MacCulloch & Wallis. This is the label of the brown cardboard box, the first in the room, that started floating in front of me a few minutes ago.
MacCulloch & Wallis Haberdashery. I know it is empty since my mom used the last dressmaker's pins and threads to make me this unthinkable dress which I never bothered taking off though I wish I had.
The box is travelling around the dinner table and under mother's antique chairs, following the ripples of the water that is slowing rising. I can see now that the place is not as clean as my mum had claimed to be because the water is filled with dog hair and dirt that was hiding for God knows how long in the corners of the room, under the heavy furniture and deep inside the thick dark rugs that mum had bought on her last trip to Egypt.
In a few minutes I will be able to touch the half soaked, travelling box with my fingertips. Having a life of its own, it is travelling far and wide.
How strange for mother's box to be wiser than I. The water pushes it to the left it, it follows its will, the water throws it against a wall, it retreats. Yet, here I am sitting in a flooding house, all alone, watching a haberdashery box tour my mother's living room, with a gun in my hands...pathetic.
Unfortunately not all my mother's interests can fit in a box; sewing and knitting kept her company only when the moon was not at its fullest to accomodate her in grave digging, tomb raiding and witchcraft practicing in search of the one who will release her from the bonds of time that were already taking hold of her body as is usually the case for any person over fifty, something that my mother refused to accept.
It was on the arrival of another MacCulloch & Wallis box that she disclosed the fact that she had finally found what she had been looking for. She had found the man she had spent all her life searching for, the one that would grant her wish; a real, blood-drinking, 400 year-old vampire.
After tracking him down for more than 25 years she had found his ancient tomb, managed to wake him up and kneel before him long enough for her to present her desperate case. The gentleman in question, ' a wonderful creature of incredible beauty ' was moved beyond reckoning by her fiery passion to join the living -dead and had agreed to offer her his blood and take her with him, for ever.
"He told me he will come with the flood Lucinda, and when he does, you should not be here unless....." she said raising an eyebrow.
After that she started working on the dress.
The rain started on my way home from that meaningless congregation of tiresome youths and heavy spirits. The night was wasted rather than spent but that was unavoidable in the company of the young yet rich entrepreneurs of this boring city; mother urged me to attend AND wear the dress in question.
The rain grew heavier by the minute and some of the alleys were already flooding when my cab entered the driveway.
'MOTHER! MOTHER!' I shouted running from room to room but all I could hear was the rain slashing against the windows and doors with the force of a thousand whips finding holes and cracks in the walls I never knew existed....
....my thoughts exactly. It is the flood.
Why would I leave?
I have my father's gun to blast the impostor's head off the minute he walks through the door.....
The water is cold and I can feel a draft from somewhere. I can smell wet soil inside my very living room. My candle is dancing frantically against it. This isn't my imagination, can't be.
MOTHER....I do not want to immerse my feet in the icy cold water, I am so cold already.
MOTHER IS THAT YOU?
A splashing sound and my candle is out. Damn!! I have to light it again...something brushes against my naked knee. I'm on my feet, the water is so cold, my dress is soaked to the hips.
WHO'S THERE? WHO'S THERE?
A spark and the candle flame is resurrected. There is a face behind it, I am not alone in the room anymore. I lift my arm and push the trigger again and again.
BANG! BANG! I fall backwards on the velvet settee.
In a new flood of terror the words die inside my mouth. I gape at the man sitting opposite me and at the wide holes my bullets have inflicted on his jacket. Relaxed and smiling he places the lit candle in the bronze candle holder and sits back crossing his legs under the surface of the water. Another splashing sound and we are not alone in the room anymore.
"Lucinda.... why are you here? I told you to leave unless....." I follow the voice inside the room.
"Mother?" I stammer "Mother, get out!"
I didn't see her entering or walking towards him. Standing upright, her long black hair sizzles against the candle light, the woman stands behing his armchair and wraps her pale arms around his neck. Her full breasts, firm and round, settle behind his neck like ripe fruit while her ruby red lips caress his neck lustfully.
"Yes...it is me. Breathtaking right? she says and glides like a elegant gondola around him towards me.
"Look at me now, daughter!"
Like a marble statue she is, Aphrodite in her 30s. She turns around playfully so I can have a better look at her body, the water whirls fast around her.
She turns to him but he never tears his eyes off me.
"You should have left, now, it is all too late I am afraid.." she whispers looking back at him. "He wants you too. Which is not as bad as you think daughter..." she says and turns around to face me.
My teeth chatter, I am soaked to the bone now, the water licks my breasts and ribs, my hands are blue but I don't feel the cold anymore.
"You will die either way. You will drown and die or he will take you and live..." she says tenderly.
"Mother...please.."
I am not on the settee any more. My body is floating. I turn around and swim towards the window, she has lost her mind, she is not my mother anymore. My fingers lock on the window sill and push the window upwards but it doesn't move. I hit the glass with all my might. I hear screams that must be mine.....I swallow cold water, I can't move my legs, the dress is pulling me down..
A cold hand pulls me backwards, soft touch against my neck, sharp laughter from far away, I can't breathe, the water is too cold, he is pulling me against his body, the water turns red, the water is red,
DAMN HER! DAMN THEM BOTH!
...damn the flood..
