I was looking for my mother, she says, peering beyond me into the hallway – long, dim, the wallpaper scarred. I was told she’d be here. The downpour has smudged her features and she smells of drenched lavender, the scent beaten from her by the pounding rain. A puddle shapeshifts on the doorstep, soaking my stockinged feet.

She was lost from the start, ectopic, formed from the bouncing echoes of the sonogram that showed an empty chamber; repeated shouts down pitch-black tunnels; the return of my own voice in lieu of a response. The positive test warned that she would kill me if I let her stay, this tenant crouching in the corridor with a knife. She would burst through my roof like Alice in Wonderland, both of us bleeding out. There’d be other chances for children, the doctor said.

She walks away without leaving forwarding details. I close the door. The ghost who’s been waiting at the bottom of the stairs all these years becomes a little clearer at last, before burrowing into the shadows for good.

 

 

*
From Magma 91, In The Flesh 

 

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