She was strange, my mother. Always something unseen surrounding her—soundless echoes reaching through a veil. Reaching for whom?
My mother was haunted, and now she’s dead; and now the ghosts she could not tame are attached to me. Neither can I make them pay attention to my demands. I do demand that they abstain, but my veil is too, too thin, and they reach. Reach for whom?
She’d sit at the round table in the softly orange-lit kitchen in the middle of the night, smoking menthol cigarettes and watching things transpire not meant for my young eyes. But my young eyes saw.
My ears heard.
My skin felt.
She believed that Satan worked hard for the money. Am I the fucking money?
I stand on the porch in the middle of the night to smoke a menthol cigarette. Across the dimly lighted street, a black shadow stretches.
I inhale.
Exhale.
Watch the figure climb the steps—a soundless echo, reaching.
© 2019 Kindra M. Austin