The Eyes

I

"Gwen!" a voice boomed, a sense of frustration filled the air, spilling from the kitchen. Gwen stopped typing mid-sentence on her essay and looked at the wall above her computer. The simple thin stripped pattern the wallpaper gave off stared back at her. There was always this one certain part on the wall that a bubble of paint somewhat showed through, a covered hump.

An imperfection.

Small, but bothersome, like her mother's interruptions. She rolled her eyes was the least thing that she could silently defy just being in a different room. She focused her sight on her keys now. Car key, house key, his key, that key, house key, mail key, key key? One of the things that was her only escape. She could completely ignore the call and simply leave right then and there instead of responding to her mother's outcry of dire need. Beckoning complaints. Constant headaches. These were the things that were once memories, but now revived.

What could it be this time, she asked herself. She shook her head at the idea of answering to the call. One certain thought passed over Gwen's mind, one simple thing that was her mother's only dire need of. Something she needed to get on through the day. Nothing simple like retrieving a remote only a few feet away, the notorious missing car keys, hidden silenced cellphone, her favorite blanket from her room upstairs. No, nothing of those rather simple matters, this time it had to always be complicated. Her second thought was that she could never get any school work done in the house. Gwen mentally punched herself for not going to the local coffee house a few streets over, taking advantage of the free internet service they provided. As well as sipping on a delicious mocha latte. Mmmm.

Scooting away from her laptop, she took note of how her toes dug into the carpet through her socks. How close she was sitting from the screen. All of this nonsense of small details that she likes to notice now to keep her calm. The tidiness of materials, objects, air.

Air. No, no. Not air. Air was silent and thin and calm. This was not that air.

Now, it was rather disturbed with the ever long presence of her mother's distress. Anger, even. She could already sense it and not be in the same room as her. She took it by the sound of her voice, how it cut through the silence like a hot knife through butter. Hesitation plucked at her decisions until she gave in to standing up. Eyeing over the small words about a simple disorder of her research, she wanted to sit back down and continue. If her mother waited any longer, Gwen knew that she would eventually charge in the office space, similar to an angered boar. She began to make her way towards the kitchen, being of her own personal best judgement.

She stepped out of the office, tracing her fingertips along the wall and furniture that was within reach. Familiar lovelies; she liked the idea of feeling everything around her, as if it all had something to think. Something to say. She casually stepped through the dining room, and to the kitchen entrance stopping in her tracks.

Knowing her mother had just woken up from her 'drinking coma,' Gwen looked down at the clock on her wrist watch in amazement.

What record time, she thought, it must have worn off rather quickly than usual.

Oh, the usual. What a word to now be used in such ease. Such normality. She was rather surprised to see that her mother had woken up within the past hour. When Gwen came home from school, it was a disgusting sight. It tore at her stomach wanting to remove its contents just like her mother's own meal. She ever so walked in on her mother lying in a pool of her own vomit on the bathroom floor, it was a liquid diet that would be hard to keep down, yet somehow easy for the mother to not be poisoned. To drown from the inside out. A half-empty liquor bottle lying a few inches from her limp grasp. Her nails were bitten to nubs, another unfavorable habit her mother had. Her mother's sleepy groans resonated in Gwen's head, the lack of consciousness of the state she was in. Pathetic.