Crumbling Visage

Bloom

Trigger Warning: Description of a panic attack.

In the half-light of the flickering bulb, Belle could barely see the text in minuscule writing, much less the finer print at the bottom of the document. She had been working for hours now and it was giving her a severe headache. She silently cursed the office for its poor working conditions and their sheer audacity in demanding extra work at a bare minimum increment! She wished she could leave the job, the town and the people behind and venture into the wide world of music. But it was a futile dream.

It wasn't as if she didn't have the money, she had plenty of it- enough to last a lifetime without having to work. Yet here she was, in a dingy, little office in a dingy, little place with pathetic air conditioning and the smell of rotten fish drifting from the dumpster right outside her tiny cubicle.

The issue, really, was that the money wasn't really hers was it? No; it belonged to her family who held it over her head as if to drive her on and work for herself and then maybe- maybe- they would give her a piece of it. It was only fair; she'd thought in gloomy melancholy.

But if it were that simple, she would have let it go- she would've given up all her savings for her one, true dream. But it wasn't. She loved them and they loved her and she needed them in more than monetary ways and they possibly needed her in more than monetary ways too.

As she slammed the file down on the desk and got up, anger and anxiety boiled to the surface. Most of it was irrational and she knew it; but she just couldn't help it. Her breathing paced up and she felt fast, shallow breaths fill her lungs; her heart thudded and her fingers suddenly felt too cold or too warm- so cold that they were warm. She gripped the cold metal of a window railing and clenched it to stop her trembling hands.

The next thing she knew, tears were slipping past and her back felt weak. She stood there for minutes- trying to steady her breath and humming a soft tune that was half-choked in her throat.

As she walked to the car, her footsteps were slow and steady. And as she drove home, she felt considerably lighter and she was almost happy at the prospect of a quiet night ritual- a shower, some music and some bedtime reading. But she knew this was not to be when she saw the familiar coat on the back of the kitchen chair.

"Ah, Belle. I was beginning to worry..." The woman's voice acquired a note of worry- so genuine you wouldn't know; the sarcasm just subtle enough- Belle thought wryly.

"I have a job, mother." Belle paused, "One which involves working. But, oh, sorry." She took a gulp of ice-cold water, "You wouldn't have any experience with that would you?"

The woman laughed without humor, "You underestimate me, darling. I was a singer and it took me a while to earn it."

"Yeah" Belle replied with vague indifference, "I get it. Exactly how much earning did you have to do when you had enough money and a loving, doting family?" Belle laughed, "Oh darling Susan, your hands will get calloused if you work. Love, do what you want for your heart and think not of monetary gain- we shall starve to death before a want of yours is unfulfilled. Dear, dear-"

"I" the woman replied stiffly, "had to earn a name. And so, do you. I was not as doted over as you'd like to believe. No more than you are, sweetheart."

Belle shook her head with a faint, mocking smile, "I know exactly the process of what you are, Susan- I am as much your m0ther as you are mine."

"With just the two of us, love, we have to bloom." The woman smirked as though sharing an inside joke.

"You, ma'am, are delusional." Belle sat down on the couch and exhaled, "To bloom we must have ever been buds. You didn't give me that, mother. You didn't give me a father, a family, a life, my dream-nothing. It's all void and I have no escape."

"Nothingness has an infinity to it, darling. And that is what we desire. Infinitely nothing but that beauty of infinity..."

"Beauty of things is your perception, mother. You're blinded and you're walking through a treacherous fog that is distorting your vision. This infinity does not justify murder, deceit and lies."

"No one is ever truly dead, Belle. You of all people should know that."

"What...what do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. Your father was a good man and I loved him-so I sent him to the place of beauty. What is nowhere, is everywhere, Belle. Your sister was such a good daughter that she deserved to be part of the universe and now she is. But you, who has always been so much like me- so despicable, blunt, arrogant, pathetic and with that undying fire of rebellion that will one day consume you- you, love, do not deserve good things. Why must you?"

"I don't understand, mother..."

"That is because you don't want to, darling. No one is ever truly dead because we were never alive..."

"You're crazy! I am...am calling the-" Belle backed up against the wall.

"...your dreams are dead. Your tears are futile and meaningless, your pain has no cause, your voice that wants to hum can only sob. "

"You stay away from me!"

"Have you looked into your bedroom lately, love?" the woman asked with the same air of equanimity. On Belle's silence, her hands clasped Belle's.

"Go in."

"I don't want to..."

"Go. In. Darling."

Belle's fingers trembled as she turned the doorknob-

The overwhelming sensation of void filled her. We're never dead if we're never alive and we never bloom if we were never buds.