Give me your Tragedy: Part 1

Sometimes things happen when you yearn for more...

Angry as a bull, the young girl bared her teeth with a growl and glared at her mother. She sat at the kitchen table, writing a few notes on a pad of paper unaffected by her daughter’s tantrum. This was another normal day for the pair. Another argument that would get them nowhere.

“Lannessa,” the mother barked, pausing her writing, “I can’t be everywhere at once.”

“Just one game, mother,” begs Lannessa, “You never come!”

“I don’t have time! I have important research. School is a block away and you’re old enough to walk yourself.”

Lannessa sighs, “I’m 13 mom. I’m not an adult.”

“Yet you act like you know more than I.” The mother looks up from her pad of paper, adjusting her glasses. “Stop acting like a baby and grow up.”

Young Lannessa’s face reddened. Tears form in her eyes. Her heart yearns for the one thing she has never had and yet her mother refused to give it. Taking in a deep breath, she attempted to tell her she wished. She wanted them to spend more time together. Explain how it would feel to look up in the stands and see her mother cheering her own as she made the winning show. Then the phone rung.

Her mother looks at it and answers. “Hello? Yes, I can be there today. When? Ok, I’m on my way.”

She hangs up, and with a smile on her face, she gathered her paper pad and stood.

“What are you doing?” Lannessa asked.

“That was the office. I need to go in to the office. They want to hear about my research.”

Giddy as a naive schoolgirl, the mother rushed out of the kitchen. Lannessa could hear her stuffing the pad of paper in her bag and gathering the keys before she gave a final, “I’m off.”

A few footsteps later and with a click of a door, she was gone. Rushing off to her next break through meeting on her beloved project.

Walking to the kitchen window, her mother drove away, passing a happy family of four. The mother and father laughed as the kids danced around in excitement on the sidewalk. The father chased one down the sidewalk as the four disappeared out of her view. They seemed like a happy family. Why couldn’t she have that?

She turns away from the window and glances around the kitchen. Plates from today’s lunch sat in the kitchen sink. The tacos she also made sat on the table, still across from her mother’s empty plate. Her mother didn’t eat any. In fact, her mother ate nothing she cooked and always grabbed some sort of quick cookie. Sometimes she would make herself something different. It was a bit of a waste when there was already something cooked on the table waiting.

But things didn’t work like that. She didn’t have a father to make up for her mother’s absence. Maybe at one time she had a mother, but that was a long time ago. There was only one memory of her mother rocking her to sleep. Only a handful of memories of them going to the park. When did that all stop? What was so important about her project, anyway?

Staring at the plates on the table, she pushed away from the window and walked towards the basement. With a creak of the door, she gazed down into the darkness for a moment. A hint of a dim light streamed from the far right. Flipping the light switch didn’t produce any new light either. Yet she allowed her feet to take her into the darkness, each step squeaking under her as she went. Concrete walls disappeared with each shade of darkness as she entered. And what was at the bottom? Darkness still and yet a single, bright light in a far-off corner cast upon what surrounded it. A thousand more notes pinned to a billboard and faint diagrams drawn on a whiteboard. In the center of this small corner experiment, a tall glass tube sat, topped with a bright light. Grass with a ring of mushrooms grew inside it. Looking as if someone scooped them up with a giant shovel and brought them here to her mother to play with. The tube was much taller than it should be for such a small experiment. About as tall as a person or more. How tall was her mother expecting these mushrooms to be?

She looked at the ring. All white umbrella like mushrooms of different sizes. Some were as small as her pinky and others were larger than her hand. All in a perfect round circle.

Lannessa smirked. “This is it?”

She knew her mother was a long time botanist who studied plants for who knows what reason. Medicine? Maybe she wanted to save lives more at the sacrifice of her family?

Bumping into a chair in front of a desk, some notes scattered to the floor. She picked one up and read it.

‘Experiment 600: Appears to be communicating at an intelligent level…’

She tossed the note aside, not believing what she was reading. An intelligent plant. Does her mother actually believe this? Tears stung her eyes as she glared at the mushrooms. How are these things more important than her? How can she like a plant more than her own daughter?

“It’s not fair,” she stated, her breathing becoming rapid, “It’s not fair that I don’t have a mother!”

She slams her fists down onto the desk, then looks at the chair. Lannessa grabs the chair and slings it around, lining it up to her target. Then, with all the strength she had, she heaved the chair up above her and slammed it into the tube. Glass shattered, spraying across the grass and mushrooms. Some spilling onto the ground. She dropped the chair with a huff. Eyes fixed on the ring of mushrooms still pristine with their blankets of glass atop them. Raising a hand, she lunged for the mushrooms, but something grabbed her. Another hand, pure white with dirt clinging to it. She looked up to find one of the back most mushrooms slightly risen and staring at her with two beady eyes. Pulling itself out of the ground one leg at a time, it grew until it was about her height. Still holding her hands, it stood there staring back. Its beady black eyes blinking under its hooded mushroom head.

“H-hello,” Lannessa asked, eyes wide and mouth agape.

It cocked its head with a chirp.

“I’m sorry I smashed your tube, but you’re free now,” Lannessa continues.

Silence followed as the mushroom person tilted its head again, still staring at her.

“Mother, can’t hold your captive now.”

She gasped as the mushroom person’s form changed. Its umbrella head shrinking and color changed until it looked human. But not just any human. It was her mother.

Lannessa took a step back but her mother held onto her hand, tight. Smiling. Looking at her with the brightest of joy.

“You did great at the game today, dear,” her mother praised.

Lannessa shook her head. “Your not her.”

“I loved how you made that winning shot,” she continued.

Lannessa tried to pull away, tears falling faster. “You can’t know that. You’re not her.”

The eyes of this mother caught her gaze. Eyes filled with joy and… was that love? Her mother doesn’t love her and yet there it was. Her mother standing in front of her with praise and love.

Pulling Lannessa into her arms, the mother cradled her like a small child. Rocked her like she remembered from so long ago. At first she struggled, but her mother’s pats on her shoulder calm her. She latched on, crying into her shoulder.

“You’re not my mama,” Lannessa wept. “You can’t be.”

“Nonsense,” her mother commanded. She lifted Lannessa up, carrying her to the center of the mushroom ring. Continuing to pat her shoulder.

Lannessa tucked her head into her mother’s neck, continuing to cry. Dismissing all logic in favor of her mother’s love.

It’s not too often that humans find such beings. It shouldn’t be possible, yet Lannessa’s mother had found one and interacted with it. Can you imagine her surprise as she walks down steps in a rush, expecting to grab a few notes she forgot. What did she feel when she found her daughter in the arms of the very being she had been studying? Shock, of course. Then panic as it turned to her with a smile, still mirroring her form, but something in its eyes wasn’t quite right. Its smile widens as it vanishes with her daughter. Leaving nothing but a mess and failure.