1 Ymiden, 724
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Kotton had stayed an extra trial beside his dead mother's bedside. He had coiled himself into a foetal position against the two chairs that were positioned against the farside of the wall. His sleep had been uncomfortable and routinely interrupted, but he steadfast to his duty as being someone there when he knew his mother was moving on from the living and into the world of the dead. During the night, he bit his lip and moaned without conscious thought, dreaming without lucid interpretation of the previous events that had recently transpired. He was still in a stake of shock, of doubt. Had she really just died? She was so young, immortals forbid she was ill with a disease that could shorten her lifespan until the very trial her one and only son could see her. Although, his belief of being a one and only son was far from the truth, especially when a random stranger strode into the room with a sour expression and dried trails of tears plastered against his cheeks.
They both looked at each other for a moment before any questions followed.
"Who are you?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Did you know my mother?"
"Did you?"
There was an impromptu contest that determined who could stare at the other the longest, but the dry air in the room and the fragile state of their minds ended the battle prematurely.
Kotton spoke first. "Why are you here?"
The stranger replied, "I could say the same thing to you." He had shiny, curly, brown hair that glistened under the faux lighting of candles that surrounded the room. His eyes sparkled with the sheen of bereavement, their colour the likes of a child propagated from cocoa beans and cow hide. His thin eyebrows were drawn down in both disbelief and disappointment as his full lips descended with the same energy.
Kotton cleared his throat and rose from where he sat against his makeshift bed. "This is my mother," he said, pointing to the empty vessel of what had once been a lively woman.
The stranger narrowed his eyes and said, "that is my mother."
Kotton's spine straightened. "I don't know who you are pal, but I think you have the wrong room."
The stranger took a step forward until he was almost touching the foot of the bed where his dead mother laid. He also cleared his throat before speaking. "I think you may be confused, son," he said patronisingly. "But this is my mother and she is dead. So if you wouldn't mind, I'd like a little space to grieve."
It dawned on him then. Kotton rubbed the stubble that burnished his jaw and thought things through for a few moments. Something wasn't adding up here. If both men were so sure that it was their mother lying on that bed between them, then could there be a coincidence? Was Kotton's blood-mother also this person's mother? He took a wobbly step back at the notion, finding that it was more an epiphany than some random realisation a kid might make whilst finishing his maths homework.
"You know Meridah?"
If narrowing of the eyes was a world wide sport, this particular stranger would have been awarded first prize. "Yes," he spoke heartily. "How do you know her?"
Kotton took a step forward before offering a solemn smile. "She was my birth mother."
The stranger's glare softened as did his face as he put two and two together. However, he remained sceptical as was obvious by the way his shoulders were tensed and his mouth was left unsmiling. "She never told me about a brother."
The word struck him like a brick to his teeth. Brother. He didn't know whether to smile, grimace in confusion or cringe at the fact that he, too, had been left out of the loop. So he simply stood and muttered his truth. "I didn't either."
The stranger took several steps towards what had become their mother before resting the palm of his hand against the back of hers. He closed his eyes and frowned, murmuring words Kotton couldn't read nor hear (since he had been newly blessed with some sense of hearing).
"What are you doing?" he asked, taking yet another tentative step forward.
"Praying, obviously," the stranger shot back. After a moment or two, he opened his eyes and looked up at Kotton. Maybe he had realised his mistake or had fallen into the same pit of rationale Kotton was trapped in. "I'm sorry, I just... in the moment... I didn't expect this... I was confused... and, well... I'm still not exactly sure..."
Kotton held up his hand in as polite of a gesture as he could before comforting the stranger with his words. "I understand. You don't need to explain anything to me. She was a mysterious woman; loved her secrets, mind you." He chuckled, though he wasn't sure why. He only remembered so much from his time with his mother. Had she been keen on remaining elusive? Was her game to retain some semblance of enigma? And was this young man the key to unlock all the whys and mystifications that may or may not lead to conclusion?
Fortunately, the stranger joined him in his laughter. "My name is Llewellyn, by the way. I'm sorry I mistook you for someone else."
Kotton bowed his head in acceptance of his apology before making his own. "My name is Kotton and I am also apologetic of the mix-up."
A thick cloud of silence fell betwixt the two before an orderly of the clinic entered the room. "We need to move this patient now," they said with a surprisingly less than ideal amount of sympathy.
Both men already inhabiting the room nodded their heads, though their authority meant nothing when the orderly were already had with their orders. They swiftly popped a socket at the base of the bedframe and gradually dragged the entire bed out of the room, leaving nothing but a shadow of what had once been- a soul stationed in sanctuary amidst the tales of the easily departing.
They both stared at the place where their mother had just been. Neither of them were willing to swallow that last gulp or take in that last breath of air or comment even, for fear of igniting the room with something other, something that would erase the very existence of the person who had rested silently in a bed, against the fatefulness of indecision.
Kotton spent a moment or two before he blinked and threw his head from side to side. Then, he led with a tangential conversation, though his chest was deflated, devoid of of anything other than the need to be acknowledged. “How old are you?” He wanted to ask Llewellyn how long he knew his mother. Instead of asking him directly, he guesstimated his age based upon when he had known his mother and when she had done... other things.
Llewellyn’s gaze at the shadow of where the bed had once sat shifted abruptly. His eyes drew up instantly towards Kotton’s, but they held a hint of fear that dared override his need to keep any additional tears from falling. “Twenty-five," he proclaimed.
Kotton’s eyes closed. He felt a mixture of things and they were all feelings that resonated high on the level of negativity. There was grief, abandonment, embarrassment and the carnal desire to have been better than he was. Had he been such a screw-up that his mother needed to have another child? I mean, the kid was three arcs younger than him. No- he stopped his mind from reeling and halted all conjuring fantasies that contained evidence inconclusive as to proving their existence. He had been given to the orphanage because he couldn’t hear, or as his mother had told him, because she wasn’t able to help him during the time. Three arcs was a lot for someone to clean themselves up and make them so as to raise someone else, whether they were mildly disabled or not- hence Llewellyn. Nevertheless, there remained a frothing vat of jealousy that challenged the rungs of the latter, daring to invoke issues with his psyche as it poked, jabbed, and prodded at his usual sense of acceptance and forgiveness. He wanted to forget, but he couldn’t, and that was something he had to deal with and discipline himself to acknowledge and understand.
“You’re so young,” Kotton replied through the grit of his teeth.
Llewellyn raised an eyebrow before saying, “Why? How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
Llewellyn rolled his eyes and pumped his arms in the vertical so they crossed themselves against his muscular chest. “That’s not much older than I am.”
Kotton didn’t have the heart to argue, so he replied, “just you wait,” before administering a mildly sympathetic smile that only those who knew of its purpose could fully understand.
The trial was still young, even if a stranger had entered a private room, made themselves known, and had indirectly caused the movements of a corpse into an entirely different place. That being said, there was still a shadow, and that meant the sun was still stationed in the sky, awaiting the call of the moon and its incessant need to promote a lunar shadow.
Kotton had prayed, he had given his respects to his dead mother, had done just as Llewellyn had only a time earlier, and was now at a state where he could confidently exit the clinic, yet he still felt like he was tied to something, like there was something else that kept him from leaving the clinic. He looked at every wall, every part that had been his dying mothers’ room before making an additional amendment. Then, it seemed he was able to leave.
The common streets and overlooked alleyways never seemed to be more dismal. That was until, someone familiar had joined him at his side.
“Kotton is it?” Llewellyn said as he found pace with Kotton. He tried to ignore his newfound brother’s inquisition but failed terribly since the way to his house was so very, very long. “I never heard about you,” he continued, obviously not taking the hint as to Kotton’s want to be left alone. “How long did you know Mother?” He spoke of her in the past, using a proper noun. It was difficult to dismiss, so he felt he had no choice but to indulge in the query.
“I was given up,” he said with malice. “Because she didn’t want me.”
“But why?”
Time was silent between the two and it went for long before Kotton had the courage to explain.
“Because I couldn’t hear worth shit! Okay?” Kotton blew up. He was already traumatised after having witnessed his blood mother die. And now there was some random brother he hadn't known about? What was he to do with this information? Was he supposed to keep in touch with him? Was he supposed to write him letters? Was he supposed to invite him to his house for a bonding session involving alcohol and inhalable plants? His agitation had simply gone off. Was he embarrassed by the sudden outburst? Yes. But would he do anything to rectify the situation so as to make him appear to be a better person? No. He was over that. He was done with trying to people-please. He would feel what he felt and portray his thoughts and emotions and whatever frailty they decided to associate.
Llewellyn instantly made three or four steps against his direction. But his persistent nature forced him to be altogether more resilient against a random outrage. Emotions were temporary, fickle, impermanent, and they would never reveal the likes of an individual or their state of mind at least not disingenuably.
“I doubt it,” Llewellyn suddenly muttered under his breath.
Kotton stopped his stride toward home and flicked his head toward the source of such arrogant assumption. “What did you just say?” He tried to make himself seem strong, intimidating, dominant if not with his tone of voice, maybe with his posture.
Llewellyn wasn’t swayed. “I mean, that doesn’t sound like my mother. She can be closed off, sure. She can be insensitive, maybe. And she is most definitely self-conscious. So when you say you were dumped by her because you couldn’t hear, that leads me to disbelief.”
Kotton was out of sorts upon learning this. His memory was infallible; he would not be made fun of for his ability to recall the events that had led him to feel so self-conscious, so doubtful, and so utterly naive. Who was this guy telling him that he was wrong in his remembrance?
“You don’t know-” Kotton started, attempting to make his point against an idiotic individual who had been so far removed from the spite of a woman without a plan.
“No, I do know and I know because she raised me. She’s a wonderful person, full of heart. She cared about what I did, how much I learnt, everything I experienced. So, I’m sorry your life wasn’t the same, but how you view my mother is not the same as how she really was.”
Kotton resisted arguing any counterbalance to the claims he had just made. Instead, he focused on accruing more information about this ‘mother’ he had seemingly never met. He issued his own experiences and had gathered responses attributed to them, but there was still a gap in what he thought was true versus what was false.
“You mean to tell me she did that for you?” he asked, as the two were walking side by side throughout downtown Scalvoris.
“Yes,” Llewellyn replied, though he showed no smile. He knew better than to make himself appear more proud even if he had no intention of doing so.
Kotton’s mind was numbed. It was like he had been subjected to several volts of lightning; it altered his way of thinking, even if his new way of thinking wasn’t much changed from the original. There was so much to learn from Llewellyn about his mother, so many assumptions he had made that had been determined incorrect. The absolute portrayal of his mother should be condemned and in need of essential review. But it didn’t matter now, not when his heart screamed for justice, had undergone mistreatment and had been misled for arcs upon arcs at a time.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t forgive you just yet,” he muttered under his breath as he and Llewellyn strode through the forgotten alleyways of Scalvoris town.
“I just can’t. Not yet.”
They both looked at each other for a moment before any questions followed.
"Who are you?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Did you know my mother?"
"Did you?"
There was an impromptu contest that determined who could stare at the other the longest, but the dry air in the room and the fragile state of their minds ended the battle prematurely.
Kotton spoke first. "Why are you here?"
The stranger replied, "I could say the same thing to you." He had shiny, curly, brown hair that glistened under the faux lighting of candles that surrounded the room. His eyes sparkled with the sheen of bereavement, their colour the likes of a child propagated from cocoa beans and cow hide. His thin eyebrows were drawn down in both disbelief and disappointment as his full lips descended with the same energy.
Kotton cleared his throat and rose from where he sat against his makeshift bed. "This is my mother," he said, pointing to the empty vessel of what had once been a lively woman.
The stranger narrowed his eyes and said, "that is my mother."
Kotton's spine straightened. "I don't know who you are pal, but I think you have the wrong room."
The stranger took a step forward until he was almost touching the foot of the bed where his dead mother laid. He also cleared his throat before speaking. "I think you may be confused, son," he said patronisingly. "But this is my mother and she is dead. So if you wouldn't mind, I'd like a little space to grieve."
It dawned on him then. Kotton rubbed the stubble that burnished his jaw and thought things through for a few moments. Something wasn't adding up here. If both men were so sure that it was their mother lying on that bed between them, then could there be a coincidence? Was Kotton's blood-mother also this person's mother? He took a wobbly step back at the notion, finding that it was more an epiphany than some random realisation a kid might make whilst finishing his maths homework.
"You know Meridah?"
If narrowing of the eyes was a world wide sport, this particular stranger would have been awarded first prize. "Yes," he spoke heartily. "How do you know her?"
Kotton took a step forward before offering a solemn smile. "She was my birth mother."
The stranger's glare softened as did his face as he put two and two together. However, he remained sceptical as was obvious by the way his shoulders were tensed and his mouth was left unsmiling. "She never told me about a brother."
The word struck him like a brick to his teeth. Brother. He didn't know whether to smile, grimace in confusion or cringe at the fact that he, too, had been left out of the loop. So he simply stood and muttered his truth. "I didn't either."
The stranger took several steps towards what had become their mother before resting the palm of his hand against the back of hers. He closed his eyes and frowned, murmuring words Kotton couldn't read nor hear (since he had been newly blessed with some sense of hearing).
"What are you doing?" he asked, taking yet another tentative step forward.
"Praying, obviously," the stranger shot back. After a moment or two, he opened his eyes and looked up at Kotton. Maybe he had realised his mistake or had fallen into the same pit of rationale Kotton was trapped in. "I'm sorry, I just... in the moment... I didn't expect this... I was confused... and, well... I'm still not exactly sure..."
Kotton held up his hand in as polite of a gesture as he could before comforting the stranger with his words. "I understand. You don't need to explain anything to me. She was a mysterious woman; loved her secrets, mind you." He chuckled, though he wasn't sure why. He only remembered so much from his time with his mother. Had she been keen on remaining elusive? Was her game to retain some semblance of enigma? And was this young man the key to unlock all the whys and mystifications that may or may not lead to conclusion?
Fortunately, the stranger joined him in his laughter. "My name is Llewellyn, by the way. I'm sorry I mistook you for someone else."
Kotton bowed his head in acceptance of his apology before making his own. "My name is Kotton and I am also apologetic of the mix-up."
A thick cloud of silence fell betwixt the two before an orderly of the clinic entered the room. "We need to move this patient now," they said with a surprisingly less than ideal amount of sympathy.
Both men already inhabiting the room nodded their heads, though their authority meant nothing when the orderly were already had with their orders. They swiftly popped a socket at the base of the bedframe and gradually dragged the entire bed out of the room, leaving nothing but a shadow of what had once been- a soul stationed in sanctuary amidst the tales of the easily departing.
They both stared at the place where their mother had just been. Neither of them were willing to swallow that last gulp or take in that last breath of air or comment even, for fear of igniting the room with something other, something that would erase the very existence of the person who had rested silently in a bed, against the fatefulness of indecision.
Kotton spent a moment or two before he blinked and threw his head from side to side. Then, he led with a tangential conversation, though his chest was deflated, devoid of of anything other than the need to be acknowledged. “How old are you?” He wanted to ask Llewellyn how long he knew his mother. Instead of asking him directly, he guesstimated his age based upon when he had known his mother and when she had done... other things.
Llewellyn’s gaze at the shadow of where the bed had once sat shifted abruptly. His eyes drew up instantly towards Kotton’s, but they held a hint of fear that dared override his need to keep any additional tears from falling. “Twenty-five," he proclaimed.
Kotton’s eyes closed. He felt a mixture of things and they were all feelings that resonated high on the level of negativity. There was grief, abandonment, embarrassment and the carnal desire to have been better than he was. Had he been such a screw-up that his mother needed to have another child? I mean, the kid was three arcs younger than him. No- he stopped his mind from reeling and halted all conjuring fantasies that contained evidence inconclusive as to proving their existence. He had been given to the orphanage because he couldn’t hear, or as his mother had told him, because she wasn’t able to help him during the time. Three arcs was a lot for someone to clean themselves up and make them so as to raise someone else, whether they were mildly disabled or not- hence Llewellyn. Nevertheless, there remained a frothing vat of jealousy that challenged the rungs of the latter, daring to invoke issues with his psyche as it poked, jabbed, and prodded at his usual sense of acceptance and forgiveness. He wanted to forget, but he couldn’t, and that was something he had to deal with and discipline himself to acknowledge and understand.
“You’re so young,” Kotton replied through the grit of his teeth.
Llewellyn raised an eyebrow before saying, “Why? How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
Llewellyn rolled his eyes and pumped his arms in the vertical so they crossed themselves against his muscular chest. “That’s not much older than I am.”
Kotton didn’t have the heart to argue, so he replied, “just you wait,” before administering a mildly sympathetic smile that only those who knew of its purpose could fully understand.
The trial was still young, even if a stranger had entered a private room, made themselves known, and had indirectly caused the movements of a corpse into an entirely different place. That being said, there was still a shadow, and that meant the sun was still stationed in the sky, awaiting the call of the moon and its incessant need to promote a lunar shadow.
Kotton had prayed, he had given his respects to his dead mother, had done just as Llewellyn had only a time earlier, and was now at a state where he could confidently exit the clinic, yet he still felt like he was tied to something, like there was something else that kept him from leaving the clinic. He looked at every wall, every part that had been his dying mothers’ room before making an additional amendment. Then, it seemed he was able to leave.
The common streets and overlooked alleyways never seemed to be more dismal. That was until, someone familiar had joined him at his side.
“Kotton is it?” Llewellyn said as he found pace with Kotton. He tried to ignore his newfound brother’s inquisition but failed terribly since the way to his house was so very, very long. “I never heard about you,” he continued, obviously not taking the hint as to Kotton’s want to be left alone. “How long did you know Mother?” He spoke of her in the past, using a proper noun. It was difficult to dismiss, so he felt he had no choice but to indulge in the query.
“I was given up,” he said with malice. “Because she didn’t want me.”
“But why?”
Time was silent between the two and it went for long before Kotton had the courage to explain.
“Because I couldn’t hear worth shit! Okay?” Kotton blew up. He was already traumatised after having witnessed his blood mother die. And now there was some random brother he hadn't known about? What was he to do with this information? Was he supposed to keep in touch with him? Was he supposed to write him letters? Was he supposed to invite him to his house for a bonding session involving alcohol and inhalable plants? His agitation had simply gone off. Was he embarrassed by the sudden outburst? Yes. But would he do anything to rectify the situation so as to make him appear to be a better person? No. He was over that. He was done with trying to people-please. He would feel what he felt and portray his thoughts and emotions and whatever frailty they decided to associate.
Llewellyn instantly made three or four steps against his direction. But his persistent nature forced him to be altogether more resilient against a random outrage. Emotions were temporary, fickle, impermanent, and they would never reveal the likes of an individual or their state of mind at least not disingenuably.
“I doubt it,” Llewellyn suddenly muttered under his breath.
Kotton stopped his stride toward home and flicked his head toward the source of such arrogant assumption. “What did you just say?” He tried to make himself seem strong, intimidating, dominant if not with his tone of voice, maybe with his posture.
Llewellyn wasn’t swayed. “I mean, that doesn’t sound like my mother. She can be closed off, sure. She can be insensitive, maybe. And she is most definitely self-conscious. So when you say you were dumped by her because you couldn’t hear, that leads me to disbelief.”
Kotton was out of sorts upon learning this. His memory was infallible; he would not be made fun of for his ability to recall the events that had led him to feel so self-conscious, so doubtful, and so utterly naive. Who was this guy telling him that he was wrong in his remembrance?
“You don’t know-” Kotton started, attempting to make his point against an idiotic individual who had been so far removed from the spite of a woman without a plan.
“No, I do know and I know because she raised me. She’s a wonderful person, full of heart. She cared about what I did, how much I learnt, everything I experienced. So, I’m sorry your life wasn’t the same, but how you view my mother is not the same as how she really was.”
Kotton resisted arguing any counterbalance to the claims he had just made. Instead, he focused on accruing more information about this ‘mother’ he had seemingly never met. He issued his own experiences and had gathered responses attributed to them, but there was still a gap in what he thought was true versus what was false.
“You mean to tell me she did that for you?” he asked, as the two were walking side by side throughout downtown Scalvoris.
“Yes,” Llewellyn replied, though he showed no smile. He knew better than to make himself appear more proud even if he had no intention of doing so.
Kotton’s mind was numbed. It was like he had been subjected to several volts of lightning; it altered his way of thinking, even if his new way of thinking wasn’t much changed from the original. There was so much to learn from Llewellyn about his mother, so many assumptions he had made that had been determined incorrect. The absolute portrayal of his mother should be condemned and in need of essential review. But it didn’t matter now, not when his heart screamed for justice, had undergone mistreatment and had been misled for arcs upon arcs at a time.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t forgive you just yet,” he muttered under his breath as he and Llewellyn strode through the forgotten alleyways of Scalvoris town.
“I just can’t. Not yet.”