Incredibly rude of days to just keep happening like this, one after the other
a short story from a manuscript in progress
I threaten to become vague.
Aditi Machado, The End
1.
Moira doomscrolls, well into the new year. In bed with her morning coffee, she dreads what might come.
Paige is already dressed. She nuzzles in, pushes her way under the comforter. She says: “I don’t want to go to school today, Mumma.”
Moira sets down her phone.
Lately, Moira has been considering recording things that the girls say. Only last week, Paige wandered into the kitchen and asked, “Mumma, how do bums work?”
Go ask your father. Malcolm, set up in their sunroom as temporary work-space. A corner office by the window, he jokes. As part of every virtual meeting.
Head on her mother’s belly, Paige offers: “There’s a couch inside you, Mumma.” A couch to keep her comfortable, it would seem, during the months she was gestating.
“But where did the couch go when you were born?” Moira asks.
“Oh, its still there. and there are two beds, because Amelia had one.”
Her exhaustion. It hardens.
2.
It has been three hundred days since the beginnings of lockdown, since the pandemic shut down schools in the province. Since they decided to keep the girls home.
A few weeks, at most. A couple of months. By the summer, at least.
She has set up one corner of their living room for Paige, and the dining room table for Amelia. Both girls, engaged in online learning through headphones and laptop screens. Amelia hums to herself as she draws. She misses her teacher’s question, which repeats.
Their recycling overflows with worksheets, colouring and comic book pages. At least neither of the girls are sentimental that way. At the doorbell, another delivery: a fresh box of blank paper.
3.
Moira can’t think. She can’t remember her hands. What her friends look like. The names of their children.
One the girls are set up at laptops, she gathers more coffee, then sets herself up on the couch, hoping to deflect Paige’s distractions. She is only four years old, after all. Moira sits, and tugs at her knitting. Every week or so, she completes another mitten, another scarf, another toque. They decorate the snowy yard as the girls abandon them.
John Lennon’s “lost weekend” lasted eighteen months. This year might be as long. It could be longer.
Hands off your toys, Paige’s teacher repeats. You are looking up at the screen.
4.
Doomscroll: a word that threatened to retire come new year, but holds.
Moira’s skin itches. Her scalp. Moira’s fingers crawl out of her mouth. The children crawl over her, whenever she sits or pauses or stops to lay down. Every day is so tired.
At night, she lays awake between children or beside her husband, scrolling through endless lists of social media. Sometimes Paige wanders through, usually around three or four in the morning. It is easier to allow her in than return her to bed. Occasionally a fire truck rolls by, flashing red strobe through the cracks in their blackout curtains.
Malcolm sleeps through. He sleeps endlessly through.
5.
The neighbours are silent, invisible. Joggers wear facemasks. A senior couple pass by on their regular walk. The whole world is either in hibernation or chaos. How long might this last?
Three hundred days since their girls played with anyone else but each other. Three hundred days since they have seen any of their friends, or their cousins.
She sets up the children. Shoos the cat from chewing a plastic bag.
Malcolm retreats to his desk. He has a meeting. Moira, knits. She touches her belly. She feels a tickle, there. Paige draws a snowman on her whiteboard. They are drawing snowmen. Paige, rife with distraction. Eventually, the mailman passes. Moira rises to meet the delivery.
6.
Tomorrow when it rains the yard will glisten, mute and grey, and they will not go outside. They will be safe. Next week when it snows, the yard will glisten, mute and sun-kissed, and they will not go outside. They will be safe. Another load of groceries set to land at the base of their front step. Another lone jogger. Another handful of mail.
*
This story originally appeared in print in Handwritten & Co. #2 (South Asia, 2022)
This story is for American writer Amber Sparks, who posted a tweet Todd Dillard and I decided was worth attempting to utilize as the title of a short story: obviously, this is mine.