CREATIVES

MOTHER IS FOR GUILT

The end and the beginning. No relief. No peace. No joy.

Just tired. Tired, and nothing.

When they tried to lay him on my chest I pushed away his hot, wriggling body.

Screaming suffocation. Leave me. I just want to be alone.

Alone with my betrayal. Alone with my physical pain.

Alone with the scars in my mind that match the scars on my body.

Suffering from conception

Finally free of the physical connection to my… Tormentor.

Get him away!

I pushed him away, and that is what I see now.

Now, when he is two years old, and detests other children.

Now, when he is three years old and bites and draws blood.

Now, when he is four years old and puts holes in the wall.

Now, when he is five years old and says he wants to die.

Every time his heart breaks mine breaks again.

Every time I look at my son,

I know that guilt is mine.

by Emma Oldmeadow

ABOARD THE MOTHERSHIP

The hall is spacious and flecked with attentive eyes, thousands of them. Eyelashes flicker like moth wings and everyone is wearing a name tag. Hovering at the door is Josefina, who runs ten kilometres each morning, even when it’s raining, and has never owned a pair of glasses in her life because she can read fine and see distant shapes fine and the sun’s glare doesn’t particularly annoy her. Josefina is admiring the fringe on the woman to her left. The fringe is wide and black and very curly. The fringe belongs to Giselle, who thought she would have to sell her weave company to come to this summit but didn’t. Giselle is chatting to Anthony, who makes a joke about having a spiritual womb.

“Like, she was never physically inside me, but emotionally she is connected to me by an umbilical cord that is so long it could wrap around the entire planet of earth, you know?” Anthony is wearing a lot of cologne because he’s been told people find comfort in it.

Next to Anthony, two women debate about seafood.

“The fake colour of salmon, though.” “True, yes, but would you feed your boys grey fish?” “Maybe fake fish? Like the tofu stuff.” “Chemicals, too, all of it.”

Their names are Anastasia and Nadiya. Anastasia has a green thumb and Nadiya has a green card. Neither of the women had ever eaten two-minute noodles, and people are often surprised by this.

Lola is standing at the left wall of the hall, looking out the vast window that stretches the length of the room. She stares at the black, galactic expanse of space beyond the window, and it makes her wonder if she turned off the light in her bedroom before she left her house two days ago. She waits to see a shooting star - none come. She waits to see an alien, or an asteroid. There is a shimmering speck and she is unsure if it’s a star or a satellite. Behind her, Shrishti is trying not to cry. She is an archaeologist and self-proclaimed helicopter parent, and, more recently, a widower. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands. She wants to make small talk with the woman staring out the window but she doesn’t know what to say about outer space. She’s unsure of the weather patterns.

On the other side of the hall is a small huddle of women talking in hushed whispers among themselves. Kikuko is surprised by the pale, green colour of the hall. The titanium alloy walls are green and the aluminium floors are green and the thermal glass countertop of the bombastic conference table in the centre of it all is tinted green. “It makes me feel like I’m floating,” Kikuko whispers. She expected the hall to be white, sterile. She expected the stale, itchy air of air-con, but instead, she sucks in clean, stinging breaths. Kikuko, one of the few teens in the hall, has perfected her caramel slice recipe, down to the last grain of salt. Crystal, glaring at the green with a stink-eye, is a parttime receptionist and part-time vet. She performs both of her jobs at a toucan recovery centre. Rosa is a divorcée and only ever wears linen. She used to play volleyball, back in the day.

“It’s a good sign,” she says about the green. “Like, astrologically?” asks Charlie. Charlie is craving salsa and hasn’t waxed her legs since 2008.

A few days ago, after Putin detonated his last bomb in Ukraine, the world went silent. International governments stayed quiet: no statements were made and no condolences were given and no revolutions were announced. Treaties were not signed and leaders made no speeches. “Do you think they assassinated him?” Charlie whispers.

“What,” spits Crystal, “and not gloat about it? If they killed him they would yell it from a skyscraper.”

The sound of a hawk cries throughout the hall. Everyone falls silent. In the silence, they look around at each other, wary. They wait for a bird to fly in and peck at them but no bird flies in. Not even a holographic one. It is just them.

There are women with blue hair and braided hair and wrapped hair and no hair. There are women with wide hips and narrow hips and metal hips. There are women with hangnails and women with acrylics. There are women with acne and women with wrinkles.

“Welcome aboard the Mothership,” says a voice. It echoes above the thousands of heads. Everybody is still. “The Patriarchy has fallen. Today, The Matriarchy begins. This is the inaugural summit of The Matriarchy. From here on out, mothers will run Earth.”

A hum of murmuring sputters throughout the hall. Some women tap their feet and some wome cross their arms and some women tie up their hair into a ponytail.

“But I thought Earth was already run by mothers?” A voice calls out into the hall. Everyone turns to face Nadiya. They blink at her.

“Yeah,” a voice pipes up. It is Josefina, still standing at the entrance. “Mothers worked endlessly in The Patriarchy. What’s so new about The Matriarchy?” The hall waits for the ominous voice to answer them.

“Ha!” says Kikuko. “Siri is stumped!” The hall laughs. “Siri never worked a day in her life. What does she know? What does she know? Has her kid ever licked up their own nosebleed? Has her kid ever asked her if death is real? If Nanna went to heaven? If Daddy went to hell? Has her kid ever told her that they hate her? Has her kid ever come home from school with an obsession? Has her kid ever come home from school with an unopened lunchbox? Has her kid ever come home from school crying about the end of the world? Does Siri even know that her kid knows that the world might end? Answer us, Siri Hawk!”

The hall murmurs and whoops their agreement. There is clapping and applauding and rambling. There is chatter about washing machines and gym memberships and baby formula. There are remarks about cheap dinners and date nights and ear infections. There are hollers about nutritional yeast and long-distance phone calls and bedtime stories. The hall is thunderous with thousands of voices. The hall is suspended in space.

The hall is so loud, so cacophonous, that down below Earth, a suited man holding a thermos of hot coffee looks up into the sky, points at it, and says, “I think I can hear God.” on

by Bruna Gomes

M IS FOR MAGGOT

I was born a pile of goo on that perfect, humid night, when the air was fragrant with those summer smells and the rest of the world had gone to sleep. I imagine my mother fulfilling her purpose, looking at the miracle of little me, then having to go hurriedly away, leaving me here alone. Where she came from, what she looked like – she knew I would never know. Though she herself must’ve known what she was doing, because my very first memory in this sort of orphanage was the sum of my upbringing.

The dawn of my consciousness involved me scavenging with the other children through bin bags, having fun, carefree of time and society. I was never taught how to act like a lady, and although I grew up in this centre, privilege was what my childhood was comprised of. In the morning, we would get up and race to eat breakfast, though we never went hungry. During the daytime, we played as we wanted, tumbling over each other in a place free from swooping birds and violent people. Evening brought us another pile of food – and so this was our routine: we lived hour by hour, we grew fat, loved each other, loved ourselves.

You may imagine that our orphanage was a sort of Eden – we had a healthy amount of sunlight, our centre was always maintained. The air had a gorgeous pungency to it; we considered each other siblings. In fact, some of those children may well have been my siblings. To this day, I have no idea whether we were supervised by adults… I know that nowadays we’ve evolved to not need our parents, but something maternal in me still makes it seem like a preposterous idea to let hundreds of children go wild like that, in such a large establishment.

Nevertheless, I look back on my childhood fondly. My mother knew I’d be happy there – it is perhaps why she laid me in that strange but safe place.

Though of course, in time, I eventually matured to dream of better places, new faces. I wondered what it would be like to have a face. While I slept, I envisioned wings sprouting out of me, being a beauty to men, having many children like I imagined my mother having.

Reader, I tell you this again: I was never brought up as a Proper Lady should be; my mother was never there to teach me her ways. Even still in that absence, I relied on my Divine Femininity, trusted my instincts – do not all women have their natural whims?

The urge for metamorphosis grew stronger over time. I eventually succumbed, as a woman does: when I was a teen I stepped naked and fully into the light of day for the first time. Enveloped in the midday summer air, I saw real adults passing me, their own wings fully developed. A pregnant woman walked past, her wide eyes filled with joy, I assume, for what was to come.

Bear in mind I was still a child, trying to find myself. I was alone, unmothered, uncoddled, with nothing but my own outlook for myself to guide me. I travelled to hidden corners of buildings, trying to bring myself to the safest place possible. Reader, I eventually did find a place. A brick housing for myself: robust, private, again a safe space. I got to work.

I shut myself up in my cocoon for many days and nights, silent always. In that home I had learned about the world, melted my own identity. I could not tell you every detail in that flurry of a time, but I can tell you: I once again became that pile of goo, ready to be rebirthed and continue on the work of powerful women. I changed my look to be more alluring, I grew proper legs and hair and sensual hips, ready for detailed eyes to observe and pine over. I discovered my sexuality. In those days my brain restructured itself as expected, and after a while I crawled out, no longer the fat child I grew up as.

A few hours ago, I flew out past the ever-symbolic mirror. I now have the bug-eyes so close they almost touch, and my face shines iridescent in the right lighting. I have grown those legs and hips and my body is healthy, a glimpse of my life-bringer’s body.

The men must know I’ve just come out of the cocoon, because they all want me, especially the older ones that grow desperate. I have many suitors that have promised me with healthy eggs, have vowed to take care of me and bring me food, stroke my hair. One lives lavish in a kitchen drawer, another has the most dashing scarlet eyes that look me up and down.

Currently, I am on a date with the scarlet-eyed one, as I think he has the better genes to provide me with healthier babies. We are visiting the place where I grew up, and it seems the bin is still running smoothly. This generation’s children are doing as I did, rolling around, eating whatever is thrown out: I still see no adults there to supervise them. He says he wants to elope with me to a new town, where he thinks the scenery is better and the place less crowded.

We are sitting in each other’s company, overlooking that little orphanage of mine. He strokes my thorax, when suddenly he starts to climb on top of me.

Mother, mum, mummy, whatever I am supposed to call you – thank you for providing me with the opportunity to be a woman. I cannot conjure up the right words to express how grateful I am to you, so instead I will do a good job for you and have many, many babies. My life cycle will be complete.

by Clara Kristanda