The Final Outcome
Jackie had never met her birth mother, though she’d dreamed of her for years. Finally, she contacted an agency that was able to locate her mother, who, as it turned out, lived right across town. Jackie made the trip to her mother’s run-down tenement and stood there, working up the courage to enter.
“Oh, Momma,” Jackie cried, “I’m coming home.”
“Move!” A man shoved past her.
Jackie took a deep breath and entered the tenement. She stared up the rickety stairs and gingerly placed one foot in front of the other all the way up to the third floor, where she walked to apartment 3F and pressed the doorbell, waiting for the soft, velvety voice of the mother she’d dreamed of. Instead, she heard a gravelly bellow.
“Who is it?”
“It’s your daughter.” Jackie’s voice trembled.
Silence followed for three heartbeats before the gravel ground into her soul.
“Which daughter?”
It had never occurred to Jackie that there might be more than one of her. In her mind, she’d always shared an exclusive relationship with her mother. She spoke through fresh tears.
“You gave birth to me twenty-five years ago. They named me Jackie.”
The gravel ground to a halt as heavy locks clicked and the door groaned open.
“Momma?” Jackie asked the thing before her, which better resembled a blob in a tent dress.
“Momma?” she asked again, as recognition failed to surface in the thing’s eyes.
Before Jackie could react, the thing spat a wad of slime into her face.
“Gross!” cried Jackie, “Why did you do that?”
“From me you come, to me you shall return,” the thing graveled.
Goosebumps rose on Jackie’s flesh as she realized her reunion fantasy was crumbling.
“Hey, it was nice meeting you, but I have to get going.”
As Jackie turned to go, the thing opened its cavernous mouth and sucked her inside. Jackie flailed and gagged against its rancid breath. A large, wet tongue wrapped itself around her as she slid down the thing’s throat. She ended up in its stomach, where she could hear its heartbeat merge with intestinal rumblings. She curled up in the darkness and prayed for salvation. It never came.
It was another day and the thing belched as its doorbell rang. With effort, it raised its enormous bulk off a sofa chair and went to the door, bellowing in a voice as gritty as gravel.
“Who is it?”
Of course, the thing already knew who it was. They’d come in droves ever since it had enlisted with the agency. It was not their mother, nor had it ever been, but they were so desperate for that primary source of comfort that they were willing to believe whatever lies they’d been told. Little did they think as they extended their tentative fingers toward the doorbell that they were making a choice, and all choices have an outcome. Sometimes, in fact, the outcome is inevitable.
