by Helena Pantsis

God, how the world is cruel. 

I learn it sitting in a chair three times my height, legs flailing, barely more than a year old, and with Mama nowhere in sight. Last I knew, she was cradling me, swaddling me tight and firm and warm against her chest, offering me small, thin slices of cheese and praising my every move, exciting and new, and then, without warning, she was gone. 

God, it happens so soon, so fresh, and within months of emerging from the womb, the warm place I’d swum in—like the first men before this landlocked evolution—with the security of knowing abandonment was impossible. 

I’d had such preconceptions that humans were a collectivist species, social animals, but my God, how the sting of a broken heart cuts deep when your heart is not fully grown. 

My head is still soft, meant to be held by my mother’s warm, careful hands. 

My cries, shrill and intended to call her back, are all voice, and barely a single tear. 

I feel my body, cold and smooth, defy gravity, trapped eternally in these stilts made to bring me eye-level with my mother. Futile contraption! 

The doom hangs heavy around me, pressing into my shoulders and making an Atlas of me—I am too young to bear this burden! The pain is expelled in certain cries. Curse this high chair! Curse these adorable yet stunted limbs! And curse the woman who birthed me only to damn me to this barren landscape—! 

No. I don’t really mean that. 

My body swells with the love of her, chest tight and nose running, like this independent soul cannot function without her. Truly, it can’t. I worship her for the idol she is. Who could blame me? She cannot be faulted. My mother is the God to whom I pray, and the life through which my own lifeblood flows. 

Her absence is a blade dug into the base of my spine, twisting with every moment she is gone.

 Oh, God. 

To face the prospect of a life alone kills me. I refuse to know a life without her in it. 

I slide forward, gauging the height below, suspecting it would be enough to take me from my misery, what with my bones so brittle and my flesh so thin. I push my arms against the tray in front of  me, attempting to hold myself up. I am so young, but to live a life alone is to not live at all. 

I ready myself, screaming bloody murder from the towering height of my seat, one last time, in anticipation of my demise. If only I could count, so I could take a moment to prepare for my end. 

I wail for my last breath. Goodbye cruel world, it was— 

Oh. My mother returns. 

What bliss is this! Mama rounds me, soothing,bringing her hands up to caress my face. I begin to laugh. The world is right and bright and beautiful again. I see the colours so vividly, and it is all thanks to her. She, who heard my screams of agony and refused to let me go. I knew it all along. 

I’m giddy, raising my arms and clawing at her as to bring her closer to me still, like there is no proximity that could fill the gaping void of her. I feel my blood circulate once again, warming my gloved feet and returning colour to my face. With every coo and open breath I forgive her, understanding wholly that she could never mean to do me harm. 

My mother looks me in my eyes and presses her mouth to me, holding me with nothing but her smile. 

To be in her absence is to never have existed. 

I breathe her in. God, I think, how I love this woman.

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Helena Pantsis (she/they) is a writer, student, and artist from Naarm, Australia. A student of creative writing, they have a fond appreciation for the gritty, the dark, and the experimental. Her works have been published in Overland, Island, Going Down Swinging, and Meanjin. More can be found at hlnpnts.com.