Sasha Kozhevnikova

Ms. Tompkins

WLH p. 2

24 April 2015

I Want My Mommy

I looked down at my Blue’s Clues digital watch, reading four numbers. Those four numbers meant nothing to me-- how much longer until it was two o’clock, I didn’t know. I knew there was this confusing thing called subtraction that I could use to figure it out, but they didn’t teach us that sort of stuff in preschool. I preferred looking at an analog clock, because then I could count how many times the minute hand went around in a circle. I knew that my mom would arrive when the minute hand was two numbers past the vertical position, but I don’t know where that minute hand was right now. I only knew the numbers. But of course, they didn’t even have a clock in the room.

I hated this room. It was full of phony adults who thought that I needed to be talked to like a child. I was four years old! I didn’t need someone to talk to me in a baby voice for me to understand. Unlike the annoyingly welcoming teachers, the other kids were entirely unapproachable, cupping their hands around each others ears and whispering loudly, making sure that I could hear them saying my name but knowing that I wouldn’t be able to comprehend their sour words either way. The walls were covered in horrid drawings made by my peers. There was not an empty space on the walls… maybe that’s why they didn’t have a clock anywhere!

I truly hated this place, but my mom dragged me here every day so that I could learn to adapt to American culture and make new friends. I missed my mom.

I decided that the only way to figure out the time was to ask one of the teachers where their clock was, as I had a hard time accepting that there was no clock in the classroom.

I didn’t know how to speak this intricate, foreign language that twisted my tongue, but my heart's longing for my mom overcame my fear of speaking, so I decided to risk it. I waddled over to one of the teachers and nervously tugged on the bottom of her shirt. I looked at her for a few seconds while racking my brain, searching for words to express my helplessness in this situation. How did you say clock again?

“What… time?” I managed to articulate two words in English, my eyes wide with fear.

She looked at me in surprise-- I hardly ever uttered one, let alone two words.

She hesitated. “Mommy come soon!” Camsun? She looked at me and nodded to reassure me, even though what she had just said sounded like gibberish.

Camsun? What's a camsun? And why on earth is my mom one? I don't think she understood my question. I made a point of looking at the walls to signify that I was looking for a clock rather than my camsun mother.

"No, what time?" I repeated, a little frustrated that I wasn't able to express my thoughts.

"Mommy come soon?"

What the heck is a camsun? I made a mental note to ask my mom about that later. I will not let them call my mom a camsun!

Clearly, the teacher had no idea what I wanted from her. I needed a new plan to escape the frightening world of finger painting and play dough. I didn't like getting my hands covered in ugly spinach-green paint and sticking my hand prints on a big poster of our class that showed the camaraderie that was supposed to accompany our small and "welcome" environment. The only truly welcome environment I knew was back home with my mom, my dad, and my sister. I didn't belong here.

"Can I go outside?" I asked her sweetly, my innocent voice suggesting that I simply wanted to ride a tricycle in the warm fresh air that California was apparently famous for.

"Of course!" She replied. A sigh followed, her muscles relaxing as she recovered from my persistance.

I walked past the different stations of kids who were actually enjoying themselves. Some kids were cutting up their paper to make snowflakes, others were making pigs out of play dough, and the rest were playing musical chairs.

I made my way through the door. I had to be careful about this because I didn't want anyone to see me making my big move. There was a short wired fence surrounding our building, and the first time I had seen it I knew I could easily climb over. My capabilities as a flexible ballerina could help me bend just enough to make it over the border separating this hell from the free world around me. I lifted my leg, and made it onto the ramp. My short legs scrambled to run up there as quickly as I could. My future depending on how effectively I made this escape.

I heard them gaining on me, two of them. My heart pounded mercilessly through my tiny chest, I made a final step towards the door of the next building, grabbing the handle, I opened-

They had me. Grabbing my arms and trying not to hurt me, they pulled me back down the ramp, back through the fence, back to the place I knew as my personal hell. This was my only chance, and now I would never be able to escape. Tears flooded down my face, and I broke down choking, my lungs tightly repressing the breath of air I was unable to take.

"Sasha! No more going outside for you!"

They patronized me, but all I could think about was how close I was to the door behind which my mother sat, learning simple strings of English words, feeling the same restless sense of constraint and detachment that I was.

I want my mommy.

What are you running towards, little friend?

A black haired boy sighs, his breath fogging up the car window, forming a misty grey splotch on the tempered glass. The purr of rubber wheels over rain-soaked asphalt is overbearing, and in this monochromatic soundscape, the car’s wobbling impacts are akin to music. The window is speckled with dozens of raindrops, sliding down diagonally, pulled by gravity and pushed by the speed of the car. They shine and flash as the car passes blinking-lights and glowing advertisements. They reflect the scenery in abstract Monet-esque strokes.

A lone drop seeps onto the top of the window. It is big enough to warrant attention, but light enough that it screeches along the glass without a distinct path or conviction. Seeming to hesitate before slipping another few centimeters.

Alastair’s gaze fixes on the droplet, curious to see how its little journey will pan out. Will its lack of direction, so akin to his own, change its fate?

His attention is redirected to his thigh cramping painfully. He grimaces, pressing his fingers onto the contracted muscle in an effort to relieve the tension. His legs are too long for the back seat. His patience is worn too thin by the constant squealing and squirming of his younger siblings who, only now, sit squashed up against his sweaty side. All snotty-nosed and rosy-cheeked, they’re young enough to have been lulled to sleep by the car’s rhythmic stuttering. Alastair is not that lucky. In the cramped claustrophobic car, he remains painfully awake.

His black hair is plastered to his face, and the only relief from the stuffy heat of the car is the cool glass of the rain-drenched window.

Seeming to sense Alastair's interest, the drop inches diagonally towards his watching eyes. It’s bigger now, having collected more water as it moved forward. The added weight pulls it down and away from his face in a crude curve. Its new path leaves it neck and neck with another drop, this one slightly larger.

What now? Will you win?

His drop, just one out of the dozens on the window, seems immensely important. Will it reach the end first? The drops are highlighted by the city lights, their edges sharp and distinct, their bodies a multitude of reflected colors.

Alastair shifts, his back sore and taut from the worn-out seats. He wants to run, he needs to get out of this car.

Out of this life.

He feels the familiar pull of necessity in this chest. The feeling that tells him to move, to do something. To start running towards his future, to disregard his surroundings and push forward for something possibly present somewhere else, anywhere else.

Never satisfied with where you are, who you are.

He looks back at the window. His droplet has fallen behind, but is still resolutely falling, despite the other droplet having already passed.

Come on little fella. Alastair is not sure what good this will do, but he feels like his droplet needs some encouragement.

His drop glides forward. Its trail forming tumbling lines and soft curves, which serve as highways for other droplets too keen on running forward. His droplet is stoic and persistent, sliding down the window, unperturbed by the changing scenery or the jostling of the car. It shakes and trembles, but moves forward as if called by some internal need to reach the end without stopping to rest.

What are you running towards, little friend?

What do you covet?

His droplet slips away, its journey coming to an abrupt, anticlimactic end.

Alastair presses his lips together and stares at the place where his droplet had disappeared with furrowed brows.

He doesn’t know what he expected.

Maybe he’d wanted a grand farewell or a meaningful ending, but his droplet had fallen out of sight with the same inevitability as gravity. Its short life Exposing with great candor how there is no grand gesture or explanation at the end.

muted and simple.

Alastair chews his lip, a bad habit he shares with his father.

It’s the stuff that comes before that matters. The action of dying is not the important bit.

How had he forgotten? He was surrounded by life; messy, uncomfortable, beautiful life, and here he was running forward, racing to the end of the window. Apathetic and bitter despite the unabashed, authentic life of his siblings who are always present to remind him of life's simplicity.

Ridiculous.

His sister shifts, pressing her head into his side. His eyes are heavy and his head thrums with a muted migraine, but he does nothing to move her away.