7 I have a lot to say
"Miss Solomon." It's the same officer who interrogated me last night. "I am surprised to see you back. It hasn't been twenty-four hours since you left."
"It must be fate," I reply with a flat voice. Last night, I came across a dead body and spent the night at the police station. Today, I found the mutilated body of a cat on the bench. The first one could be a coincidence, but how do I explain the second one?
Someone could be playing a sick prank.
Regardless of who is doing this to me, I am in deep shit.
"I don't think so." The officer tilts his head to the right and glances at me with a smug look on his face. "Miss Solomon, someone spotted you with the cat this morning. Later, the cat was found dead on the same bench. Coincidentally, you were also there."
"There was not a single drop of blood on the bench." I wonder if this officer has straws in his head instead of the brain inside his skull. "The cat was already in Rigor Mortis stage. It must have died hours before I found it. I spent the whole day at my workplace. You can verify it."
He lets out a low mocking laugh and places a few papers on the table. "Miss Solomon, your boss -- your ex-boss was found hanged in the bookstore. Guess what? The surveillance cameras inside the bookstore are broken. In the neighbouring cameras, we saw that you were the last person who left the bookstore."
He points at the picture of Mr Emerson's lifeless body suspended in the air. "Miss Solomon, can you explain this?"
The weightless picture feels heavy in my hand. Mr Emerson's eyes are closed in the picture. If I wasn't seeing him awkwardly hanging still in the air, I would have thought that he was asleep.
If I had stayed for a while longer, would it be different? I knew that Mr Emerson was disturbed after meeting his son. If I had acted differently, he might not have done this. If I had insisted that I didn't want to lose my job, he might have changed his mind. He could be alive right now.
"You regret it now? You only realize the value of something after it's gone. When you don't have any valid reason to live, can you give someone else a reason to live?" The devil slaps my hand with his paw.
"Mr Emerson is dead. Things could have been different. But then, not everyone is like you, Nell. Do I not know why you are adhering to life? Nell, my Nell, you still listen to that tiny whisper of hope. You keep hoping that you will find the reason to live someday. That hope is nothing but an illusion. How long would you continue to chase a mirage?"
The restlessness in my soul is agonizing. We are often taught to never give up. But it's also suffocating to never give up.
I don't know when I found myself stuck inside a cage. Inside the cage, space was closing in. So, I tried to shrink my body until my body was malformed beyond recognition. In the end, I turned into an aberrant creature.
"There's no place for someone like you in this world," I hear the devil say.
"Miss Solomon!" The officer's voice is loud and rough. "Pay attention."
"I am not connected to his suicide." I narrow my eyes. "He met his son today. I don't know what happened between his son and him. He told me that he was closing the store and moving away. I left after I received my pay. I was also shocked to see the dead cat on that bench. I have no idea who would commit such a horrendous act to an innocent creature."
He creases his forehead and opens his mouth to speak. I raise my hand and say, "If you have seen the neighbourhood's surveillance cameras, you must have seen that I didn't leave the bookstore before 9 PM. I will say this for the last time. I didn't kill that man last night. I didn't do anything to that cat. Lastly, I didn't kill Mr Emerson."
"You can't deny that you are connected to them." He scowls at me.
"You don't have any evidence." I lean back and stare at him. He doesn't look pleased with my words. Did he think that he could pressurize me into accepting crimes that I didn't commit? No, I have something to do. "Don't waste my time, Officer. Next time, please bring me back if you have strong evidence against me."
I ignore his next words. He throws a fit by slamming the table and yelling at me. I shut my eyes. My head is throbbing. I spend another hour before they let me go in the morning.
9:45 AM. My house is empty. I don't see my mother sitting on the couch and watching television. I sit in the same spot where she sat every day for the last seven years. I turn on the television and switch to the news channel. According to the weather report, the sky would be cloudy and it might rain today.
"You stayed out last night again?" My mother comes out of the kitchen, holding a coffee mug. I glance at her. In the last seven years, she hasn't changed. Her hair didn't grow either. She never stepped out of this apartment. The cat is sitting beside me, but she is unaffected by his presence.
I should have noticed it a long time ago. "You are not my mother."
She frowns at me, confused. "What are you saying?"
"I have a lot to say." I tell the woman, "Perhaps, I can say these things to you today because you are not real. I know that you have made a lot of sacrifices for me. You chose me over your future. You gave up a lot for me. You worked hard to give me a good life."
"However, Mother, there were times when I was lonely and all I wanted was you. Before you met my stepfather, you had no time for me because all you did was work."
She's watching me with a smile. If she was my mother, she wouldn't have done that. I don't know what she would have done, but I am sure that she wouldn't have smiled like this.
"You would never come to the parent-teacher meetings at school. My teacher kept asking about you. I kept looking at the door, hoping that you would come. You couldn't come because of work and I understand your reasons now."
"Back then, I was really upset. I hated that I didn't have a father. I was envious of other kids who had both father and mother. If I had a father, you wouldn't be working. Then, you would have spent more time with me."
I return her smile. I want to tell her everything before I die. Even if this is not real, I want to get these words out of my chest before I die.
"Whenever I saw a shooting star, I made a wish. I didn't want new toys. I wished that you would stay beside me. I was very lonely, Mother. But you couldn't make time for me. I couldn't complain about it either. I knew that you had to work to send me to a good school."
She strokes my head. My mother used to do this to me when she was alive. I knew that she loved me and yet, I have partially blamed her for the seed of loneliness that she had sown in my heart.
"I questioned myself a lot. Why didn't I have a father? Why did he leave after impregnating you? Why did you have to work so hard? Why didn't I have any friends back then? Why was our family so different? I wanted to say a lot, but I couldn't say it to you. I was afraid of hurting you."
"I ended up hurting you anyway. You were happy for a while after you married him. You had someone. I felt like I wasn't needed by you. You only needed him. I want to tell you now that my heart couldn't accept him as my father. I didn't dislike him, but I didn't want to accept him in our small family."
The devil is also listening to me quietly. His unblinking green eyes are fixed on me, waiting for me to finish. My wrist is itchy.
"Then, I made a small mistake. You lost something precious because of me. Mother, I didn't mean to do it. I had never thought of hurting you. You stopped talking for years. You would only speak to your husband. Slowly, you started to talk to me again. I was glad that you forgave me. Then, you were gone."
The woman is no longer beside me. Her coffee cup is also gone. There's no reason for her to exist anymore.
"I am sorry that I am not a good child. I couldn't be enough. I didn't make you proud of me. I failed as a person and became who I am today. I am sorry that I didn't stop you from going to the mall that day with your husband. If you hadn't gone, you wouldn't have died."
I don't have anything more to say.
The devil follows me around as I clean the house for one last time in silence. I don't have thoughts. I like the silence that is on the same wavelength as me. I watch the water fill the bathtub. I am exhausted. I want to sleep. The devil is unusually calm. I lie down in the bathtub. The water is cold and numbing. I drive the blade across my wrist and close my eyes.
