Page 31 - the Noise November 2017
P. 31

Then one Sunday, a fully made over, coifed and skirt-suited Connie took her daughter and new best friend Alice for a drive.
Connie said, “I want to show you a surprise!” Her newly whitened smile looked extra white next the deep, wet shade of red she was wearing on her lips. For a moment Alice wondered if her mother’s lips were actually bigger, or was it just the make-up?
Alice was still getting used to this new glamorous side of her mother pri- vately in their own home. As she looked out the passenger window, it seemed that all she could see looking back at her was the brilliant bleached white of her mother’s new teeth shining out at her from the backs of bus stop benches and telephone poles. Alice gasped. Connie giggled. A long, strong polished nail pointed out every picture as it went past. There were three different head shots and 3 or 4 variations on the slogan which said things like, “Need to sell your home in a hurry? Connie Can!” Or “Can’t find the home of your dreams? Connie Can!” Alice inwardly groaned, but tried to keep on a brave face. Her mother was so happy and proud.
Eventually they turned into the Safeway parking lot, pulled up to a slot be- side the cart corral. Connie turned off the car. Alice made to open her door and get out, but Connie put her hand on Alice’s arm and motioned twice towards the carts with her head. It took Alice a moment to look at the right place, but once she did, she blanched white with horror. On the plastic fold-down flap in the child’s seat area of the Safeway cart was her mother’s glazed, orthodon- tic smile, endlessly repeated on cart, after cart, after cart stacked in the cor- ral. How many toddler butts would sit on her mother’s face every day? Alice struggled to swallow and smiled back at her mother.
Connie slapped her manicured hand down hard on her daughter’s thigh and said, “Well, what do you think? It’s the start of my publicity campaign!”
Alice took another look around the parking lot. In the distance, the random carts left standing in parking places looked as though they had a smiling joker on the panel instead of a dignified Real Estate Agent. “It’s great Mom. Really great. But couldn’t they have gotten your picture up on the side of the building next to the Safeway sign?”
“Aha,” Connie waggled her finger as she restarted the car. Alice didn’t want to know what was coming next.
There were two main entrances to the city. One was from the north and passed by a small airport and golf course on its way into town. The other came into town from the east. This was the entrance from the major highway. It passed through the Indian reservation which put a hotel and casino right at the entrance to town. Connie drove Alice first to one, then the other. At each she parked beneath a billboard bearing her smiling face, got out, spread her arms wide with a squealing “Ta-da!” and insisted that her daughter take a photo of her posing beneath her own billboard. Alice was completely speech- less. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Her mother’s midlife crisis had gone public. What would the kids at school say? The stretch of her mother’s super-white smile was at least four feet across. Connie could barely contain her excitement. She was literally jumping up and down in tiny, high heeled jumps. “Well, what do you think? What-do-you-think? Is this great or what?”
“It sure is big Mom.”
“You know what they say, the bigger, the better,” Connie winked sugges- tively. Alice looked away. Who was this woman? “And anyway, you’ve gotta be B-I-G to compete in this town. You really can’t imagine the competition.”
“Isn’t it expensive?”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that you have to spend money to make money. I mean really, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Spend money to make mon- ey. You can’t make money from nothing. I’m investing in myself. This,” Connie gestured up at the billboard above her, “is an investment in our future. I’m go- ing to spend money exactly how I see fit for a change. And that’s a lesson for you Alice: never let a man spend your money for you. Spend your own money how you want to spend it. And if you get a chance, spend his too. But never let a man spend your money. If there’s one thing I want you to learn from my mistakes, it’s to never rely on a man for money. Make your own money, spend your own money. That’s freedom. I mean look at us now, we don’t need men, do we? Do we, huh?” Connie nudged Alice with her elbow.
“No, I guess we don’t” Alice replied because she didn’t know what else to say. They both got back in the car. Connie pushed a cassette tape into the tape player. Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” started playing. It Connie’s favorite song since the divorce. Alice pulled out her copy of The Great Gatsby to try to finish it up before AP English class on Monday. As they pulled away she turned back over her shoulder and caught one last glimpse of her mother’s massive 4-foot- wide smile. It burned itself, disembodied, into her mind.
illlustrations by Kris Pothier
Remembrance by Cindy Cole
S
But as vivid as those things were in her imagination, the cold reality of her current situation could not be denied. The barren corn stalks snapped behind her and shattered her brief reverie. The wind blew the dry, fiery-red leaves that swirled around her shivering bare feet and reminded her time was running out. Finally, she had come to the edge of the corn field where it met the for- est. She stopped suddenly. Before her stood a great gray tree with endless branches extending out like arms and fingers in every direction. It had no foliage and its bark looked more cracked and dry than the trees around it.
As she gazed at the tree she noticed odd markings on its trunk that didn’t look like any language she recognized. They looked a little like the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs she had seen pictured in the old National Geographic magazines her father kept in piles around the house. She smiled for a moment when she thought of her father. What would he do if he was with her now? What would he say?
She shook her head vigorously from side to side trying to clear the thoughts of home from her mind and bring herself back to the situation at hand. There had to be a way out. As she continued to stare at the markings on the tree, she noticed another line that was cut more deeply into the bark. Its two straight sides met in an arch that curved just below the strange writings.
Her feet were freezing and her entire body racked with shivers. Her light brown t-shirt and faded blue jeans were no match for the chill of the late fall air. She had run from the house so quick- ly that she hadn’t even noticed that her feet were bare and she had nothing on her to keep her body warm. She had simply raced through the corn fields until the sight of the huge gray tree had stopped her in her tracks.
She knew she should keep running but the strange markings on the tree trunk and the arched shape that looked almost like a hand-cut door had her mesmerized and she suddenly felt like she couldn’t move. As she stared at the tree, frozen in place where she stood, light began seeping through the cracks along the carved line. The deep cut in the trunk broke away from the rest of the tree and a great doorway opened, flooding her with bright white light.
Blinded by the light she couldn’t distinguish any shapes or forms beyond the open door. A high- pitched whining sound drowned out the continuous popping and snapping of withered corn stalks and the rustling of dried leaves in the cold wind. She felt faint and sensed her body collaps- ing beneath her and falling to the ground as if in slow motion.
When she awoke her mind moved slowly into consciousness. She tried to take in her surround- ings. She found it difficult to focus her eyes in the dimness. She was lying flat on her back on some- thing that felt hard and cold. She blinked a few times as her thoughts attempted to catch up to the rest of her senses.
The room smelled sterile and reminded her of the time she visited her grandmother in the hos- pital right before she died. Fear struck her heart as she realized she could barely move. She was pinned to the table she lay on, though she could feel no restraints around her wrists or ankles. She could lift her head just enough to see the rest of her body lying naked on the slab.
The only light in the room came from panels along a far wall that glowed with symbols that looked similar to the ones she had seen carved into the tree above the door. She heard what sound- ed like a door opening and closing behind her. Soft footsteps sounded across the floor belying the size of the figure that appeared above her head. Before she had the chance to see who her captor was, she was blinded again by a hot white light that hung above the table. The next sound she heard was the sound of her own scream.
When she opened her eyes she saw the endless deep blue of the sky above her. Clouds floated lazily by in the light breeze. The whup-whup of a helicopter overhead cut through the peaceful morning air. She felt the scratch of dried cornstalks against her back. From the air, a photographer leaned out of the chopper’s side door to snap pictures of the strange symbol that had been laid in the cornfield. All she could see were the flattened stalks around her bordered by crisp vertical stems on either side.
She couldn’t recall how she had gotten here or why her clothes were torn and her shoes were missing. The sound of heavy footsteps coming toward her sent new waves of terror through her body. A figure dressed entirely in black from head to toe suddenly stood above her. It reached to- ward her with a black-gloved hand to help her up from the cold ground.
he had been running for so long she could barely think straight. She longed to be back at home
in the comfort of her own living room. In her mind, she saw her family sitting around her. She heard the sounds of their voices; her two older sisters debating about which of the boys they knew were the cutest, her mom calling everyone to the table. She smelled the scents of the night’s meal wafting in the crisp evening air. She could almost taste her mother’s roast beef.
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