Better than nothing

Once I had a mother, but then she melted into air. Dad came and said that now I will have a New mother. And showed a strange woman in an apron.

I was surprised. "I don't want a new mom,' I said. Where is the one that has always been?" Dad shrugged his shoulders and walked. I tried to understand what, when the mother that was always more and never will be. The grief I felt. Hands wanted to hug Mama as if reaching for her. I wanted to grab her finger, as usual. But my mother was out and his hands seemed to have lost the sensitivity. I would even say that they disappeared altogether if their place is not immediately grew up a new one. They felt worse than the old one, but it is what it is. "Better than nothing" dad said, looking at the new mother. The new mother stood at the stove with his back to us and was stirring something with a spoon in the pot.



© Elena Shumilova

Then I grew up and I even had a wife. However, not long. One day she said that now, perhaps, she gets a new husband, and I may have to go. I was confused, but not upset. "How son?" — I asked. "He now has a new daddy" — wife left and melted into air. I tried to understand how I feel. I have no more son? So I can't put him on his lap as planted always. The grief I felt in his chest something first flinched, and then froze and disappeared. And stiff knees. Seems to have disappeared altogether. But then on my knees jumped the cat, and I have accepted: it is, nevertheless, better than nothing.

Then I had different women. They succeeded each other without good reasons. One was unhappy with me, the other me. Every time I couldn't keep track, at which point another woman will melt in the air. But I don't have time to be upset, as there was new, and it's better than nothing. Of course, I was having various unpleasant sensations in the body: the head, the chest, the hands and feet as though he had ceased to feel, and then came back much worse than they were before. But the grief I felt and the sensations they do not pay any attention.

One day I was sitting in a chair and staring into the night window. Suddenly I have a strange feeling: as though I'm not sure that I am me. That is, once I was me, that I clearly remember. Most clearly I remember how I wanted to hug my mother which was not. I remember that I wanted this and it wanted me. And that I needed to be with her own, and not strangers hands. I was sure that I was. But what's left of me?
"...Better than nothing" — I heard from above my dad's voice. And immediately calmed down. published

 

Author: Pauline Gaverdovsky

P. S. And remember, just changing your mind — together we change the world! ©

Source: gaverdovskaya.ru/public/tale/story1495.htm