Patience is a Virtue (Promo Sample)

Smoke

It was a hot day in the pool. I remember that much, I hadn't been more than the age of a toddler because I thought that plastic tub was the ocean. My memory of it is so vague that I couldn't even remember faces that had passed me by. I remember instead the way the water felt as it splashed up against my small chubby legs and the way biting into the small rubber duck gave me a race of comfort against my painful gums. The pool had a piece missing on the side, the sun had blistered apart the blue design making it fall off to leave a sharp edge. I knew better to than to touch it as I dropped my ducky and splashed my hands annoyed at my own clumsiness.

Water droplets had landed on my eyelashes so I rubbed them in an effort to release the uncomfortable feeling. As my tiny fist came down, a car had pulled up to the curb making a ghastly noise that made my heart jump. Maybe it was the 90's sound thumping rap that made me squeamish or maybe it was the yelling that came from the window as my mother threw her arms out of our small metal trailer with unyielding weeds on the side and smoke coming out like it had been released from it's captivity. maybe my mom was begging for the smoke to come back as her head came out and her cigarette flew from her shaky fingers towards the car.

The woman who stepped out of the bumping car tried to help, she didn't even bother closing her door as she screamed back at my own mother who seemed to slump at her loss, her black skin stood out in the area but it matched my mothers milky white almost ghostly arms. I'm sure I knew there was something wrong but I suppose my rubber ducky needed my attention more as I put my fist back into the murky pool and began to splash again. Their yelling was swooshed out of my mind as I pushed the toy down to only be amazed it came back up like it was weightless, it couldn't be weightless however as I picked it up to feel my weak arms drop it again.

"That baby needs you Mia, I need you!"

Oh, her voice. I knew that woman. She was a lovely woman, her fluffy afro had always been so appealing and when she sang with me in her arms I was in love with a fairytale that had never been bothered to be read. How could I have been so young yet still so in love with someone I didn't even know the name of. My mother was in love with her as well, her eyes and her smile were never brighter than when the three of us were together in that trailer that always felt so small and cramped before. I suppose that love wasn't as strong as the one she had for the smoke that crept away as she wept however.

Why did my mother weep so much? I much rather have heard that singing instead. She must not have, she always cried with me to her chest. As horrible as she sang I still loved my own mother. She always rocked me like the water in my pool did and she always made sure to tell me everything was going to be ok. Of course I knew she wasn't lying, my mother loved me too much to lie, so I didn't worry, I didn't mind the woman with the voice leaving because I was sure I would see her again, and I didn't flinch when men without faces came with toys that ringed my ears and echoed my chest.

They hadn't seen me, which I somewhat didn't approve of as my startled heart widened my eyes and my tiny mouth hung agap. Our home had holes all through out the metal, the smoke my mother had tried her best to hold onto was leaving, everything that she wanted was leaking away but I couldn't understand how desperately she loved that smoke. she died for that smoke, bullet holes pierced through her chest as she laid in the house in front of me. Maybe I was jealous of the smoke, because I let it get away.

When the men had left and the silence of the world around me had gone back to normal I was able to pick up my duck again and sit it inside my mouth to rub against the soreness, I wasn't worried about my mother who hadn't come out to check on me. She said everything was ok. The water warmed from the sun and I began to become impatient with her promise. My feelings were so underdeveloped that I just began to yell like she did so often, that's how she usually knew when to respond.