The Death of Mama B

Rumor has it that all of their flesh turned to crystal, and they loved it. The sun bounced around in their bodies. They felt so alive that even though their pain was heightened, it was overcast by their pleasure. Then, they disappeared.

There was a woman on my block, Mama Benson, who made tea biscuits every day, through her arthritis. She gave them to her friends, her neighbors, waddling from door to door with a strict bend in her back, her head turned downward toward the pavement, toward her hands, stuck in a posture she'd practiced daily in her decades of making and selling. She wouldn't let anyone help with her delivery. She wanted to give each gift herself. And she wanted to talk you up if you were home. I never cared for her tea biscuits, nor her rambling conversation, but my Mom loved them. And we all, at the very least, admired Mama B.

I heard from Sharon, who was both Mama B's neice and adopted daughter, that she glistened and stretched out, reached as if her body was breaking free, then was gone. Sharon was strange as she talked about her aunt's death. She'd looked into my eyes intensely as if she wanted me to understand something, like she was speaking in code. Then she'd looked past me, then back into my eyes again. A week after relaying her aunt's last moments, she too was gone.

Many of those who witnessed the last moments of the disappeared would be the next to go. There were reports that some intentionally exposed themselves, scraping up the residue of their loved ones, their friends, even strangers, with their bare hands. I heard one could buy the residue of a disappeared Jane or John Doe - no doubt homeless people who'd been preyed upon - on the black market. What was once a disease was now a drug. Sharon's death, then, did not seem odd.

When Sharon left plates of tea biscuits at all our doors, with a neighborly suicide note that read, "I didn't want to leave you without one last taste of our family recipe... and a bit of Mama B. :-)" Well, that didn't seem odd to me either. This may be hard to believe, but anyone who knew the Bensons, knew that family was the type to give until they died.

When my Mom brought our plate of biscuits inside, it sat on our table for a day as she stared at it, guarded it, picked up a biscuit, placed it back down, picked it up again. (I thought I saw her lick one.) Now, that did seem slightly odd. Also seemed slightly odd when, later, she sat firmly at the table, eating a tea biscuit slowly, breaking off each piece and placing it in her mouth like a delicacy, scooping up the crumbs. Slightly odd when she finished off four biscuits - no tea or coffee, then laid down on the couch.

Grief. I thought.

She sure did love Mama B. I thought.

She's taking this pretty hard. I thought.

The next day she began to sweat. Refused to do anything. Just laid on the couch changing color by the moment,  pushing away every cup of water, or tea, every bread or biscuit, all the while avoiding my eyes. Odd. I'd never seen someone get sick off of day-old tea biscuits. And I knew my mother didn't love Mama B that much.

The understanding of what was happening krept into my body before it settled in my mind. The sun went down and I couldn't get myself up to turn on the living room light. I sat in the arm chair looking out the window as the room grew pitch dark. I'd seen no one on the street that day, saw no one leave their house, or even open a door.

I looked back to my Mom, adjusting my eyes in the black room. I caught her gaze for the first time all day. Two deep pools of pity peered at me for mere seconds. She closed her eyes and turned her head away, toward the ceiling. Now I was sure of what my mother had done. What Sharon had done.

I knew no one would come to help. I knew that no one could help. I feared that seeking help would confirm what I'd suspected - that no one I knew was out there anyway. And I was afraid of what watching would do to me. So, I got up, laid on my bed in my room, and waited. I waited until the sun rose. I waited until it kept rising into noonday.

Finally, when the sun was high in the sky, I had the courage to peak from my bedroom into a bright and empty house. There were no sounds beyond the chirping of morning birds merging with the drone of our tired air conditioner.

That day, I did not think. I did not hesitate. I walked sraight through the living room, past the couch my mother had chosen as her deathbed and into the kitchen. I grabbed the half empty plate and tossed the whole thing - the dish and the stale biscuits - into the trash. I walked out the door, past Mama B's house, and I kept walking down the hot and empty street.