Perfect “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Perfect! Everything was perfect. Everything was always perfect. Everything HAD to be perfect. A room, as pure as a surgeon’s glove. Sanitary. Sparse furniture; plain and dust protected, stiff and rarely used. The armchair, the little rocker with the creak when it moved, plush and softened by use, a thin film of dust beneath it, like an old mother hen surrounded by cardboard chicks. That chair, host to a screaming infant nurturing in its soft sway, clasped firmly by its mother. A mother with a grip that seemed like a diamond, hard and unmoving, a grip that in reality was as fragile as cracked glass; could shatter in an instant. The memory haunted me. Replaying repetitively in my mind; changing a little each time. The child a little physically older each time. The mother becoming more fragile, less responsive; yet all the more over protective of the baby in her grasp. Not wanting to ever let it go. Like watching goldfish in a bowl, swimming in circles, slowly losing their colour. Like an advert for domestic abuse, I watched myself, not quite knowing what would happen next. Like an advert the scene replayed over and over in my head My mother; She sat there, motionless; staring at the wall. Always. The silence that screamed. The overwhelming silence. I tolerated it, telling myself she would get better. Start talking again. Care for me again. I tried so many times to shake her out of it, but something deep inside her loved that chair, would not part with it, and my conscience rebelled against me if I so much as thought of moving her. It confused me. The mother: now small of stature and insipid, flesh on bone with long dark matted hair, a bleak figure of parenthood in a greyed wedding dress. Then and now, not much has changed. Mother weaker, unrelenting. The child no longer a child. The care-giver becomes the one in need of the care. I spend my time reliving what could have been. How things could be. I feel a pang of regret for what has become my #life, when I think what she made me become. But with all that has happened, there is nothing more for me, she needs me. I often sit, staring. Thinking back, holding back. Trying not to think, concentrating. Sometimes, I swear I can hear the creak of the old chair rocking. But it never moves. Always, always when my head is turned, I hear it. Like she’s playing games with me even now. Like a game of peek-a-boo. I was never any good at it, even then, even now. I sigh, to myself, she never listens. Or maybe she does, but she would never say. I pull the blanket up to her shoulders, as she looks so cold and pale. She stays perfectly still, still no response.