Transitions of the Day
This existed in cocoons like igneous, like the before. I’ve never recorded in the now, only in
after thoughts, jeered by cursing myself for letting moments pass unaccounted.
Listen back, inward—follow the trachea’s trail. You won’t have to listen long to get the gist.
Don’t say “. . .but;” don’t say “. . .what if;” never say you’re “. . .scared.”
The sensitivity to light—the sensitivity I was born into—strengthens in the early hours
post-sleep, when I rub medicated lotion on my face and examine curvatures in the handheld
mirror.
I call them precautions and cross my fingers.
I know how to deteriorate a body, but I only know how to hold it off for so long.
Let me focus on the big picture here, let me zoom out a little bit.
But instead I lock in on my torso, the skin no longer taut.
Not from babies birthed, or nourishment had.
But from sodium intake and sagging.
I allow the mirror to capture the two freckles at the tip of my lowest rib.
Milky light from the East windows emphasize areas of the physique that were once of concern, and now are rarely even mentioned to the one inside. Milky, I say—but not milky like white—milky like unpasteurized, like murky, like edgeless. And bountiful is the light, when I pinpoint it here and there, quickly, trying not to envision the whole.
I glance down at my balled toes as they slide in and out of the slotted window’s rays. The
ribbed light weaves flesh and the inherent glare of a morning, like pockets of oil on battered
concrete.
Light can only show itself, forgoing the consumption of what it falls upon. But not me, no, I am consuming. Not me, no, I am consumption itself, and I am paying attention. I’m tracking the rays’ progression across the dining room. It comes in stages and disputes itself as it traverses a room.
Beginning: Morning light pierces, illuminating the white-lace window
dressings.
Next: Sun casts from a cracked window, chaotic projections bounce
off of Mother’s faux-Renoir. It’s far from a straight entrance, too many
angles to consider. It moves rapidly here; contemplation over.
Next: In the passing hours it will shift across the table, which exists for
temporary guests; there it will command attention. A shame no one but I
will witness it.
Final: Now I’ve moved down here, under the table I’ve gone. And it’s searching
for me, its only witness to a long-standing, daily tradition. Here, despite
the table’s lofty shadow, a prism’s disbursement inches. I’m perched on
my tucked knees, sucked into my chest—a vacuum.
“I’m here,” I promise.
I extend an arm, then an index finger. I press it into the stray ray—into the deep-jade, illuminated
carpet—I slide the digit outward, beyond the table’s border. The sun, a yellow cast—will you
still stay with me when the healing is done?
This is a game. There are many. “Daughter fetches medicine on the hour.” “Mail the insurance
payment before the final notice.” “How quickly can you perform a sponge bath?” But there are
more.
In my mother’s house I play child, I play servant, and she plays dying mother.
I want to ask to play another game.
She’s been eaten alive by illness and medications that cannot fix, only prolong. How could she let it happen? How can any one person stomach their own descent into frailty, then decrepitness, then death. I spend time accepting the transitions of the day, displacing my attention on the things that have to matter. I make them matter. I haven’t given time to grieve her partial death, I’m far too busy with everything else. That’s the thing really, it is partial death. But what makes up the remains—the living forty percent to the deceased sixty? It’s not life, it’s far too hollow to be. But she’s not all dead—but gone, yes.
In her chambers, curtains remain shut, windows remain blacked, and light remains absent.
She’s redacted the outside, shut out a necessity, tucked away illumination. She hides in those
chambers, too, just another game. But not me, no, it’s in the contrast of her dark room to my
illuminated everything that we each survive in this house differently.
Margaret Smith will complete her B.A. in Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago in Spring 2020. Her writing often revolves around nature and personal experiences, brought to the page in short, hybrid-like works. She is grateful for the opportunity to be published by Hair Trigger.