Lights

Looking back, her life was one big mess stretched over a large cold surface of twenty five years. Forgettable birthday celebrations, forgotten friendships that were once promised to last forever, days that ran into months. It was a blur of names, and sounds. And lights, shining lights that pushed faces into the recesses of her memory.

When she was five, she knocked over a priceless vase, shattering the treasure into slivers of porcelain. The sound as the vase hit the floor, sent her adrenaline pumping. The sound of the shriek form her mother that followed was ear- piercing. The sound of the tight slap across her face echoed throughout the hallway, multiplying the shame a thousand times. She remembered the way the light glinted off the ceramic pieces as she kneeled on the wooden floor, picking up each one, occasionally drawing blood from her fingers.

That was her first memory of her mother.

When she was fifteen, a boy began wooing her. He would approach her with a smile everyday and help carry her different binders and books. He was two years older than her with a larger than life personality. Charming, with a glib tongue, she fell in love with her handsome suitor. They shared a first kiss in a dark cinema, a romance flick playing on the projector screen. Lights of different images vanished as she closed her eyes and leaned in for a taste of his pillowy soft lips.

That was the first movie she remembered.

Then she turned seventeen, as cigars and sex began to color life a fiery shade of red. Sweat dripped down her face as she laid across the grimy tiles that made up the floor of a dilapidated apartment bathroom. Her legs spread, she exerted all her might to push the baby out of her. A pair of scissors lay beside her, later to be gripped in a trembling hand to cut the cord. Screams were unwittingly ripped from her throat, warm liquid pooled around her butt, soaking her dirty nightgown in blood. Cries of a newborn punctuated a scream and the moonlight seeping in through patches of dirt on a window swirled her mind to darkness.

That was the first time she felt the urge to live.

Her child gurgled in her arms. His skin was pale and yellow, thin and fragile. His mother was celebrating her eighteenth birthday squatting on the pavement outside his father’s house, shielding the baby from the harsh wind that blew from all directions as she waited for the man who had promised never to leave her. Twin streams of tears ran down her cheeks, smearing her mascara on the way down. She pleaded, begged, threatened, insulted and used every trick in her book to try to get some money out of the bastard who impregnated her. All she got were bruises, spit on the face, and a wasted trip. The young mother sat outside her “home”, which was really just a rundown shack, the incessant cries of the infant forming a lullaby with the traffic, watching the auburn glow of the men’s cigarettes.

That was the first time she got on her knees.

She held the boy until he turned cold in her arms. Her eyes remained dry; she did not cry. She would not cry, nor could she. Whimpers escaped from her closed throat as she caressed the baby’s face. Her head shook furiously, desperately denying the truth that lay before her eyes. Her screams tore across the night, above the din of the traffic and the nightclubs, filled with inhumane pain. She was never going to see her child’s eyes twinkle again.

That was the first time she would hold a dead child in her hands.

She was twenty five, and had seen too much of the uglier side of this world to smile. Seven years of working the streets, every ounce of dignity burned to ashes. Seven years of accidental pregnancies, three stillborn babies held in her hands. The wind blew lightly, ruffling unkempt hair. The skyline of Chicago was beautiful tonight, especially from the rooftop of building 54-storeys above ground. She looked up at the night sky, and found thousands of stars winking back at her. Her facial muscles twitched, forming a facial expression that she had last used seven years ago. Smiling, she took a step forward, her foot closing in on empty space. Downwards she fell, spreading her arms like a bird’s wings, feeling the wind rush pass her as the ground neared. The streetlamps lit up her final destination. She closed her eyes.

That was the last time she would smile.