Short Story

PILLOW TALK

Nancy's Notes πŸ–ŠοΈβ™¬

It’s Six Sentence Story time with Denise at GirlieOnTheEdge. Yeah, it is.

“Other” is a word that rhymes with mother, which also happens to rhyme with smother, which begs the question: β€œAm I a dreadful person for wanting to smother my mother ?”

Mother wasn’t a bad person; there was no physical abuse  – just a major lack of tenderness which can leave greater, more permanent scars …. a perfectionist who found it very difficult to show warmth or affection, even to her children; I don’t remember her saying β€œI love you”, tickling me till I squealed or reading bedtime stories; what I do remember is proudly showing her a drawing I made in school with the inscription β€œSkyscrapers scrape the sky while butterflies flutter by”…. something my teacher called β€œhighly imaginative and showing great vision” but mother said it was foolishness because butterflies can’t fly that high.

As a teenager I was forbidden to shave my legs but did anyway and not wanting my secret revealed, I wore jeans all the time, even to the beach in the middle of summer which also covered-up the fact that I used a self-tanner which turned my skin orange; mother watched as I scrubbed myself raw in the tub using a mixture of water and bleach β€“ a humiliating experience –  but it was at that time she discovered my shaved legs, causing her to explode like a slow gas leak and, of course, I was grounded but it was worth it. 

Many days after arriving home from school I would find the contents of my dresser drawers dumped on my bed, simply because mother didn’t approve of how my clothes were folded; if I wanted to sleep that night, I’d have to put all my things away (or push them to the floor, which I often did) and I’d get hell the next day but it was a trip seeing her bulging veins and bugged-out eyes.

Years later when I had kids, mother would pop in unannounced and examine my house like the β€œWhite-Glove Lady” checking for dust; if my oven didn’t meet her standards, she would clean it (which, now that I have 20/20 hindsight, was a blessing in disguise because I ended up with a clean oven) and then she would depart as quickly as she arrived, leaving me with a spotless house but never once sitting down for coffee and a piece of pie or stopping to play with my children. 

Lately I’ve been having a recurring dream about smothering mother with a pillow and when I wake up, I’m smiling; I guess my earlier question bears repeating: β€œDoes that make me a dreadful person?”

NAR Β© 2023

Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt!
FOWC with Fandango β€” Explode

This is John Lennon & Yoko Ono with The Plastic Ono Band singing “Mother”:

42 thoughts on “PILLOW TALK”

  8. I had a friend whose Dad was in the Navy, and he used to go into my friend’s room and make a mess of everything, then make the friend clean it, and if the father didn’t like it, he’d mess everything up again and make the friend do it again. I can’t imagine what that would be like.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. I don’t like to talk this way, especially about the father of a friend whose mother was a friend of my mother’s, but he could really be an insufferable a**hole, even when he was being a “nice guy.”

        Like

        Reply

  13. β€œjust a major lack of tenderness which can leave greater, more permanent scars …. a perfectionist who found it very difficult to show warmth or affection” Did we have the same mother? You are absolutely not a dreadful person.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. It’s absolutely mind-boggling to me how many people I have met since I began blogging who have the same memories and feelings as me.
      I take little comfort in other people’s sorrows but it is reassuring to know not everyone had the “shits & giggles” childhood I thought they did.
      Thanks for sharing your thoughts today, Melissa, and confirming I’m not alone!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Tell me what you're thinking. πŸ–ŠοΈ