MABEL
Mabel had never been afraid.
Maybe of some small, infantile things in her youth. The customary notes of darkness, before she’d learn what it meant to see within them. Of starvation, that empty, raw, gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach, before she and her sister took matters into their own hands. Of her family falling apart, no matter how much they protested, trying, striving, to reason with parents whose pride held more bite than anything else.
But this gripping, clawing, irrational feeling snuck up in her throat and choked her down, down, down, until she was a small object beside the tub, hands clenching the rim until her knuckles were white. She could hear the water splashing over the resin, replenishing what had been lost, knowing she’d have to rise up before it all overflowed. Before it came back to receive her, take her, toss her out into the brink of nothing – and then that was all she’d be again. Little lost fool, waiting for the day her body gave out.
She trembled, and it was pathetic, loathsome, to be terrified of her own bathwater, struggling, striving to not knock her knees into one another, to rise off the floor. It’s not the ocean, she told herself. It’s not going to drown me. And all of that sounded rational in her head, but she couldn’t do it.
This was why the seaweed had stayed, tangled in her hair. This was why the salt had clung to her frame. This was why she’d gone no further.
Mabel reached up and turned the knobs off. A breath, more out of habit than necessity, flickered through those lungs that had once been consumed and suffocated by the sea. Then she retreated, backing away, away, away, and nothing had changed. Still in the same stifling garments. Still in the same garb.
She could hear him somewhere in the midst of that great god damned empty house, and she couldn’t go any further, sinking into the hallway again, curled and coiled, knotted and gnarled, hands drawn around her frame, head bowed over her knees.
Maybe of some small, infantile things in her youth. The customary notes of darkness, before she’d learn what it meant to see within them. Of starvation, that empty, raw, gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach, before she and her sister took matters into their own hands. Of her family falling apart, no matter how much they protested, trying, striving, to reason with parents whose pride held more bite than anything else.
But this gripping, clawing, irrational feeling snuck up in her throat and choked her down, down, down, until she was a small object beside the tub, hands clenching the rim until her knuckles were white. She could hear the water splashing over the resin, replenishing what had been lost, knowing she’d have to rise up before it all overflowed. Before it came back to receive her, take her, toss her out into the brink of nothing – and then that was all she’d be again. Little lost fool, waiting for the day her body gave out.
She trembled, and it was pathetic, loathsome, to be terrified of her own bathwater, struggling, striving to not knock her knees into one another, to rise off the floor. It’s not the ocean, she told herself. It’s not going to drown me. And all of that sounded rational in her head, but she couldn’t do it.
This was why the seaweed had stayed, tangled in her hair. This was why the salt had clung to her frame. This was why she’d gone no further.
Mabel reached up and turned the knobs off. A breath, more out of habit than necessity, flickered through those lungs that had once been consumed and suffocated by the sea. Then she retreated, backing away, away, away, and nothing had changed. Still in the same stifling garments. Still in the same garb.
She could hear him somewhere in the midst of that great god damned empty house, and she couldn’t go any further, sinking into the hallway again, curled and coiled, knotted and gnarled, hands drawn around her frame, head bowed over her knees.
I bare my teeth
and stretch my claws out
and stretch my claws out
