The broken portions of the blinds hung down and across the living room window traced the beams of sunlight breaking their way through to the floor. They built their own stage and dust particles danced wildly in their spotlights, reveling in their otherwise unseen existence. I laid on my belly, hands on either side of my chin, and stared dazed and hypnotized by their performance. Stardust!
In the distance were the call of sirens who would be nearing the stop sign at the edge of our road. As their sound approached, they were drowned out by an errouption of wailing from beneath the blanketed heap upon the couch. It shook and twisted like flailed As if enchanted by a curse, a demonic presence controling it from the shadows with a magic wand.
As the ambulance pulled in front of the house and its doors open, the convulsing throes ensued harder and the sobs and screams escalated.
Mama was being taken to the hospital again. I watched as they scouped her up like soup from a bowl, her body turned to liquid from all of her thrashing on the couch, and strapped her to a yellow metal gurney with a thick black belt. They wheeled her out of the house, down the driveway, and into the back of ambulance.
The blinds are pulled quickly in embarrassment by my grandmother and she dashes around the room trying to clean and straighten the mess that is present in her soul. She believes If she fluffs the pillows once more, the demon who waves his wand and soils her living room with his invisible cursing will be vanquished and the house will rest. It does not work.
I am only seven years old, but if you were to ask me what happened, I could easily allow the words such as Xanax, withdrawl, addiction, sickness roll off my tongue like I am singing my ABCs. I am nowhere near yet old enough to find and solve for X in8 an algebraic equation, but I can spell Xanax and tell you that it sounds like a Z. I can tell you that my mother has spent the last several days high and nodded out with her face in a bowl of ice cream covered in chocolate syrup, cigarette holes littering the blanket she would later use to wrap around her like it could somehow warm the chill that made her bones quake from inside.
My stardust theater has been shuttered by the manic wiping of a mother in pain. Only cleanliness, no dust here. I wonder how long she will be gone this time.
