World's Best Mother by Nuria Labari

Author:Nuria Labari
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: World Editions
Published: 2020-10-21T13:29:50+00:00

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TWENTY D1 Flies with Black Wings

Man is walking down the street, holding D1 and D2 by the hand. I take their picture, and another, and another. I think about posting one on Instagram. I like taking pictures of them, trapping time. The girls hop along, lifting water with their steps. It’s rained, and they’re wearing wellies: D1’s are screaming yellow and D2’s are pink like chewing gum. It’s autumn, when the ochre cobblestones of Madrid become an earthy carpet of falling leaves. The city resembles a little village. Man and the girls pretend they’re hunting for dragon lairs in the sewers. When one is discovered, they quickly stomp on the middle of the manhole cover. Now the dragon can’t get out. They pile stones and anything they can find on top. The street is two hundred yards long and it probably takes us more than twenty minutes to cover it: one must be patient, hunting dragons.

It’s one of those rainy days with nothing to do, a day I would have suggested going to the zoo, the movies, shopping, to a gallery, a class, or for a drive in the country. But Man said: We’ll hunt dragons. And so they do. I follow behind because it’s my first time and they teach me the art of the hunt. By the looks of it, they go hunting often. While I’m at work—because I am back at work—though we’ll talk about that later.

They have the opening of a drainpipe surrounded, the three of them. They crouch down at the same time, slowly and sinuously. I observe my family with satisfaction. Right now I feel like everything is exactly as it should be, as I want it to be. Is it possible we’re doing something right? But then, without warning, without anyone else noticing, the most terrible thing happens.

D2 is huddled between Man and D1 when immense, black wings emerge from D1’s back, soft and thick as a Devil’s touch. Wings four or five yards high and more than three feet across spread over her little body and unfold over the bodies of her father and sister until all three are captured in a winged embrace. Unaware that she possesses gigantic wings, D1 keeps playing, as if nothing has happened. No one can see the wings, just me. Those wings are death. And at any moment, they could take silent flight.

I’m not frightened by this image because I know that’s all it is: a vision, one of my mirages, a maternal fear. And, besides, it is beautiful.

You have forged a mortal family and now you must know that one day I will come and I will take what’s mine, says Death.

I know I should shout something to the effect of Take me first! But instead, I pretend. I make believe I’ve seen nothing.

Go on, because I can’t hear you, I’m about to say. But I bite my tongue.

That’s the thing, you see: at any moment, an innocent walk can become flooded with new thoughts, new menaces.

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