61 – Coming of Age Ceremony (1)
When I wake up, my mother is there.
Put a drop of something in my mouth,
Mom looking at my hot body.
“I’m happy…”
Now the word ‘love’ has become so natural.
It became a daily routine to greet her by tickling her ears.
Mom, it seemed like she had no intention of stopping changing.
I don’t think we’ve ever had a proper conversation.
Daily life with my mother has become something different.
He clearly told me calmly and that he would have a pleasant daily life.
Just like when she was young… She said with her lips that she would stay like that.
“Tsk.”
Now, insect bite marks were continuously leaving marks on my neck.
…I learned that it was a mark.
“It’s mine. It’s mine… Of course… How dare I let other bugs eat it?”
Once again, the same words rang in my ears.
Now her mother’s voice, even in her dreams, has always said those words.
Hanging on her tree, looking only at her mother-
I couldn’t help but quietly watch her face slowly approaching.
The sun rises, the sun sets.
One day, when you open your eyes, it is night,
My mom was holding my breath as I felt her body lighten up.
Every time she came to her senses, her mind became hazy.
There was never a time when my mouth did not feel sweet.
There was not a time when my body did not feel numb.
There was never a moment when my mom didn’t look beautiful.
Every time I was hugged, I had to drink the extremely sweet warmth.
With your nose, mouth, and body.
To the point where I knew what it meant to smell like her that my mother had mentioned.
“Open your mouth?”
Everything I ate was sweet.
There was nothing that wasn’t sweet.
The bread was also soggy.
The water also had a sweet scent.
After dropping the pink liquid in front of my eyes, I put it in my mouth,
She immediately lost the strength to push her mother away.
I could only stare blankly at the increasing number of red marks.
There was no time without my mom.
“Now, would you like to try her hair this way?”
Then, for the first time, there was a day when her mother didn’t tell her she loved her, that she was happy, and that she was ‘mine.’
I was so impressed by the sight of the woman with her arms open, holding a string decorated with red jewels…
“Phew, I didn’t mean to hug you.”
Naturally, I handed over my body.
It wasn’t my will.
However, his body was already being held in his mother’s arms and being stroked.
Action, not my will, was giving me joy.
“Yes, extreme…”
Screams come out of my mouth that I don’t even want to explain,
I melt even more as the hand gently strokes the lower part of my back,
I was steadily filling the gap between my bodies.
“Your hair is very long.
Would you believe me if I told you that this look also suits you?”
…Could it be that the hair grazing my cheek wasn’t my mother’s?
I somehow turned my eyes, which kept trying to unravel, and saw something that was like that tickling thread.
“Look, your hair is this long.”
A strand of hair resting on an outstretched hand.
I thought it might be red, but…
It was definitely a chestnut color.
“Oh, huh?”
It was long.
Enough to think it was my mom’s.
It may not reach her waist, but at least it will reach her shoulders.
I tried to raise my hand, which I couldn’t move properly, and tried to somehow touch my tied hair.
“Oh, Russell. Are you babbling?
Even though it’s been almost nine years since we met?”
He picked me up and patted my back,
Mom whispers into her ear and starts to leave her room.
There was something strange about the words that passed by.
“You’re a grown up now, Russell.
The fruits full of eggs fall to the ground,
A time when everyone opens up and boasts about their heavy stomachs.”
From Noble mtl dot com
How old was I when I left home?
At that time, it was definitely…
For now, then –
“Do you know your birthday, Russell?”
Gently, sitting me down on a certain chair –
Mom whispered like that.
There was something in front of her eyes.
I tried my best to see it with blurry eyes, and I was able to see it.
It was shining on me and her mother.
“I have no way of knowing.
Those who gave birth to you have abandoned you,
How would you know? Yes?”
There was nothing wrong with what he said.
Just one day after every winter, her grandmother would buy her something delicious in the village.
She remembered that much, but
I didn’t know when my ‘birthday’ was.
“So today is your birthday,
How about making it the day you become an adult?
The leaves are falling and the snow season has arrived.
Remembering the coldness of the moment we first met,
Remembering how important each other’s warmth is…”
– Square, square.
My heavy head was slowly becoming lighter.
Before my eyes, which gradually became clearer, I saw my mother holding scissors and a comb, trimming things here and there.
“It’s such a day, even if long hair suits you –
I think it would be better to be neat.”
Her mother’s hand brushed over her hair, which fell in an instant.
Am I putting something on it?
Her hair was tossed back and forth, slightly revealing her forehead with a sweet scent.
“That’s right. How do you feel?
I think it shows off that cute face… I guess I should say it’s really nice to see.”
He was gently holding both of my cheeks, and the smile that appeared on his face.
Now that face is exhausted from hunger and has completely let go of the reins,
“Ha, hahahaha…”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
She spent her three years just in her mother’s arms,
I can’t believe I’ve become such an adult now.
And that too, to give mom the moment she had been waiting for.
I wanted to go on an adventure.
I wanted to go on a journey to find my parents.
And… Maybe, I wanted to become the main character in a novel to rid my mother of her notoriety.
As the principal said,
Was I destined to be like this from the moment I met my mother?
The numerous blue spots remaining on my neck seemed to be calling out to me to acknowledge them.
Isn’t it time to stop giving up? Isn’t it time to learn?
A slight pain threatened me.
“I’m happy too. Really.
Even though the time I spent with you passed by in the blink of an eye,
Especially because I know that the moments we will have together in the future will be really long.
And now, I’m so excited that I don’t have to endure it anymore.
You too?”
When a familiar scent tickles the bridge of your nose again,
If a lot of saliva flows out of your mouth and unwanted force enters your body again –
“hehehe, me too – ugh.”
The smile that appeared like that was cut off in an instant.
With one of her hands behind her back, her mother frowned at her.
The area between the eyebrows is wrinkled, as if I saw Mr. Luterrier –
Mom moaned softly and ground her teeth for a long time.
Before your eyes, behind you, beside you,
There was no one else.
“…Should I say that the reason that short time felt a little longer was all thanks to the tail.
I have never felt uncomfortable having this in my life.”
Mom wasn’t angry.
Wiping away her wet ends, swinging her towel like a whip and beating her in one corner –
“If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have even known this feeling.
If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have been able to live this life.
It’s all thanks to you, Russell.”
He reached out his hand to me and hugged me.
I did not resist.
When she realized that there was no one to save her, her strength suddenly disappeared.
“Tonight’s dinner is going to be truly… Splendid.
Because I prepared a lot of things to celebrate.”
Nose buried in her shoulder.
And the eyes that looked beyond her mother’s back.
In the endless hallway, her mother’s tail was spitting out slime.
It’s sticky enough to be like a bubble, making a mess all around her.
Now, instead of her red dress, she was slowly revealing her mother’s back, wearing that day’s pajamas as her everyday clothes.
If you touch it, you will definitely feel strange.
Just like in the forest, I’m sure I’m going to cry and cling to her mother.
But I knew that I couldn’t run away like that this time.
“I want to tell you what I read in the book.
Becoming an adult means becoming someone who can take responsibility.
Always staying in the shadow of parents and avoiding the hot sunlight,
Like a sprout rising through the soil, it faces the sunlight head on alone.”
Independence.
Mom was telling the story.
But I didn’t blink at that.
The hand that holds me gains more strength,
The eyes looking at me sparkle even more,
My nose, which was breathing in the slightly cold night air, headed towards the nape of my neck.
Once again, a red mark remained.
Leaving a mark on the blue dots again,
Warning and hating the women who will not come and will not come,
Mom continued to entangle me.
“But don’t we know?
That those called parents did not even give us any shade.
Your mom and dad pushed you out into that cold winter,
My mother and father just wanted me to be eaten by other animals.
I am different.”
“Oh, ugh?!”
I bit it.
My mother, who was spitting out her words while pursing her lips, was leaving a tingling pain in her neck.
I was too weak to jump around,
Mom was too strong to escape.
The withered arm was held by long, thin fingers,
There was mucus on my legs.
“I want you to be happy forever.
By my side, in my shadow. In the cave I created.
If you stay inside, you can live without forgetting about the sunlight outside.
Even the stinging, unfriendly summer,
The wet rainy weather brings cold weather,
Even the harsh winter that makes you sick…
Forget everything, forever.”
“Ah, uh, uh…”
The mouth could not say no.
Even saying that I don’t like it or that I want to stop now,
I couldn’t make it.
“Terrible humans, sinister beasts,
Nature teaches only a miserable death at the end of a life without happiness,
Forget everything, Russell.”
My mother laid me down in the hallway I was wandering in and climbed on top of me and whispered to me.
She covers all sides of her with her wings as if someone might see her,
The light coming in from outside the window was blocked.
Mom hid me from the world.
“The fact that you call me mom,
Thinking of you as a mother,
It doesn’t matter if you believe that she is your mother.
If you are happy, I will be your family forever.
But now it has become too difficult to take on that role.
Seeing you as my son forever felt like torture.”
Licking the blood from the corner of my mouth,
You paint my face with spit mixed with blood,
“I think the time has come.
I held on too long.”
Mom ate my mouth like that.
A sharp, hard tooth touched my tooth.
It felt like I was rubbing my lips on a warm, plump tangerine.
And her mother’s tongue entering her mouth,
It completely engulfed me.
As if the hand that held me – as if it would not let go of me.
