Hallowed Halloween

The town where this story takes place isn't a scary town. Not at all. It was a town known for its Sunday meetups after church; the mums met up to gossip, the dads operated the barbeque and the kids played games out on the oval.

This story starts at one of these meetups, centring on a loudly complaining, wizened woman addressing a group of equally weathered women, and the submissive young lady who stood by her side, head bowed.

"My daughter, I tell you! She can't do anything right!" the woman began. "She is now married, but does she send money home? No! I haven't even heard rumours of a child either! Ungrateful wretch, I raised her for nothing." The other women nodded along, sympathetic of the mother's plight.

"Ah… Mother, please stop" whispered the young lady, tugging shamefully on the corner of her mother's shirt.

"Stop?!" Screeched the mother, her volume increasing a notch, "You have the nerve to ask me to stop? What a disobedient child! Where are the familial values that I raised you with, ah! Just leave! Don't even think of coming back!"

The girl stared, stunned, before sighing and trudging away, leaving her mother and her friends chatting away about little nothings.

The day soon passed, and as the sun began to set with no sign of the lady, the town began getting worried. They rung her cell phone, traversed the streets yelling and even sent out search parties, but they couldn't find any sign of her. She was gone. Forever. There was no real reason for it, no depression, no mental illness. She was just tired. Tired of trying to live up to expectations. Tired of suffering to please her parents. Tired of hiding behind a painted smile. And so, she left.

She loved her parents and wanted them to be happy. They had always labelled her a disappointment, a disgrace to their name. She was not pretty enough, not smart enough, couldn't get a good job, didn't marry a rich husband. She thought it was her fault. That they were right. She wasn't pretty enough, she didn't come first in school, she hadn't become a doctor or lawyer and her husband was only a teacher. 'Maybe', she thought, 'just maybe, if I leave…. If I leave they will be happy. This disgrace will be gone.' So, she left. Disappeared to never be seen or heard from again.

Days had gone past without finding the girl and the town had given up hope. All the mother could hear were the mutterings of her neighbours. That her girl had embraced the devil. That she was going to be the next to go. That her girl, her little girl, had cursed the family with her selfishness, had given her soul to the devil in order to indulge her selfish wishes.

The mother knew though. She knew it was her fault. Every time her girl had come to her, proud of what she had achieved, she had mercilessly shut her down. Telling her it was not good enough. Telling her that she was not good enough.

She sat down in her favourite rocking chair, the mise-en-scène presenting perfect juxtaposition between the dark-souled women and the blindingly white walls that surrounded her. "Is this purgatory?" She wondered. But the only answer to her musings would be the oppressing silence weighing down on her shoulders.

The mother felt regrets now, she regretted pushing her daughter, she regretted she did not comfort her daughter when she was exhausted after a long day, she regretted that she had not done anything. But it was too late for regrets.

The mother cried, endless tears pouring to the ground. She cried, and she cried, and soon her eye ducts had run completely dry. But the unstoppable pressure of water refused to stop, pressing against the organs in her body, pouring through her veins and forcing her blood into a frantic rush to escape her body. And escape her body it did. The liquid rushed out, pouring from all her orifices. Starting with a trickle out of her nose, the torrential stream started making its way out of her ears and mouth. Soon, all that could be heard in the room was the unnatural, choked gargles of the mother as she struggled desperately to breathe, to survive. To stop this torture. But that was not her fate.

The night passed like normal in the town, and the rotation of the Earth brought the dawn of a new day to the darkness of the streets. The morning sunlight glowed brightly, throwing a soft, healing light into the town, peeking its rays into a certain house and into a certain room, illuminating the beautiful scene of a blooming flower - a wooden rocking chair abandoned, painted in and surrounded by the most vibrant of reds.