me.
“…… I regret having a son like you…. wish I got rid of you when I had the chance…I should’ve trusted your father when he said we were not ready for a kid…”
This was her way of saying she loved me. Funny enough, the words always well up tears in my eyes. For if someone tells you she loves you, you can really get emotonal sometimes. Staicy, could always clutch on her sleeves, pulling mom out of my room, saying, “mom, it’s okay. I’ve switched off the tap.” Staicy was always the adult.
It’s been seven weeks now, since Staicy left home.
Mom left for her hustle. Even though it wasn’t paying much, she had to. She left me without an instruction manual. Staicy came from school earlier, she wasn’t feeling well. I was in my room. Staicy knocked many times, she called my name but I never responded, the loud music engulfed all her attempts. So she rescinded to her room.
I always promised mom, that I’d never do it again. That I’d never used it again, but you don’t just quit it after being an addict. In my room, I was getting smoked out like a chimney, eyes red, veins sprouting in my arms as I used the syringe one more time. In her room, Staicy wasn’t feeling well. She experienced her asthma attack, and barely she could move to grab her med. She punched the emergency alarm. I heard it. I heard her calling my name fickly. But the ecstatic state I was in made everything seem like a dream. So I backed out.
Mom found her, after some hours, almost half a day. Took her to hospital and it was late. Her screams, her mourns pierced my world and shook me to the roots, I woke. And there mom stood, with a cricket base ready to linch me like a baseball.
“…..because of you, Staicy is gone. .” Then she hit me. She didn’t give me time to understand what she meant. I blacked out again. Even then, she couldn’t stop, she hit me over, n over again. But the thought of Staicy leaving was painful already. So I blacked out some more.
It’s been seven weeks now, Staicy’s room is still empty.
Mom sits at the swing. And there I can see Staicy swinging with her. I can hear them laugh. I can see mom happy again.
A truck comes and halts at the gate. It has come for me.
I, I’m on the door with packed suitcase. Mom is sobbing. I know she doesn’t want me here. But I wanna hug, and tell her,
“When I get out of the rehab, I’ll be a better son.”
Its been seven weeks now.
And it’s all my fault.
**********
As written by Phill Ibsen ( Master Of Descriptions )
2017
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