World Tilting at Bedtime by Katya Lee

By the time my mother mentions falling, I let the drone of her voice fade to the unawake part of my mind. Her words are a steady hum, punctuated by rattling breaths and muffled snorts as she clears the tangy scent of antiseptic from her nostrils. If I let my gaze drift away from her paper-white figure on the hospital bed, I can pretend that I’m alone. In my peripherals, she blends into the monotony, clear and soft as water. The only thing that moves is her mouth, but her ramblings are like static – barely present, and even more unintelligible when I focus on them.

“Past a certain age,” she says, “you will come to realize that falling face first into the ground is an illusion – it’s the world that is being thrown off balance, not you. It’s a funny thing, really. You’ll be standing on two feet thinking of how the moon can bathe a miles wide swathe of sand in a silver glow. Or you’ll be thinking of children spinning round a campfire, brief snatches of their laughter caught by firelight. Because at the same age that falling becomes an illusion, colour and light become easier to think in than words.

“And when the silver glow turns into blurs instead of beams, or the children’s smiles spread to their hair and make it stand on end – that’s when the ground you’re standing on will tilt ninety degrees, until it’s parallel with your body. All you will feel against your chest is soft grass, and a softer earth that craves warmth. The ground will marvel at your fuzzy little figure and stretch its roots towards you, unable to get enough of the drumbeat that is your pulse. The earth will be surprised by your toes, confused by your palms, afraid of your tongue. But in that moment, you’ve never felt more upright. Falling over – it’s just a trick of the earth as the whole world slips head over heels.”

Mother’s eyes are losing their bright blue and I don’t recognize her face without the red flush that plagued my childhood. Maybe that’s why she won’t shut up about colour – in losing it, she feels the need to make it clearer to everyone else, to assure herself that silver and orange still exist, if only in the minds of others.

This room is still and bright – grey tiles, pale blue curtains and white sheets cradling an old woman in sterile hands. It’s disappointing to see her end this way. I always thought that after a childhood of words that left my mind numb and hands that left my skin aching, she’d die how she’d lived: cold and furious, a scowl etched into her wrinkled brow. Instead, her speech is akin to rainfall, a gentle blend of quiet murmurings and muddled reflections.

That she’s choosing to lower her voice only now is an insult. As a child, I would tell myself, “Ma can do one of two things to make my life easier: change or die.” I never thought she’d pick both at once. It’s unnecessary, almost spiteful. She’s muttering about light and colour, but the only shade filling my mind is a spattered purple. It’s the colour I was painted in as long as I lived in the same house as my mother, and she lived in a world where the men who’d left were too far away to beat. I suppose I should blame their absence, and my proximity for her rages. During those days, purple covered my cheekbones and jaw, and pooled in bruises around my eyes. That all happened many years ago, but even now, when I shut my eyes tight enough, the colour of darkness is that same violet instead of black.

Mother is choosing only now to let her tears fall as well, and I find it strange that she cries like I do – soft and bitter. Tear drops have different weights to them, depending on the person, and different shapes too. Mine have always been the heavy kind, and jagged around the edges. In the past, they’ve cut my cheeks, leaving damp trails of salt. Hers are the jagged kind too – painful to let loose – but not as heavy. They trace the wrinkles of her face like the feeble currents of a creek. They wander along her temples, getting lost in the crook of her nose, remembering to fall after crossing the rim of her chin.

Right now, everything about her is slow – even her dying. I wish she’d hurry up.

“Do you know what an off-balance Earth sounds like?” she fixes her pale gaze on my stony one. “It sounds like a dragonfly, but larger and rounder. Iridescent and huge, with wings too loud for its body. It sounds like the steady hum of thousands of voices echoing through the other side of the globe. Or the throaty baritone of a busker, with nothing but a guitar and a tattered coat on his back. When the world tilts up to meet you, press your ear against the ground-turned-wall, and listen to it all. You might hear a song in all that noise.”

Two weeks ago, when I got the phone call about the stroke, I tore myself apart. Not in pieces, and not out of emotion – it was a survival instinct, a separation, not a reaction. I have come to believe that I am two people on the inside. The first is the woman that is telling this story, the woman who can shield herself from the memories with words. The other is the child who hasn’t yet invented the words to make sense of the memories. Through the phone, I remember hearing your mother won’t make it your mother is dying your mother needs to see you and if I hadn’t shoved the child half of me to the back of my mind, I believe she would have cheered. I ripped myself away from that little girl’s bruised face and wide eyes.

But when that child is no longer in the forefront of my mind, I seem to see her everywhere, in the world outside my own head. Her eager grin lines the empty hallways; the soft thuds of her cheerful skipping echo along the hospital walls. Her triumphant laughter is like dust in the air, everywhere at once, and suffocating. I can see her silhouette through the blue curtain, and I know she’s listening to Mother’s final breaths with satisfaction. I can hardly blame her.

“Falling,” Mother whispers, breaking me out of my reverie, “falling is a funny thing, a mix of ground, and grass, and soil so soft it can put you to sleep with its touch. Falling is the world tilting up to meet you, the Earth craving something new, and coming to rest against your skin. Falling is the world trying to find its balance and finding you instead. What a funny thing, to fall and know that in these arms of green and brown, you are a novelty.”

She hisses, suddenly, and her eyes, which have been growing greyer for days, are suddenly pale as clouds, and empty. I see her chest spasm, hear the rattling of her final exhale, and then it’s as though the ground is tilting up to meet us both. Earth and tiles rise to swallow us whole, and we are both falling. What a funny thing.

***

When the coffin disappears into the ground, I can’t risk my dry eyes giving me away, so I kneel, lean forward, and press my face into the ground. When I hide my head in my bundled arms, I can convince everyone around me that my heart is breaking. But the only thing my mind registers is how silent the earth is against my ear. No footfalls, no laughter, no music. Even my own breathing, which hissed like a steam train in the hospital room, is being carried away by a swift, silent breeze.

Mother is gone, the purple-faced-child half of me is gone, and when I shut my eyes, the colour of darkness is no longer violet.

I inhale, and against my cheek, I feel the ground do the same. It breathes in my mother’s still body, encasing her coffin in a chamber of dirt. The Earth shifts in wonder at the novelty of this new form, at this cold figure hewn from pallid skin and brittle bones. It stills, suspended in a state of mild surprise, then settles. Exhales.

Katya Lee

Image by Alexa from Pixabay – Grass meadow.