come to be mine. I would love to own the house and if my mother were dead there would never be any wondering about when she would return or when she would leave. A perpetual absence creates some stability.
I could stuff my mother into the dryer, but I worry she would not be bendy enough. Her hinges might be too stiff and her shape too rigid. I have often wished my mother was bendier, but sometimes a body can be resilient. I think of how glorious it might be to wedge her body into an open window and then swing the shutters closed on her, but I don’t think this could kill her. I think her body would stop the shutters and they’d do almost no harm to her. I think of pushing her off the roof but I don’t know how we could both manage to climb atop the smooth rounded surface. I might slip and hurt myself in the process. I could bury her alive in the yard to suffocate or die of thirst, but I hate to think of her body there, always beneath the earth. It would be nice to know that she is eternally near me, but I don’t like the idea of knowing she is there and my not being able to see her. I go through all the sharp or pointy objects in the house. I line the countertop with knives, scissors, a letter opener, a corkscrew, the grapefruit spoon, and some triangular metal slats whose function I can’t imagine. I pull out her toolbox and empty it onto the living room floor, screwdrivers, hammer, nails, screws, brackets all sinking into carpet. I look at earring backs and nail clippers. I untwist a hanger and make a little jabbing motion. I pull everything from beneath the beds. But I cannot find satisfaction in the imagined killing of her with any of these instruments. I lift heavy objects and picture her skull beneath them. I stand in a chair and drop the iron onto the kitchen floor. I drop huge cans of beans and tomatoes. Heavy books land open and their pages crinkle and fold. I try to lift the microwave but I can’t get it over my head. I drop it pathetically from my chest and I hear breaking from within it, though it remains cosmetically intact. I do not enjoy any of this. No crash strikes the correct note. I cannot think of the
12 | Psychopomp Magazine