043 :: A mother

Naomi and Peter were sitting at the end of the garden.

What this. (Naomi)

Oh. It is a thing. A record. (Peter)

Naomi watched Peter type. The screen changed colour. He spoke. His words appeared on screen. In English and translated.

It is a different translator. A free one. In many ways better than the Skroll. If you use the Skroll they own the copyright on your translation. And they have access to everything you say. With this translator you own the copyright still.

English?

No. It has as many languages as Skroll has. I am using it as a way to save stories. It shows when the story was first written. If anyone uses your story this can show it was stolen. Can show it was not a translation. Or an autostory. It will also be a way to read stories. A way to pay the author for the story.

Oh.

It is going to be amazing. It will work on anything. Your ePass. Your Skroll. You record your story. It finds the reader.

What story?

Any story. What story can you tell?

I don’t know. Maybe I could remember a story my grandma told me when I was little. But I am not a trained story teller.

It doesn’t matter. There will be an editor suite when this is finished. I didn’t mean traditional stories. I meant a story from your life.

You mean my life. You mean biography.

Yes. Like the story of your flight to London. Or a story about your mother. Those are the things autostories steal from your Skroll and sell as scripts.

Oh sure. So it will be recorded.

Everything is recorded anyway. It changes from your memory into a story when it is recorded. Nothing is private any more. The AI can tell you what you are thinking. The best we can hope for is recognition for what is ours.

I wouldn’t know what to say.

Just say the things you have already said. They are already recorded but when you say it this time it will be unique. It will be yours. When you tap your Skroll on mine it will start the story. Then tap again when you have finished.

Naomi nodded then stared at the Thames for a long time. Then tapped her Skroll against his.

When you said earlier everyone says. No. Can I start again?

Yes. Just tap to close this recording then tap to start again.

She tapped his Skroll. Again.

It is not true that everyone says bad things about their mothers. Some people don’t say bad things about their mothers but. Perhaps, like me, those people have never told their mother’s story.

I have never said anything bad about my mother. I was always taught it is wrong to say bad things about your mother. I never shouted a bad word at her. Or at my father about her. Even when I talked to my sister I never said anything bad about my mother. I still do not write a bad word when I write to my sister at the end of the day. It was always hard. Every day, at the end of every day I would think bad things about my mother but I never said them. I knew it was wrong even to think ill of her and so that was the reason I said nothing. If my story about my mother is honest it will have bad things in it. And there is no point of telling a story if it isn’t honest. Forgive me.

My earliest memory of my mother is her throwing me against a wall. I was fine. I think. I didn’t even remember being thrown against the wall for most of my life but one day she pushed me and my head hit a door and I knew it had happened before. It took me a few days to work it out. It was not abuse. I was not abused. She did not hit me again, just that once. But she wasn’t kind. She didn’t love me like she loved my sister. She was always cross with me. She would scowl when I came into the room. She would laugh with my sister when she came home from school but not with me. Everything I did was wrong. Eventually she just pretended I did not exist. Sat in silence rather than ask me how I was. I have no idea when I gave up hope. Gave up hope that she would love me. That she would smile at me. I remember the feeling of sadness that she didn’t care. I think it started with the worry that she would tell me off. It started with me hiding. Staying away from where she was. Sometimes I would even go hungry rather than go ask her for food. Then it was that feeling of numbness. Waiting for her anger to abate. Waiting. Always waiting. It was a good day when I knew she was going to be out when I came home from school. Maybe the numbness started when I was five or six. I did try, I always tried but it was never good enough for her. I hated getting it wrong as she would always shout at me for not trying. But I did try.

I always tried.

Then she got sick. Very sick very quick. I thought it was my time. I was going to show her that I really cared. I cleaned up her vomit. Washed the shit from her sheets. I cleaned up her blood. I held a cloth on her forehead. In the morning my dad went to work. My sister went to school. I spooned soup into her mouth. Daytimes were OK. Sometimes. She would sleep a bit. Sleep cures cancer.

I would clean the linnen. I can never forget the linen. It was a reddish brown. It smelled foul, I wretched when I watched it. But I never complained. I always thought today is the day that she says thank you. Today is the day she is going to smile at me. But she never did. Then when my sister came home from school she would smile at her and I would leave the room.

Some days I would get a little sleep. I never slept at night. My dad slept in my bed and I sat on the chair next to mother. I would dose a little then. She slept at night. Do they still say sleep cures cancer? Maybe it was because she slept that she lasted as long as she did. She did not sleep a good sleep. She moaned in her sleep. When I ran a cool flannel over her head she was quiet for a bit. I would col her head. Then rest for a while waiting for her to moan again. Dosing. Just a little. At the slightest sound I would jump up. I would stroke her head. Rinse the cloth, stroke her head. I stopped her noise so she wouldn’t wake up my father. He was so sad. I would hear him moving in my bed. Tossing. Turning. He got too little sleep. My duty was to let him sleep as much as he could.

This is a bad story. I am a bad person. Other girls would have done what I did but they would not complain.

The bad thing is not looking after my mother. The bad things is not that she suffered in bed for thirteen months. The bad thing is not the time I wasted looking after a women who never did say thank you. Those are all bad but the bad things is the anger that still sits in my belly. The bad things is I let the anger stay. I made a place for the anger. A little house for it. I chose to let it stay. A good girl would have chased the anger away. A good daughter would have been grateful for what she did have even if it wasn’t the best it was certainly not the worse. And that anger in the end burned me. It chased me away from my home.

Naomi stopped talking. She held up her Skroll but did not tap to end the story. Just stared at the river.

That is all. I don’t have the right words to turn my feelings into a story. It is because I have not learned how to tell a story. It is a confession. Not a story. It does not belong in your storybook.

Naomi tapped the Skroll. Peter stared at the river for a while before talking.

It is fine. It is from the heart. Like you said at the beginning a story has to be honest. Sometimes things from the heart are not like stories but are important. And it was about caring. Honest and caring are the two most important things that stop life from going to shit. They are what make us different from animals. The things that matters for me is to say I am sorry your mother was selfish. I would like to support you while you start again.

Naomi smiled. She spoke in English.

Thanks

Honesty and care have always been the start of anything worthwhile. Not just the hippies and communes. Anything. Really. It starts good. Sometimes it ends bad but it always starts good. They started believing in honesty, believing in care, believing in the goodness in each other. Sometimes they start thinking about the self instead. That is when it doesn’t go well.

044 :: As if not spoken aloud
Peter and Naomi sat in silence at the end of the garden. The Thames on the one end...