When the smell of rot leaked out from between your teeth and the floorboards, i knew something was up.
"Sarah, believe me, i want you to be an artist"
there are wiry grey hairs sprouting from her scalp and covering her cataract eyes. I want to be taken seriously. I look down at my fingers and they are fat stumps, my cheeks are swelling and growing rosier. I am a child in her eyes.
"even though i may not understand all the time, i appreciate your passion and i think it's what you were born to do."
I want to curl up in the warmth. my head is swollen and my neck is weak. I have to support myself with my feeble arms. She looks down on me and her bones are showing, they never have before. One, Two, Three, three again? fuck.
"you can make it in the big city, i believe in you."
There is the sound of coffin-makers in the distance, banging the rich dark wood of her final home into the familiar shape that beckons the kiss of death. My arms and legs curl inward, my stomach sprouts the cord that gave me life, pulsing and blue.
"I know that this means a lot to you. and i know you don't care for money or a big house like i do. I just want you to know that this isn't a lucrative business and you have to know what you're getting yourself into."
She is stepping into the box, smoothing the satin inlay with her spider fingers and fixing her white dress over her knobby knees. I am bug eyed and tiny, i can no longer speak.
"besides, what does it matter? we are all just maggots and worms in the end."
she kisses me goodnight.
