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“I was watching you today,” my mother says. I am staring out the window. I am trying to get away. It doesn’t matter where, just somewhere, just somewhere else. I am trying to find silence, or peace, or something; I am trying to keep myself from turning to her and screaming SHUT UP WILL YOU PLEASE JUST SHUT UP, all the words running together like that, like they do when I am furious, when I am overcome by rage. I can feel, even though it’s not happening now, the way my throat fills up with mucus and spit and my words sound slurred and wet, strange, like I’ve got a cold and I’m drunk and I’m tired all at once, all together. Like how they sounded that time in college I took the migraine medication and had an allergic reaction and my throat swelled and my skin flushed and my voice – my words sounded thick, wrong – I remember trying to explain what was happening to the nurse at health services, my throat tight and full, mucus like glue around my words. I can feel my throat like that now, just thinking about screaming at my mother. Just thinking about making her be quiet, for once.
There are birds in the sky. Black birds. Small ones, all flying together, in – a pack? A school? I can’t remember what they’re called, when they all fly together like that. I am envious of them. Lazily, dreamily envious. I am tired, I realize. I yawn.
She is still talking.
What is she talking about? I yawn again. There’s no air in this car. There’s no air! I am exhausted. I want to fly away. I want to run away. I want to puncture my eardrums so I can’t hear her talking any more. She is still talking. I have no idea what she is talking about, but I know I should be angry, or defensive, or self-righteous. Something like that. She is criticizing me, I know.
I yawn.
“You’re doing too much, you know. That’s why you’re so tired. You’re always doing too much, you’re out too late, you don’t go to bed, you wake up too early, you’re unbalanced, that’s why you’re yawning.”
I am yawning because there’s no air in this car. I am yawning because even if there were air, you’d’ve swallowed it up already, with your words. I am yawning because listening to you exhausts me and tuning you out exhausts me even more. I am yawning because it is taking all my energy to keep from killing you.
I nod. I yawn again. She keeps talking.
The sky is wide open today. Ice blue, cold blue. I know it is cold outside. I wonder about the birds – do they get cold? Does flying keep them warm? Do they talk – squawk? – while they’re flying, or are they silent and focused?
Do birds yawn?
I hold my breath, try not to laugh. I know so little, I think, about birds. That strikes me as funny, that I could’ve gone through high school and college and not know simple things like whether birds yawn and if they get cold when they’re flying and what they’re called – a flock!
My eyes are watering from trying not to laugh. My face is hot. I am looking out the window. I am trying to breathe.
She is still talking.
I make a noise. A small noise. A tiny noise. Barely even a noise, really. Totally insignificant. She stops.
She looks at me.
She sighs. She shakes her head.
“I just don’t know what is going on with you,” she says. “I just don’t know what to do.”
I smile. I shrug. I look out the window.
She starts talking again. I watch the birds.
