Hibernation
Gary Martin Hughes
She sits at her dining table, clenching and unclenching her fingers, her bare feet tapping on the wooden floor. Behind her, snow streaks past her window and the December moon beams like a child at the fluffy landscape surrounding the only house in the valley.
Her clock ticks towards midnight and the fire crackles, log after log reduced to embers and ash. Her eyes become weary but her breathing remains steady, calm, hypnotic in its rhythm. From the decade-old television in the far corner, a video of her father’s seventy-fifth birthday party plays with the volume turned down. Everybody there except her father is laughing and smiling and wearing a paper hat.
She is thinking about the son she loves more than anybody in the world and who has just left home for his first war. “But I’ll be back before you know it,” he said, while setting off the day before. “Until then, keep warm and stay safe, Ma. See you soon.”
“You will,” she said. “And don’t forget to wake me up when you get in. We’ll have that soup you like.”
Come daybreak, she is fast asleep on the sofa, moss-green velvet with yellow cushions and a dark brown throw. The room smells of burned logs, nail varnish and homemade potpourri. Grey curtains thick as shutters keep out the light.
Wrapped in her goose feather duvet, she sleeps for three months straight. While she sleeps, the heaviest snowfall in years blankets her roof and covers the road. It piles against walls, hedges and fences. Branches snap. Trees break.
Then, one afternoon towards the end of March, she stirs to the sound of a distant drum. Almost immediately, she throws off her duvet and rushes to the front door.
Half-blinded by the light, she rubs her eyes and looks around, but there is neither sight nor sound of human life. Just freshly sprung grass and wildflowers in all the familiar places and some places she has never seen wildflowers grow before. Here and there, residual mounds of frozen snow. She realizes what she heard was her own heartbeat.
She takes a deep breath and returns inside. Pulls back the curtains and sits at her table. The room smells of stale air and dust. A bird’s nest lies where it fell down the chimney into her grate. She glances at the photograph of her son on the mantelpiece, a school portrait taken when he was six. She clenches and unclenches her fingers. Repeats her father’s last words before he died: Where does the time go?
She gets up from the table. Stretches her legs and considers making some coffee. She thinks about food shopping, a manicure, a pedicure, a new hair style. She wonders if her old straw hat will last another summer. She decides to take a bath. Tells herself, “Everything else . . . after that.”
Gary Martin Hughes
She sits at her dining table, clenching and unclenching her fingers, her bare feet tapping on the wooden floor. Behind her, snow streaks past her window and the December moon beams like a child at the fluffy landscape surrounding the only house in the valley.
Her clock ticks towards midnight and the fire crackles, log after log reduced to embers and ash. Her eyes become weary but her breathing remains steady, calm, hypnotic in its rhythm. From the decade-old television in the far corner, a video of her father’s seventy-fifth birthday party plays with the volume turned down. Everybody there except her father is laughing and smiling and wearing a paper hat.
She is thinking about the son she loves more than anybody in the world and who has just left home for his first war. “But I’ll be back before you know it,” he said, while setting off the day before. “Until then, keep warm and stay safe, Ma. See you soon.”
“You will,” she said. “And don’t forget to wake me up when you get in. We’ll have that soup you like.”
Come daybreak, she is fast asleep on the sofa, moss-green velvet with yellow cushions and a dark brown throw. The room smells of burned logs, nail varnish and homemade potpourri. Grey curtains thick as shutters keep out the light.
Wrapped in her goose feather duvet, she sleeps for three months straight. While she sleeps, the heaviest snowfall in years blankets her roof and covers the road. It piles against walls, hedges and fences. Branches snap. Trees break.
Then, one afternoon towards the end of March, she stirs to the sound of a distant drum. Almost immediately, she throws off her duvet and rushes to the front door.
Half-blinded by the light, she rubs her eyes and looks around, but there is neither sight nor sound of human life. Just freshly sprung grass and wildflowers in all the familiar places and some places she has never seen wildflowers grow before. Here and there, residual mounds of frozen snow. She realizes what she heard was her own heartbeat.
She takes a deep breath and returns inside. Pulls back the curtains and sits at her table. The room smells of stale air and dust. A bird’s nest lies where it fell down the chimney into her grate. She glances at the photograph of her son on the mantelpiece, a school portrait taken when he was six. She clenches and unclenches her fingers. Repeats her father’s last words before he died: Where does the time go?
She gets up from the table. Stretches her legs and considers making some coffee. She thinks about food shopping, a manicure, a pedicure, a new hair style. She wonders if her old straw hat will last another summer. She decides to take a bath. Tells herself, “Everything else . . . after that.”