Back Alley Meeting
so no one played with me.
I saw a black cat catch a mouse.
The mouse didn’t even twitch - perhaps the cat had hit its vitals. As if noticing my gaze, the cat looked my way.
Only moments later, the cat vanished off into the alley.
I let out a great sigh. How beautiful it was. The image of that black cat was burnt into my sight.
Why, you ask?
The people passing through didn’t notice me. And if they did, they pretended not to notice the pale girl glaring at them.
Everyone is focused on living for themselves, unable to spare the time to lend others a hand.
“Ellen?”
“Did you see something?”, she asked, placing a bucket of water down on the floor.
I nodded slightly and opened my mouth.
“A cat…”
I coughed slightly, then continued.
“Ah,” she smiled. Her loosely-wound light brown hair swayed above her collarbone.
“I’ll change your bandages.”
When she removed the bandages, the cracked skin discolored an awful red became evident. Mother began wiping it with expert hands.
While I kept silent, mother finished wrapping my bandages and pulled the blanket back up.
She smiled and gestured for me to look the other way. I obliged, turning my body toward the window.
I knew not to move a muscle. I waited for her to run the comb through the entirety of my waist-length hair, from top to bottom.
My mother always carried an aroma like sweet confections. I would expect it was because it was her job to make such things.
Time passed slowly.
“I’m sorry I can’t let you play outside.”
My eyes flew open.
I had to choose the right words at times like these. The gears in my head turned to find an answer. All this in only a moment.
“It’s fine. I like playing inside the house, you know?”, I said, looking toward my mother.
But that isn’t to say I was always confined to this dark room from birth. I couldn’t see the sky from this window, yet I knew the blueness of the sky and the smell of the grass. When I was younger, I had played outside.
No one knew why. Much less how to cure it. There were no decent doctors around here, nor did we have money to spend.
I recalled what the fortune teller had told us.
My mother shouted something, and took me by the hand out of the fortune teller’s. As we went through the alleys, her face was so pale that it seemed she was about to faint.
I could hide the bandages on my legs with a skirt, but not those on my face. Every time I moved or scratched my face, the putrid skin like crushed earthworms was plain to see through the gaps in the bandages.
Some would see me and whisper at a distance. I feigned ignorance and played alone, sniffling slightly. Yet it was still better than being in a gloomy room.
When I tired of playing, I’d return home.
One day, she returned from work like usual. “Did you have fun?”, she asked, reaching for my dirty clothes.
I don’t know why, but I was overcome with unease, and every pore seemed to sweat cold.
…Were mother’s hands always so rough?
I couldn’t definitively say the roughness of her hands was entirely due to her attending to me. But there was no doubt it had an effect on her life.
That was the hunch I had.
My mother said nothing. And yet without words, I saw her tightly-pursed lips blaming me, and was frightened.
No. I don’t want to be abandoned.
I believe that was when those signals started to fly in my head.
She thought it odd to see me do this, but only at first. Soon enough, she stopped paying it any mind.
I had chosen the foolish path of a prisoner, bound by the chains of bandages, given only the food of my mother’s love.
“There we go.”
I saw in the reflection a skinny girl with face wrapped up in bandages. Light purple hair decorated with a red ribbon. Beside me, a woman with rustling light brown hair, quietly smiling.
“My dear Ellen…”
I loved her as well.
Because she was the only one who loved me.
Like such a weakling desperate to have something to hold on to, I clung to my mother’s love.
Because these were the slums.
The sound of the front door violently opening told me that father had come home.
She held my hand, and the slight shaking of her own told me her nervousness.
It was a small house, so the entryway and where I slept were nearly connected. There was a big table in the middle of the room; father sat and slammed a bottle he was carrying down on it.
His short hair and worn clothes were always dirty with soil or whatnot.
He muttered something. I knew that he wasn’t talking to himself, but directing it at mother.
She talked to him questioningly.
Father just shook his head.
As if angered by the memory, he kicked a nearby bucket.
Father let out a big sigh, and his gaze wandered. He looked past my downturned mother into my eyes.
My heart sank deep.
He treated me like I didn’t even exist.
I once asked my mother, “Does father hate me?” She solemnly shook her head no. “Certainly not. Your father works for you, Ellen.”
I wanted to believe her. I wanted to think that my father loved me.
He only said my mother’s.
At length, he rose from the chair and approached.
He roughly pulled her by the hand. My hand and hers were separated, like we were lovers torn asunder.
And then I was left alone.
They would always talk where I couldn’t see them.
I once asked my mother when she exited, “What were you doing?” She just worriedly laughed.
I wanted to say that I had been given some time to be free.
It was a doll of a blonde-haired girl. She wore a purple dress and a hat, not to mention an eerie smile.
I accepted it, feigning happiness. I didn’t care what color the doll’s hair was. After all, I didn’t exactly like my own hair.
I grew annoyed. I pushed my way through to force the knots out. The doll’s inorganic eyes seemed to speak to me.
Shut up. It can’t hurt. You’re a doll.
I was no doll.
I was perfectly still, letting her do as she liked. I just sat waiting for her to move the comb from top to bottom.
…“You are.”
I continued to pull away the knots in the yarn.
Heeheehee.
I immediately threw the doll. It hit a wall and landed on a pile of clothes on the floor.
I hated being alone. It made me think too much. It made me hear too much.
“You’re awake?”
Just looking at her face calmed me.
She stood up from the chair and went to the sink.
My eyes casually followed my mother’s back.
But from what?
Finally, my mother returned with a cup of water and a powder medicine. I slowly sat up in bed and took them.
I caught my breath, as if I’d realized a staggering fact.
My mother looked incredibly beautiful.
It wasn’t the structure of her face. Her hair was a mess, and she scarcely wore any makeup. She just feebly smiled.
Her downcast eyelashes sometimes shook with remembrance. Her gaze, breathing, clasped hands, they all seemed to have significance.
This woman is alive, I felt.
I gulped down the medicine. But it didn’t taste bitter. My stomach had long become accustomed to bitter things.
“…Mother!”
My voice trembled. I was about to cry any second.
Unable to express the feelings I had just realized, I desperately clung to her body.
I was flustered by this feeling I’d never felt before.
I was confused to feel such a brutal emotion.
To do away with the bitter thoughts, I clung tighter to her arm.
Even if mother is the only one who seems to have color, that’s fine.
I am Ellen. Mother’s beloved daughter. I don’t need anything but that.
I desperately convinced myself that.
It even came up to my ears to whisper, so that I’d notice it.
“Do you really?”
I resisted the urge to scream, and pressed my face into mother’s chest.
2
There was something amiss that afternoon.
I had a bad feeling.
In the back of my mind came the image of the beautiful black cat who caught the mouse. Perhaps it was that black cat’s corpse.
Finding it unbearable, I got off the bed. Putting all my weight on my legs made me cower with intense pain. The pain in my legs shot up to my head, and tears formed in my eyes.
Supporting myself with the nearby chair, I staggered to my feet.
They must have been put away. Mother figured I would never need to leave, after all. I had wanted it myself, but it still made me a little sad.
I went outside barefoot.
Hand along the walls of the house, I proceeded to the back alley.
As I thought, it was a black cat’s corpse.
I looked at her, dumbfounded by the difference from when I first saw her. I couldn’t run, but neither could I get any nearer.
Why, and how had this happened?
How could such a lively creature be reduced to this awful state?
I didn’t so much hate whoever had done this to her. It was this town, which forced you to accept that these things just happen, which I hated.
I heard a crow above me caw. I looked up and saw it up on a tall fence, stretching its wings. It was after her flesh.
I approached the black cat. I felt like I couldn’t leave her like this. I lifted her up in both arms, to protect her.
The eyeball sticking out made it almost comically evident she would live no more, yet when I touched her… It was like she was a thing. An object. It was then I learned how when creatures die, they become mere things.
I’ll return you to the earth, I vowed, carrying the thing that was once a cat.
Every step I took, there was stabbing pain in my bones. And as I was walking around the pebble-covered ground barefoot, I wasn’t sure how much of it was my legs themselves. I bit my lip and desperately walked.
Finally, I entered the park.
There was no play equipment worthy of calling it a park, only an empty expanse, the tree, and a bench.
I entered the shade of the tree. Soil extended out from the base, as if encircling it.
I found a spot where nothing seemed to be buried and crouched down.
The soil was surprisingly soft. It had a pleasant cool touch. I dug like I’d become a mole.
My arms were free.
They showed few symptoms of the illness. I was grateful I could move them both freely.
When sweat touched the inflamed skin, it stung. I clenched my teeth and endured the pain, continuing to dig.
Once I’d dug a deep enough hole, I took a long breath.
Finally, I put my hands together and closed my eyes. I didn’t know the meaning of it, but I knew that you were supposed to do this gesture for dead… “things.”
I was struck with sudden fatigue as soon as I exited the shade of the tree. I felt like an entire day had passed. Yet the sun was still high in the sky, still scorching the pavement before me.
…Now, the black cat can return to the earth.
I hurried to straighten my lips. But thinking back on it, she wasn’t questioning my expression, but my appearance.
My bandages were frayed, my clothes covered with strange stains from mixing blood and dirt. Both hands were all black. I looked like a child who’d escaped from a hospital and played in mud.
What would mother say?
I hurried home.
I had to get home before mother did. I had to change clothes, wash my hands and feet, and change my bandages. I had to be a child who didn’t take a lot of effort.
There was plenty of time before the sun set. I opened the front door feeling relieved, then hardened in place.
She was sitting in a chair, staring off into space.
I immediately looked at the clock.
Suddenly, I smelled something sweet. There was a basket of pastries on the table.
…But why did it have to be today?
Noticing the front door a few seconds later, she slowly looked toward me.
“Ellen… Where did you go?”
“I b-b… buried a cat.”
No. No, don’t look at me like that.
“Yeah, a black cat died… so I went to bury it. …I-I’m so sorry. For going outside. B-But, I, I can walk. It hurts, but I can bear it. I can walk on my own, so, so I can do a lot of things on my own now, or help out…”
I despaired as I spoke.
Hollow eyes. Fixed gaze. She was looking at my muddy clothes. My dirty soil-stained fingers. My bloody legs.
I realized I had done something there would be no taking back.
But I knew none of them would have any effect. And yet my mouth would not stop moving.
Mother loved me.
I had just destroyed that balance.
No amount of respect for the dead could stop my hatred.
It was undoubtedly me who had wanted to bury her. But my foolish brain couldn’t help wanting to blame it on something else.
Finally, mother got out of the chair. She prepared a bucket of water and began washing my hands.
I looked at her in desperation. She was smiling.
Signals continued to fly in my head. But like a broken clock which can only spin its hands, I could come up with nothing.
I realized I had done something there would be no taking back.
Father, crumpled on the ground in tears as if praying to God, seemed like he wouldn’t even allow me time to mourn.
She left no letter, said nothing, left all her belongings. She didn’t take so much as a hair clip from the house.
…Surely, one would call this feeling despair.
Maybe mother was just a little tired.
Once she got some rest, she’d remember me and father who she’d deserted and hurry back home.
Because I was her dear Ellen. Because surely, I was too precious to leave behind.
Of course mother will return. She’ll regret ever leaving, apologize, and hug me. And wrapped up in her aroma, I would smile and forgive my mother.
That’s right.
For that, I would have to be a non-time-consuming child.
I imagined the best child mother could want, and would accept, and began to play that role.
Though father and I lived together, we still never said a word to each other. He would talk to objects, but he never talked to me. Perhaps he found it eerie how I didn’t cry and took it calmly.
But I couldn’t do that then.
Having already made my mistake, I was terribly timid.
Father was constantly at home. Perhaps he had been fired from his job.
Father received something from the man and paid him money. Once he had it in hand, he seemed restless and went into the other room, and would not come out for a while.
The sweet smell wafting from the other room seemed to get stronger by the day.
I earnestly waited for mother’s return.
Sometimes I would wake up thinking she was there, but it was only the wind on my cheek.
I felt a chill. Before I could hear her laughing, I dove under the covers and covered my ears.
Once I started pumping my own water, it seemed to make my legs worse.
I wasn’t able to tie my hair very well.
I woke up feeling thirsty.
Trembling from the cold, I pumped out some water, scooped it with my hands, and drank.
Thinking I should bring some bandages while I was at it, I opened a dresser drawer. I was surprised by its lightness, and found there were only two or three rolls left.
What would happen if I didn’t drink my medicine? I remembered mother saying, “If you don’t drink this, it’ll get worse.” Was it just an excuse to get me to drink the bitter medicine? Or maybe because it really had been getting worse.
I shivered, and not from the cold.
I was utterly exhausted.
As I went after them, suddenly, I noticed a faint light near the front door.
My heart beat fast with hope.
“Mother…?”
I saw the shadow just as I spoke.
Mother stood at the door. She looked at me with much surprise. A lamp on a low table vaguely illuminated the scene.
I couldn’t voice the question.
Why?
Mother’s appearance was much more orderly, like she was a different person. Her formerly unkempt hair was neatly tied up with a barrette, and she wore an unfamiliar scarf around her neck.
I wasn’t pressing her for information, nor trying to make her uneasy. It was just a question that came to mind.
My skinny legs hurt. But wrapped up in mother’s smell, I could forget the pain right away.
Mother hugged me. I could feel her trembling. She cried without making a sound.
But I found myself sad as well, and held mother tighter.
“I’m sorry, Ellen…”
In my imagination, I forgave my apologizing mother again and again. But now, I felt like she was apologizing for a different reason.
The moment I saw it, my chest tightened.
Suddenly, I started to view the situation I was in objectively.
I dropped my gaze.
White shoes I’d never seen before. Father wasn’t the kind of person who would buy these. We would never have enough money to spare for such expensive shoes.
I didn’t want to understand.
Mother -
Mother meant to abandon me.
Mother’s scent, which had given me such comfort, rapidly became something detestable.
The flame of the lamp wavered in the corner of my vision.
I doubted my ears.
Father saw nothing but you, mother.
Don’t you know how much father doesn’t love me?
Even though he wants you so much, and loves you so much,
And -
you’re going to give up on loving me too, aren’t you?
Mother slowly parted from me and elegantly wiped her tears. She had the face of a caring mother.
She picked up her bag and turned to leave.
I stopped her at once. There was no emotion in it; in fact, it felt like someone else was saying that word.
I hung my head, and muttered something in a voice mother couldn’t hear.
I stabbed her in the throat.
Because the cat had attacked the mouse’s neck, and rendered it immobile.
My arms were free.
If you’re loved, but you won’t accept it, I’ll never forgive you.
But if only mother could have kept loving me, it would have kept a lid on that hatred.
As I swallowed her warm blood, I realized.
In the depths of a sea of blood, I held my knee and sobbed.
That was the real me.
When I raised my tear-stained face and smiled, a hand reached for me. I took her hand. Just then, the hand became a bloody knife, and I was standing in the entryway.
I felt disgusting. I felt alive. Living shouldn’t have felt this dirty.
Still gripping the knife tightly, I sat down on the floor.
The woman, who was my mother, was now a mass that emitted an awful odor.
The sight incited no particular emotion.
I looked at her feet.
I gently picked up one of the shoes between my fingers and gazed at it. I would have to inform the man who bought the shoes. “I’m sorry, but you can’t go together anymore.”
I turned only my head around.
He slowly emerged from the room, looking at me.
The shoe slipped out of my fingers and fell to the floor.
…It was a feeling of exaltation.
Father’s eyes wavered. He pointed to the corpse with one hand and approached. The light from the lamp clearly illuminated his emaciated body. He was like a worn husk.
Because he might shout “Did you do this?!” Because he might raise his hand and hit me.
Father powerlessly kneeled beside the corpse. He held the woman’s chin with a shaking hand. Once he confirmed the face, he hugged the body and began to cry like a beast.
“I did this.”
I tried to hide how much I enjoyed it.
I trembled saying the last word. I had called out that word “father” countless times in dreams, but never before had I actually said it. I was almost moved to tears.
My heart had beat with expectation, but my chest filled with something else.
“It was me! I did this!”
But father only continued to cry, and didn’t move an inch.
My shouting had become crying.
…Why?
Why - why must you keep proving how you don’t love me?
Stop. Don’t look at her. I don’t want to see this.
My teeth clattered.
“STOP!!”
My right arm was heavy, as if taken by a demonic spirit. Blood - who knows whose - dripped off the end of the knife, making stains on the floor.
He clung onto mother to his last moments.
Father’s room. To be exact, father and the woman who was once mother’s room.
There was a sweet scent unlike mother’s coming from the room. As if being pushed from behind, I opened the door with my knife-holding hand and stepped inside.
There was a single bed along the far wall. A candle on a table cast an unreliable light on the interior of the cramped room.
Father’s, I suppose.
I sluggishly walked to the bed. Things were scattered all over the floor, so I could trip if I wasn’t careful.
I couldn’t know for sure anymore.
I sniffled.
The illusion of the happy family vanished, and I became aware of the two corpses in the entryway, and the knife I held in my lap.
I just wanted to be loved.
But nobody loved me.
Nobody loved me.
…Because I was sick?
I touched the bandages on my face, a mess of sweat, tears, sprayed blood. As if checking something, I touched my cracked skin.
I scratched my reptile-like sore skin. It hurt. Yet as if possessed, I kept scratching.
Nobody loved me. Everyone ran from me.
Mother abandoned me.
Ellen. That’s my name. But what is Ellen?
Just then, I heard a window clatter open, and I returned to my senses.
A few seconds later, my brain reacted. It was going to cause a fire. I hurried to my feet.
…It has to vanish.
Vanish?
…There’s nothing left in this house, is there?
I was quickly short of breath, and couldn’t even run more than two houses away.
They were dyed red with my blood, and the blood of others. Surely, I was leaving footprints. Perhaps I had been born wearing red shoes. I walked as I thought.
There were no streetlights in the slums. It was the middle of the night, so there wasn’t even any light from the houses.
There were piles of raw trash, scrap metal, and other junk.
I let out a cold white breath and was suddenly overcome with fatigue.
In my right hand, I still gripped the knife.
I feebly shook my head.
I closed my eyes.
What would I do now? I’ll wake up tomorrow, first of all. But what about the day after? Or the day after that?
And then perhaps someone would bury me.
I buried the black cat because she was a very small, frail creature. Because she was fleeting enough to carry in my arms.
In my case, who would even know me? Who would have watched me? And even if they were watching, who would think I’m beautiful?
Ah… Perhaps it does suit me after all.
It sounded like a young boy, yet it had an oddly composed tone. I felt somehow stimulated and picked my body up.
“Over here, Ellen.”
I looked up toward it, and found a black cat sitting up on a crumbling fence. I didn’t know when it got there.
The moon floated just behind the cat, the same color as its eyes.
But it was different. It wasn’t her. Because she was a “cat.”
He licked his front paws with satisfaction. The movement was just like what a real cat would do.
“I…” I muttered absentmindedly.
Perhaps happy that I responded, the cat leapt as he spoke.
I raised an eyebrow at his statement.
I shook my head slightly.
“A human consists of a soul and a body. You can’t eat them while they’re alive. But when they die, you can suck the soul right out and eat it. They aren’t easy for us to come upon. That’s why we do this, having somebody kill ‘em so we can chow. Which you happened to do today, which sure saved my butt! But if you weren’t there, I dunno what I’d do… Hey Ellen, what’s up?”
I stood up, my feet still trembling. My face was probably as pale as the night air.
I didn’t know what these so-called souls were. But it seemed like it was something important to a person.
I felt like the oddly-shaped creature before me had tainted my father. Oddly, the woman who was once my mother didn’t come to mind.
He showed the appearance of concern. But it was certainly only the appearance. He didn’t actually seem concerned.
The cat swung his long tail.
It was just as the cat said.
The black cat looked down on me in silence. His eyes had a coldness like a doll’s, and I was uneasy. I unconsciously looked away. My lips trembled from either cold or fear.
I sighed to push away the feeling of having no refuge.
What was I going to do now?
“Huh?”
“Demons like us can get souls from kids like you. And then we can give them magic as thanks. I was thinkin’ I could give you a very special spell, Ellen.”
I raised an eyebrow, not bothered to do much more.
“Ellen, I’m giving you a house.”
…A house.
The black cat seemed to notice.
The cat’s words rang pleasantly in my ears, blooming a flower in my head. A place of warmth. That’s what my cold body wanted more than anything else right now…
“It’s a fire!”
I turned toward it and saw flames where my house had been.
The house which there was no going back to.
Father and mother’s faces came to mind. They were stained red in my memory, overlapping with the fire in the distance.
I turned back to him.
…I didn’t like the cold.
It was a faint action, and probably only looked like I was lowering my head.
But no one noticed, off in a back alley, a girl and a black cat vanishing as if swallowed up by the darkness.