Summer afternoons were long, hot, cornflower skied affairs that ended with multiple midge bites and the scent of jasmine flowers thick in the air.
I remember sitting with my mother, eating corn chips and guacamole.
She glanced up from her food. And down again.
And up.
And down.
‘How was school?’ she said, scraping lumpy guacamole around on her plate.
I ignored her question and asked one of my own.
‘What’s normal?’
CLINK. Metal greeted glass. She pushed her food away and stared not exactly at me, but somewhere slightly to the left. Her eyes always seemed to be somewhere else. Faraway. Evasive. As though she knew that one day, the careful concepts explained in this conversation would turn from a loyal pet to a savage monster.
‘What’s normal?’
Her eyes darted around the courtyard for an answer. She shifted guiltily in her chair and ran her teeth over her tongue.
‘It’s like… y’know, ordinary… just… standard…’ she mumbled.
I tried to tie her meaning to the teachers’ conversation.
‘Not normal.’
Not normal?
Abnormal.
Strange.
Alien.
The crickets ruled the courtyard in pizzicato and I continued to eat.
YOU ARE READING
Hollow Bones
قصص عامةSola Hindemid is haunted by the effects of "not fitting with normality the way stacked teacups did". After her grandmother's death, she, her mother and her dog embark on a roadtrip to nowhere in particular, forming an unorthodox friendship that culm...
