Creator

Creator

by Diana Bianco ’19

Leaning against the window, I wait quietly as the snow falls outside. Each year it snows like this and each year I wonder what would happen if there was too much snow, so much that the roof caved in. Where would we go? We don’t have neighbors for miles. Right now it’s piled up so high that only a small sliver of light can poke through at the top. In the other room my mother sits by the fire in the near darkness of this house. She says that she’s waiting for our father to come home, but she performs each of her actions slowly as if preparing for the end.

“Simon,” she says. It is the first time she’s called for me since the day before. I walk towards her my eyes drawn to her silhouette in front of the golden fire. When I reach her I stand in front of her as she sits. I look into her eyes and I see the same fire and warmth reflected in them. But she blinks and the fire becomes more harsh. It roars with a certain fury. She takes my face in her hands. I kneel to make it easier for her to hold me. She lets go. And leans back in her chair with the same stoic expression she always wears. “There is much on your mind child,” she says. “Tell me what it is.”

“I’ve been thinking about the snow. I worry about the snow mother.”

“The snow should not bother you, it is very natural for it to fall from the sky. To land peacefully on the ground and freeze everything around us.”

“I know this, but what if it freezes too much? What if this house fell down? Where would we go? Who would help us, if we got stuck?” She stands, but I remain on the floor. Then she too kneels in front of me.

“Simon, my son, only I can help you. Have you not read the books? Men are selfish. They cannot help you, only I can help you.”

I lower my head. “I’m sorry that I doubted you, my thoughts drifted away.” She stands and then sits back in her chair. My mother again stares blankly into the fire.

“Thoughts will drift, for you, my son, are still just as human as the others outside of this house.”

“Of course,” I say as I stare into her eyes. They burn still with the same warm fire. “Hold out your hands,” she says. And I listen. She drops a tiny yellow pill into them. She has done the same ever since my father left a few days back. Then she focuses her attention on me and I do as she told me to do on the first day and I swallow it.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight. My other brother Ethan scurries into the other room almost unnoticed. I leave my mother and follow him. His back is turned away from me and he sits on the floor of the small room with a book on the floor and some pictures in the other. Normally, he comes to ask if I want to play a game, but he hasn’t asked since our father left days ago, promising to come back soon. On the day our father packed the car the snow was light and Ethan was jittery. We all knew that the storm was coming.

Our father patted us both on the heads and kissed our mother. Before he left our mother grabbed his hands as if silently pleading for him to stay. A day later when I finally asked my mother why he left she stared blankly into the blazing fire and said that he went to get some coal.

“Ethan,” I say as I approach him from behind.

“What’s that thing that she gave you?” he asks referring to the pill my mother had given to me.

“It was a yellow pill, have you not received one?” I ask.

“No.” He remains on the floor staring harshly at the pictures. Then, he holds the picture up in front of my face. In it a young woman who looks like my mother stands in front of a very large building.

“Where did you find that?” I ask as I take the picture from his hands.

“In one of the books,” he says.

“But, I’ve read all of them,” I say. He doesn’t respond, just then pulls out another picture in which our mother stands proudly with some man, but I can’t tell who because his face is covered. But I am more focused on the glowing expression my mother had on her face. I haven’t seen it in a long time.

“Put this back,” I say as I shove it back into his hands. He takes the picture and holds it close to his face before placing on the ground. I kneel next to him and put one hand on his back.

“It’s so cold,” he says.

“I know,” I say.

“No, you don’t,” he says as he shakes me off. “Why’d she let him leave but not us?”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I thought you read all of those books,” Ethan says as he looks up at me.

“I did,” I say.

“Then why can’t you see it?”

I kneel silent at Ethan’s protest. I begin to think of the books that I’ve read. Books on the hundreds of different types of trees and the other men and women who inhabit this land, but all of it leads back to my mother and the fire.

The center of my world.

My brother walks quietly upstairs. But my attention is drawn to our mother as she sits silently in her chair, farther from the fire than the day before.

“Simon?” she says calmly. I get up and walk towards her across the floor, careful not to disturb the air around her.

The front door swings open, letting in the light and snow. I stand with my mother.  Our father enters and Ethan comes running down the stairs. Normally I take on a run and go to hug my father, but I notice he’s followed by four men. The same men I saw in the picture Ethan had showed me. My father holds out his arms in an effort to accept Ethan’s hug. But Ethan stops in his tracks. Instead, he joins us in a line, and we stand ready to protect everything we had and knew.

The men behind my father step into the house with the snow still wafting through the door. The men walk closer and say nothing. As they come closer I realize that their faces are covered exactly like the men in Ethan’s picture. They hold something black in their hands and our mother holds out her arms in front of us, forcing us back.

“What have you done?” she asks. In response my father lifts his sleeve to reveal a mark in black ink.

“I’m tired, Lucy,” he says as he fixes his sleeve. “For years we’ve lived in this house, cut off from the rest of the world. I feel like one of your experiments. I worry for our sons. What will they become when we’ve left? Simon is too attached to you, Ethan resents you...you can’t keep us here. It’s time to go back.”

“How could you?” she says as the strangers step forward. “I was only trying to protect…”

“Protect us from what? The very place that you created?” he asks. She goes quiet and focuses on the snow. “What? You made all of this and can’t even speak for it. These are your creations aren’t they?”

The men behind my father begin to walk forward.

“Terminate 5379,” my mother says, gaze fixed on the men.

“Creator request has been denied,” one of the men replies. They get closer, closer. One of them grabs my brother first and my mother pulls me away. They press something to my brother and he falls limp to the ground. The same black ink mark that my father had showed us appears on him. He looks like he’s sleeping. He jumps out of his sleep and stands. I look into his eyes and I can no longer see my brother.

They try to do the same to me, pulling me out of my mother’s hands, but something goes wrong. I fall and lose all feeling, but my eyes are still open. When I jump out of my sleep, I feel fine. I look down at my arm where they struck me, but I cannot see a black mark. One of the men steps forward to inspect my arm, they nod and hand me a device. Then the men do the same to my mother who seems compliant. Her eyes also remain open and eventually the stands again. I walk towards her and she says nothing. I look down at her arm and I cannot see a mark, but once again the men examine her and nod as if the does have the mark. For a moment I begin to believe that she too like my brother is lost, but when I get closer and look into her eyes I see, the fire, her warmth, the center of my world and the creator of another.