"Leaving the Past" 1


"Hello? Oh, hey Addy.... What? What happened? ...Mom? Ah, fuck me.... I'll be there as fast as I can..." Immediately you run out of your house, into your truck. You lay your foot down on the gas, and in fifteen minutes you're at the local hospital. You barge through the automated doors, and before the receptionist can ask you why you're there, you're running into the emergency room.

When you get there, you see your sisters, Adelina and Odeta, standing outside of a E.R. room. The room had the curtains drawn, and the light was dimmed. "W-What happened...?"

Your sisters cry, and Odeta comes up and embraces you with a hug. "She tried holding on, Edon... She wanted to see you. But... but she's gone now..." You feel your knees buckle and your heart drops. All at once you feel everything, sadness, regret, anger, confusion... But you don't feel any of it. Your heart races, but your head is filled with empty, vacant thoughts.

Fast forward a couple days. The pain hasn't gone away, and the cops still haven't found the fucker who hit your mother. It's a few hours after the funeral, and everybody came up to your house to have some food and drink, to remember your mom fondly. But they had all come and gone by now, leaving you with nothing but a mess to clean up and a profound sense of loneliness.

The only person left was your sister Odeta, but she too was getting ready to leave.

The funeral had left your head cloudy with thoughts. Your relationship with your mother was a weird one, a tenuous one, that could be best described as a relationship that went through soaring highs and depressing lows. At an early age you never had a father, and your mother was almost inconvenienced by being a parent. She was a young mother, and throughout your life you could see the bitterness gripping her face. Her scowl. As if she was telling you "thanks for ruining the best years of my life" without saying it.

She always loved her daughters, your sisters, more than she ever loved you. She would pick up you up after basketball practice and you can remember the scorn in her expression. But when she picked your sisters up from cheer or softball she would always pull a different tone and smile, and ask them, "How was your day?"

You grew up as a very lonely boy, seeking solace in your mates and coaches. Through hard work you were able to break the chains, to better yourself. Those four years of college, you didn't exchange a single word with your mother. Only after, when you were sucessful, did she try rekindling your bond with her.

Your entire life you lived as a motherless child almost, although in the back of your mind, you always wanted to please her, to show that you were a great man. So despite the terrible upbringing you jumped at the chance to reconnect. It was going swimmingly, until... well....

Odeta walks up to you while she's leaving. You two didn't have much time to speak, as she was accepting condolences from the female side of the family, while you were fielding ones from the men. Odeta hugs you and presses her forehead against your forehead. "Ma ka mare malli per ty... I missed you so much, vella..."

It had been years since you had seen her. She came back from Albania solely for the funeral, and was on her way out. It would be years before you would ever see her again, at her own funeral. "Edon, vella, I have been feeding momma's fluffies... They have no place to go, will you take care of them?"

Adelina lived in a tiny apartment in the city, and there was no way Odeta was going to put fluffies in her overhead on the way home, nevermind the baggage fees. We were all broke. You were the only one with a real home, with a yard and space for such things. You knew next to nothing about fluffies, but your nene loved them, so it was your duty as a son to care for them.

"Don't worry, Odeta, I'll pick them up tomorrow, bright and early," you say, releasing your sister from the hug. She nods, and vanishes out the door, into the darkness of the night. Then all at once, you're alone.

You spend the rest of the night cleaning up your home. The mourners and family had left things messy, with beer bottles littering the entire downstairs floor. It was a empty task, but you were happy to have your family there, celebrating your mother's life. When things are relatively clean, you call it a night and lay your head down.

The next morning, you spend a little time researching fluffies while you sip on some tea. Interesting creatures. Every site gives a different description of them, although many articles agree that they're messy, and extremely dependent on humans. They're fragile, easily hurt, and require a safe, empty room.

You didn't have any empty rooms; they were all being used. Your house wasn't extravagent enough to have an unused room. You did, however, have an old pickup truck in your yard, parked under a tree. The bed was empty, and the enclosure would protect them from nature. You go out and give the bed of the truck a quick sweep, before throwing down a ratty old blanket you kept in your garage. It would be a suitable place for such animals.

It's a relatively short ride to your mum's, about twenty minutes. When you get there, you're greeted with nostalgia. The old swing, the well, the hill in the backyard, even the creaky step on the front stairs makes your heart ache and pine for days gone by.

When you open the front door, the door knob turns and it creaks open. Odeta was kind enough to leave it unlocked for you. She always kept the light on when you were younger, too, coming home after parties, drunk as hell. When you walk in, shadows of the afternoon cast through the home, and dust particles can be seen dancing around through the flickers of light sneaking in through the dimmed curtains.

Old pictures line the walls, and when you look, you can't find one with you in it. Only in the kitchen, on the fridge, do you find a picture of yourself. A child picture, with your mother holding you in her arms. You pick it up and look at it. When you set it down, the back end that holds it up bends forward, and the picture flops over, with the glass shattering all over the countertop.

When the pane breaks, you hear talking. "MUMMMMMEH?!!! Ish mummeh home?!!!" It must be your mother's fluffies. You leave the mess for Adelina, who was going to be looking after the home until it was sold, and head to the back room. You follow the voices, and when you get to the room they're in, you're overwhelmed with nostalgia again. It was your room. Well, your old room.

You open it up. The walls were still painted a dark shade of red, and the tile you put down in high school still lined the floor. All your things were gone though, and in lieu of them, there was the fluffies.

You know you're mom had one to begin with, you remember when she got it, it was all she could talk about. Now there was three. The mare your mother started with must've gotten pregnant, probably close to the time your mother left this world, as the mare's foals were still tiny and chirping. Their dishes were near empty, with a few pieces of kibble at the bottom, and the litterbox in the corner was overflowing with dried up old shit.

"Whewe mummah mistuh?!! WAN MUMMAH!!" You kneel down by the fluffy, who puffs her chest and cheeks at you and keeps her foals safely behind her.

"I-I'm your mother's son. I'm going to be taking care of you from now on, okay? What's your name?"

"NUUUUUH!! WAN MUMMAH!! DUN' WAN' DADDEH, WAN MUMMAH!!"

You slump over a little bit. "She was my mother too, y'know..." The fluffy backs down a little bit, and her cheeks deflate as she moves closer to you.

"Mistuh... mistuh kno' mummah? Whewe mummah go mistuh? Am... Am Besah! Am gewd fwuffy!"

You sigh. "Your mother... She's not with us anymore, Besa. She's dead."

"Dead? Wuz dead mistuh? Ish mummah okey?!"

You shake your head. "No, she's.... she's gone. She's not coming back, sorry."

The fluffy slumps over when the words come out of your mouth. "Mummah... sweepin' fowevuh...?"

You feel a little tear trickling down the side of your cheek. "Yes... She's... She's sleeping forever now." The fluffy lies down on her chest and lets out this sad little "huuu" sounds, while tears pour down from her eyes, into the purple fluff on her face.

"Besah... Besah gon' miss mummah... huuuuu huu huuu...."

You pet the fluffy and sit down on the floor. "M-Me too. Me too, Besa."