Anti

2: Atarah

"Atarah, sweetie. Wake up." I open my eyes and see my mother kneeling beside me on the floor. Her eyebrows crease into a concerned frown. My hair is covered in vomit and I feel groggy. She looked at my with a tinge of sadness in her eyes. I know she is concerned. I know she cares about me, but I just want to put her at ease. "Sorry mama. I think I caught the flu. It's been... uhh... going around." I say tripping over a few of my words. Her eyes narrow and she purses her lips. "Atarah, you are not a great liar. Tell me what is going on? Have you been drinking? Are you doing drugs? I'm your mother please tell me the truth."my mother says using an authoritative tone. I look at the window with the cut up window screen. It looks the way I left it, which means my mother hasn't seen it yet. I turn to look at her. "I really don't know. I haven't been drinking or doing drugs. I felt faint and nauseous, I passed out, and now I'm awake." I answer without telling a lie or telling the whole truth. Her facial expression softens, she has given up. She isn't in the mood to fight. "Okay, sweetie. Just be safe and please clean the vomit off the floor and then take a shower." she sighed her voice trailing off with the last sentence. As she walked out of the room, I peered out the window. It had been midday when I cut the window screen, but now the sky was a dark blue with a slightly rosy tint in the bottom of the western sky. Stars were plastered along the eastern half of the sky. Stars... where heaven is. "Or where it was supposed to be." a voice says with a hint of disdain like a child who got dental floss on Halloween. Some dead people are very bitter. I look at the floor. It's still covered in vomit, but I smile. I'm glad they stopped me from killing myself. After all, I'd hear them more often if I were dead like they are. I fetch a dry rag from the washroom and fill a bucket with a bit of vinegar and water. I carry the bucket and rag to my room and start cleaning. I wrinkle my nose due to the acidic stench and start mopping the floor in circular patterns. "NO!" a voice screams so loud that I almost fall backward onto the hardwood floor. "You must wipe the floor using strokes that follow the direction of the wood not doing circular motions." the voice says in a more pleasant tone. "Is that you, Marian?" I ask out loud. Marian is a spirit who comes and talks to me nearly every day. You'd think she was my mother, especially with all the advice on how to act proper. I've gathered that she was born some time around 1930 or 1940, she hasn't told me her age. I tried asking her once and she told me it was rude to ask a lady's name. "Yes, darling it is me. Now, clean it properly or else you will damage the wood." she responded. She has that classic transatlantic accent common in old Hollywood movies. I do what she instructs me to do and I clean up the vomit within fifteen minutes. Spirits can be very helpful and are sometimes better friends than the living ones. Although they are very draining. Talking to them takes up a lot of my physical energy because we are two different planes of existence. Spirits dwell on the astral plane and humans on the physical plane being a conduit between the two. When spirits talk to me they tap into my energy, and use it to communicate. Unfortunately, my energy is a finite resource one day I might burn up too much at once. I shut the window with the cut window screen. I'll have to replace it by tomorrow, otherwise my mother will notice and that will be a painful interrogation. Thinking of my mother I realize I still have to take a shower. I walk into the bathroom and rid myself of my clothes. My blue jeans are clean, but it's going to take a few washes to clean that vomit smell out of my red hoodie. I step into the shower turn on the hot water and let the water drown my thoughts as clouds of steam fill the room.