Mother

My mother.

She sits at her desk. It is a nice desk as these things go. Real mahogany, not the cheap stuff from China or Thailand she thinks. She runs her hands over it, imagining a majestic tree being cut down by men speaking some savage language as they risk life and limb to bring it back to civilization. She breathes deep, smelling in her mind the blood and sweat that went into creating it. It fills her with a sense of pride this desk, and everything that it entails; her position, her status and the work that she has put herself through. The desk stands as a testament to her life, far better than any trophy or award that she has received. It holds her against the rich carpet of her office at she stands at attention behind like a general.           

She thinks

                -Enough of the desk, there is work to be done

Glancing down at the papers she picks one up and stares purposefully at it. It stands as both an enemy and a friend. A cripple asking to be fixed, but a master waiting silently for efficiency and intelligence. This is what her work is to her. A monster and a guardian. A pet on a leash that protects her, but hungrily waits to turn on her the moment her guard is down. Some might say a blessing and a curse. She wouldn’t say that and has barely thought of it herself.

She would say

                -There is work to be done, bills to be paid, and the world doesn’t move on metaphors and images.

A picture of her son sits on a gilded frame on her desk. She lets the paper slide from her hand and a barely perceptible smile creep to her lips. Such a smart boy. His blue eyes sparkle with mirth and humor that she sometimes doesn’t understand. He gets those from his father she thinks bitterly. But his smile is hers, the one that he flashes so brightly but so rarely. A writer! she thinks with a frown. But in her mind she smiles and hopes. Hopes for a life for her son unlike her own. Unlike the nights when she creeps into her empty bed spent with the days efforts. Her hands ragged and course from holding the straining leash of her work, of stroking her desk. A life with something akin to happiness. Like the happiness she feels of the check in the mail, but purer. Happiness not of relief at bills paid or work that’s done but of something else. That is what she sees in her smile and in his father’s eyes. And this is what she knows as love.

She wipes a tear from her eyes and braces against her desk.

She says

                -There’s work to be done.

 

 

But inside her heart flutters and the leash goes slack, if only for a moment.