Mother

When I arrived home, Mother was there, sitting at the dining table, reading the newspaper, like the world hadn’t gone mad. She looked up and acknowledged my presence, going through the normal motions of a typical parent.

“How was your day, son?”

I looked down at my hands. Just a bit, they were starting to look more woven. After all I had been through, my identity was finally starting to break.

Even if you didn’t know much about others, the person you thought you knew best was always yourself, right?

But even that had shattered under the overwhelming strangeness of reality. I felt tears run down my eyes.

“Mom… I lost my friend, and my girlfriend.”

A pair of arms enveloped me in an instant. I rubbed my head against her, taking refuge from a day where things grew more and more terrible.

“I see. You’re fine. You will be fine. I’m here for you.”

Even though I knew nothing would ever be fine, that I would soon unravel as well, just hearing those words made me want to believe it.

After all, a parent’s love was unconditional, right? It would never betray or harm or make you doubt. Even when the world was ending, all it took was an act of love to make things the slightest bit better. Without it, I had no idea what I would do.

She guided me over to a chair, resting my back against it. Hands stroked through the long hair that I never bothered to trim. It felt good as her fingers combed through the locks. We spent several minutes doing nothing but that.

“Say, I know something that will cheer you up.”

Mother walked out of the room for a moment, returning with a giant doll of a pretty lady that looked like it would fetch a hefty price. As I gazed at the intricate detail and lavish silk garments it wore, it jogged my memory.

Mother was an expert dollmaker, wealthy and successful. She would craft the best dolls to sell to the market, returning home with a smile that told me how much she loved her job.

She made sure to spend plenty of time with me. She made sure to take care of me. She was my one and only mother, after all. She would never hurt me. She would never betray me…

“Isn’t it great? Doesn’t looking at it just make everything bad go away?”

The more I looked at her, the more mesmerized I became. She had perfect eyes, a perfect nose, and a perfect mouth. Her hair was curled just right and a flowered bonnet rested on top.

Her cream-colored jacket was accented with pink-striped bows and lace folded over the collar. Even the lace on the cuff looked immaculate. A matching skirt with plenty of frills flowed lavishly to fill the space around her.

To me, it was a perfect ensemble. A masterpiece.

To Mother, it was just another day, another job, another paycheck. Her art never suffered. Her skills never waned. She could do anything she put her mind to.

She was the perfect Mother.

It made me feel jealous. I wanted it, her attention. Suddenly, I wanted to be the spoiled little boy that craved her love. I pushed aside the doll and looked her in the eyes.

“Pay that much attention to me, please,” I said, not caring how greedy that sounded.

She laughed at those words, wondering what brought that on. She remained blissfully ignorant of my ordeals, ever the optimist doing what parents did. Her hand went to her mouth for a moment, pondering at how she could please me.

“I know. It’s been a while since I trimmed your hair. I’ll make you look perfect.”

Perfect. Like she didn’t see the massive scar across my cheek. Perfect. Like my tear-streaked face didn’t move her. Perfect, like the son that never did a single thing wrong. Regardless, I could do nothing else but nod. I felt tired. I had no one else left here. I would do what she wanted. Because she was my mother.

Her hands pulled back the hair into a ponytail, and then, she pulled out a pair of scissors. My body froze up for a moment, seeing them. I swear I could hear that horrible melody in the back of my mind. I wouldn’t close my eyes, in fear of seeing dolls being cut up and unraveled.

“It’s fine. Everything’s fine. You’ll be okay,” she whispered, an arm around my neck, her grip tightening until it became hard to breathe. I was fastened to the chair, unable to move at all. Even as I tried to struggle, she continued to ignore me, only offering empty words of comfort.

“It will only take a moment. Hold still and be a good boy.”

A good boy did what his mother asked. A good boy followed orders. A good boy had to be perfect before his mother’s eyes.

She lifted the hair up and started snipping.

I started to cough. My hand tapped at her arm to let me breathe, but it didn’t budge.

Was this my punishment? Was it so bad to want the things in my life to be good?

I wanted to yell out to her. To get her attention somehow, but the sounds of snipping didn’t stop. Her intent to make something perfect didn’t stop. I felt the ends of my hair trimmed bald, but even then, she continued.

The scissors dug into my scalp, it broke the strands free, and bit by bit, I stared helplessly as they fell on the ground around me. Suddenly, she started to hum a familiar melody, the same one as I heard today.

With what little strength I had, I croaked out a question.

“H-How do you k-know that song?”

She paused for a moment just to say, “Because I taught it to you, silly.” And then, she chuckled and started to sing.

There were ten in a row, let the little one know.

“Unravel… Unravel…”

So they pulled on a string until one fell out.

“Unravel… Unravel…”

Mother’s voice was impossibly sweet as she sang, not missing a beat as she started snipping down to my eyebrows.

The string stood out and had to be cut.

“Unravel… Unravel…”

Once one was cut, another came loose.

“Unravel… Unravel…”

And then, the scissors overlapped with my vision. Horrified, I watched as the blades chomped over my eyes. Suddenly, my vision started to slide before spinning wildly out of focus.

The world whirled around and around, dizzyingly so. For several moments I no longer knew what I was seeing anymore. The only thing keeping me grounded was Mother’s singing.

More chopped off and came undone.

“Unravel… Unravel…”

Cut and cut until everything is gone.

“Unravel… Unravel…”

Finally, the whirling stopped and things started going back into focus. But what I now saw was my own body, slowly being cut apart from the head down. Me, helpless in letting her do it.

As she finished her song and the rest of my head fell apart, I wondered what kind of face she had on.

If my eyes could go wide, they would have done so at that moment.

Mother stared back with the widest grin possible, but dried blood caked her entire face. Her eyes were dead and hollow. Her cheeks were sunken in.

It was like experiencing the face of Death, snipping the life out of me.

The scissors pointed at me before the tip slammed down where I was watching. Surely this time, everything came to an end.

All I could think in that moment was,