Bizarre Object
Mother Roulin with Her Baby (1888) by Vincent van Gogh
By Salma Ahmed
The woman I knew disappeared. She was there but she was not my mother. She was not the same cheerful woman who raised me. I do not know what happened, what changed. It all happened suddenly. It was like she went to sleep as my mother and the woman I knew, but she woke up as an entirely different person. My mom disappeared even when she was still there.
Mom was known for being cheerful, it was a part of her that gave strength to me in my darkest days. It shattered me when that happiness and positivity disappeared. They didn't even cease gradually, they just disappeared. I could not accept that, I could not let go of her even if she let go of everything, even if she let go of me. She would keep avoiding conversations and stare at any near-wall like she saw someone there. She did not notice me staring at her with the same longing and pain that her face held while she gazed at any wall.
I felt guilty when I found happiness spreading inside me when she died. There were not any silence anymore, no more noiseless walking through the corridors of the house like she was afraid of setting a bomb off. She was not afraid of me, I was sure of that. There was something else that made her tremble whenever any noise went through the house. Something traumatized her to the point that she committed suicide. I keep remembering the day I found her, and the same feeling of contentment that held me when I saw her smiling. That little smile meant the world to me, and because of it, I avoided looking at the empty bottles of pills.
I spent weeks after her death resisting the urge to go inside her room. I needed to do it, I needed to find any clues that could explain her change. I feared going there again and instead of seeing her last smile in front of me, I will only find the image of the empty bottles. I did not want to let go of that smile, but I had to. My curiosity triumphed and I entered her room searching through the drawers and dresser for anything that could convince me that it was not my fault, that there was nothing to do. I felt defeated after I found nothing in any of the drawers. However, before I left the room, I looked at the one place I purposely ignored; I looked at mom's favorite chair, the chair that she spent most of her last days sitting on it and looking at the wall with fear and longing.
I felt something pushing me to go there and ignore the image of mom sitting there staring at nothing. I stood in front of the chair and lifted the mattresses that had patterns of small birds, hoping to find anything, and I did find something. There was a small envelope laying there with my name on it. I let out a small sob when my fingers traced mom’s handwriting. “Amelia,” it said. I sat on the chair ignoring the pang of pain that went through me and I started reading:
“Amelia my darling, I know that when you read this I will be long gone, and you will be missing me. I am sorry for letting go. I did a mistake when I held onto the past. Curiosity runs in the family. You must be searching for an answer, a closure, and I will give it to you. Go to the small antique shop in the town; you will find an old man at the cashier, tell him that you are Amelia and he will know what to do. Never let the past sink its claws into you.”
I drove away trying to ignore my escalating anxiety and upon reaching the antique shop, I tried to let go of my fears. I entered and looked around the small shop wondering what could be here that will give me closure. “Can I help you?” I turned around to find the old man mom mentioned.
“I’m Amelia.” His facial expression changed from boredom to excitement. “Finally, you came. She told me it would take a while, but I did not think that you will be that late,” he exclaimed while moving frantically around the shop searching for something. “Aha, I found it. Here you go, take this cursed thing away, since your mother brought it back, and I was waiting to get rid of it again. It was my worst deal I'll tell you that.” He pushed a random box covered in dust into my hands and shooed me away while muttering, “I got rid of it.”
I was feeling bewilderment at the old man's reaction, something was wrong. I went home and sat in mom’s chair, feeling intrigued by the bizarre box in my hands. It was a small box covered with red velvet that held little specks of dust all over it. It had a copper lock that had the letter “M” on it. I looked at the empty wall once and took a deep breath while opening it. I felt the atmosphere around me change when I opened it. Inside the box, there were an item covered with black wrapping paper, a small envelope matching the first one was laying next to it, and a magnifying glass. I was going to hold the wrapping, but I found a carved message on the lid of the box. It said: “M for memory. The Necklace of The Past is your propriety. You should wear it with pride and gratitude. The past is yours to remember, but never forget the present. It will be your death.”
I held the small envelope, but I stopped myself from reading it when I saw that it said on the outside “Read after traveling.” I let go of it wondering what did traveling mean. I ignored my uncertain thoughts and started removing the wrapping paper in urgency, only to find a golden necklace. I took it out and looked at the picture it had. There were different people in it but none of them had a face, and the picture was in black and white. I felt something poke my hand, so I turned around the necklace to find a small wooden button at the end of the necklace's back. At the top, there was a small message written in tiny letters. I held the necklace in one hand and took the magnifying glass to read them. It said in cursive letters “Instructions: wear the necklace, press the button three times, utter the name of the person you want to see in the past, what they mean to you, and ask a clear question to see a clear memory.”
I let a small laugh of disbelief; it is impossible to see the past. I thought that this must be some sick joke my mom made as a goodbye but I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. I wore the necklace and the second I locked it around my neck, I felt a shiver go through me. I put one finger on top of the button, looked at the empty wall, pressed the button three times, and followed the instructions while uttering “Rosie. My mother, my life, my everything. Why did she change?” Within seconds I felt the chair and the floor underneath me shaking and I found myself falling. I closed my eyes from the shock but opened them again to see myself descending and playing around me various memories with different people. The houses and the way people dressed kept changing with every memory that passed. I knew what traveling meant. I was traveling through time.
I finally reached some solid ground and found myself still inside my house. I was standing in mom's bedroom again. I thought that something was wrong with the necklace, so I tried to hold it in my hand but it burnt me. It let out a ray of light and kept shaking before it calmed. I tried to hold it again and there was no heat. I looked at the picture and found that it changed, instead of different people with no faces there were three people and their faces were shown. It was a picture of my grandparents and mom when she was young. I was about to wander around when some light showed in front of me and mom appeared there. I blinked several times before I screamed mom and ran to hug her, but I just passed through her. We were both wearing the necklace. I was watching the past when she went back to watch it.
Mom looked nervous and it hurt me that even in the past I could not reach out. She could not see me even back then. The door hit the wall and a young version of my grandma ran inside screaming in terror while looking back. Mom let out a matching scream that ended with a sob when the young version of my grandpa ran after grandma. “How dare you disobey me.” He said while pressing his hand around my grandma’s neck and pushing her into the wall, hitting her face repeatedly in the same wall mom kept staring at. I found myself running towards them when blood trickled her forehead and found my mother was there trying to separate them, but we were the future, we couldn't help. Grandma was a victim of abuse, she was murdered.
It all disappeared again and I was back at the same chair shaking and crying while looking at the wall. I took off the necklace and the picture of different people with no faces, came back. The image of grandma falling to the ground dead, kept repeating inside my mind. Mom’s story about how one day after school her aunt took her and delivered the news of a car accident, made me realize that she never knew. She didn’t know that her father killed her mother. Curiosity runs in our family. I took the envelope and read it out loud “Amelia my darling, now you know. Now you should let go of me. Never let the past sink its claws into you.” I couldn’t. I spent the rest of my life looking at the bed and the wall. In the end, I purchased bottles of pills. The past won.
Salma Ahmed is a 20-year-old writer. She is a second-year college student majoring in English and tries to balance both lives. Other interests are watching her favorite soccer team, reading, and having short bursts of energy where she would finish a TV show in one day.