My mother washed the outside of the pomegranate before she opened it.

Time felt still in the mornings when I sat by her as an audience across the small, round kitchen table. I watched her meticulously pick each and every tiny red seed pod from the white flesh with her thin fingers. She took the pomegranates and mixed them in the Greek yoghurt I had watched her pull off the shelf at the supermarket the day before. As she scooped them out, one of them fell and bounced off my shoe, then landed on the floor. I brought my foot up to the chair and wiped the juice off, however it left behind a small red stain.

We sat and ate in silence. 15 minutes later, I had to leave for school. I stared at the small red stain as I walked down the road to where the bus screamed to its halt. When I sat down, I leaned against the window, and felt the rumbling of the bus on the rock filled road shake my head.

The small red stain remained in my line of focus all day. When I sat in class, I would glance down and make shapes out of it. It was a sheep, a dog, a table, a horse, and at one point I even managed to turn it into a ladybug. By lunch, my stomach had started to feel funny. It was aching; however, it was an ache I had never felt before. I could feel a sense of angst growing inside of me. My foot tapped rapidly against the ground and my shirt suddenly felt very real. I could feel every thread poking against my body. The pain of the foreign aching was a sword stabbing me in the gut. The voices surrounding me on all sides started to inevitably grow into a vast sea of obnoxious pre-teen laughter and hollering. I glanced down at the small red stain, then raised my hand.

“May I use the bathroom?” I asked. The lady nodded. I walked out of the room casually, but when I turned down the hall, I made a run for it. My hand stung as it crashed into the handle of the double doors.

“Hey!” I heard the secretary call from behind me, but her shouting dissolved into the suburban air when I ran through the neighborhood, past the park and the perfect tiny blue or yellow or tan houses just big enough for 4, beyond the intersection, then I stopped at the gas station. The florescent lights flickered overhead. I grabbed a candy bar wrapped in gold plastic from the shelf, looked around to see all the distracted people, and left. I ran again. My feet were numb by the time I made it to my driveway. I could feel beads of sweat rolling from my forehead. I looked down at my feet and the small red stain blared at me like a red light. When I reached my house, I saw an empty driveway.

Inside, I could hear the phone ring, and I unwrapped the candy while I waited for it to stop. Left on the voice message machine, was a call from the school that “Esther Gray ran out of school at 12:36 this afternoon.” I deleted it and ran up to my room.

Sometimes I felt too old for yellow walls with vinyl flowers stuck to it, but my mother told me I was going through a phase and that most 12-year-olds like to think they’ve outgrown the things they once loved. She said I would like it again one day, if not, I would at least miss it. She also said I would miss the stuffed animals I once loved dearly, and I should put them in a box. So, they sat in a cardboard box in the corner of my room. I stared at the box and concentrated on the animals in hopes of forgetting the undeniable torment in my gut.

I took a bite of the stolen chocolate, then felt the urge to flop down on my bed and lay on my stomach. My pillow had an array of brown, pink, and red stains from when I had borrowed my mom’s makeup the other day. As I laid there, I propped my head to the side and stared at them. I thought about the pomegranates from this morning. I considered the peel washing and the yoghurt and her skeleton like fingers plucking the arils from the fruit. Eventually, I felt myself fade away.

When I woke up, it was dark out. I stood from my bed and turned on the butterfly lamp that had sat on my nightstand for the last 10 years. I rubbed my eye and adjusted to the light. My great grandmother had made my quilt. It had purple flowers scattered all over it. As my eyes moved, I saw a large red stain right where I had been laying. I looked down and felt myself start to cry. I cried and cried until I began to feel too much: the unmovable sword stabbing me, the blood crawling down my legs like a spider, the pounding in my head pushing out more tears. I went to the bathroom and turned on the shower. My feet slapped into the puddle of water as I stepped in and infested the cleanliness with maroon. I stood still as a statue under the pouring rain.  

My mother walked past the open doorway. She didn’t say anything. I watched her grab a red towel from the closet and turn off the water. Then she wrapped it around me. She gave me a cotton pad and clean clothes. I washed and changed, then stood in the bathroom, looking at the wrinkles the water had put on my fingers. I rubbed them together and felt the fleshy pith around the pomegranate seeds in my very own hands. I went back to my room and stared at the yellow walls and orange and pink flowers. I sorted through the stuffed animals, whose names I couldn’t recall anymore. There was a dog, a horse, a tiger, a unicorn, a pig, a turtle, and a rabbit. My mother came in and put her arm around my shoulder, then handed me two small brown pills.

 The next morning, I saw her crush an old, dried peel over her tiny red petunia.

END

– Abigail Alonso