Drowning In Silt: The Night Routine

Content warning: This episode contains very strong body horror elements from the very beginning.

Transcript:

One day, my mother peeled her face off.

At first I thought she meant to remove the cosmetic face mask she had applied, as she did every night religiously. 

But her nails went past the gooey white sludge and neatly punctured her skin. Those well-kept, well-buffed, polished and shiny indications of her stature snicked down, through flesh and sinew, hooked on and pulled.

When I realised what she was doing, I wasn’t surprised. 

Her Rites were coming up, and as long as I could remember she’d been frantically trying to hide her considerable age. She had spent years avoiding the Passage - and we both knew she couldn’t continue to count on her extraordinary luck so far.

That day, her nails barely made a sound. Not even a squelch. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, actually. Maybe a small wetness, a little sound of regret or resistance.

But nothing.

Instead, there was a smooth determined movement through the fleshy layers, halted only by the emergence of bone. A little bubble of dark, maroon liquid seeped out of each small puncture. Her fingers paused for a moment, and then contracted, and then she tugged.

She’d been so beautiful in her younger years. That beauty had seen her through so many Passages. During the rest of the year, the hawkish eyes of other women slid over her face, glancing off like a fist trying to connect with vaseline coated skin. They saw nothing they could attack, so they attacked themselves and each other. Year after year, she sat at the edge of the sofa, watching her friends get eaten alive on TV.

It was mandatory viewing, you see.

The morning after the Passage, they usually put on a great breakfast at the local town hall. You could meet with those who were left, talk and wash it all down with a coffee or a mimosa. If you felt particularly lucky.

I watched her mouth quiver into a small grimace as her fingers tightened even more and her tug became a yank. Still, no sound. Just that determined pull in absolute silence, her eyes facing themselves in the mirror.

Over the years, I’d heard so many stories of our neighbours who had found clever ways to hide or escape from the Passage. 

There was Jeanine, who had chosen to wander off into the woods behind her house. Her son was convinced she was still there, scavenging for sustenance amongst root and rodent. Every solstice, he would light a candle and spend the night outside, curled into a blanket, hoping she’d grace him with a brief sight. For days after, he’d say she just couldn't risk it, and he understood. That perhaps the next solstice she’d visit.

(To be honest with you, she’d probably been eaten by a boar. But I never told him that.)

Then Margaret, who chose to make herself a lavish meal, drank her oldest and best bottle of wine, and then gently passed her favourite knife over her skin, luxuriating in a warm, juniper-scented bath.

It didn’t really matter, I suppose. Perhaps the choice is what made these women feel like they had a chance of escaping their - our - fate.

But any of the crops Jeanine’s son ate could have been fertilised by her, and Margaret had been melted down to be added to the beetroot compost.

Actually, the beetroot had been particularly fantastic that year.

Sat on the edge of my mother’s bed, I wondered what she felt, as her fingers finally seemed to find purchase, and the first lift of her skin became apparent.

Like a small earthquake buckling the land up, the flesh of her forehead moved, then tore. That was the first sound that punctured the silence in the room. A scraping, like the rip of a fresh cotton t-shirt you would usually stem an accidental wound with.

My mother’s forehead split in a jagged line, and the bubbles of maroon liquid became little rivulets, carrying small bits of human debris down her face. The tear on her skin became wider, and the flesh rolled down slowly.

It reminded me of how tights used to roll off my hips after a long day.

Still, she didn’t make a sound.

A few years ago, the Passage had been particularly opulent. There were eight women who had been fed to the mulcher, and my mother had watched with a grim sort of silence. Her sister, born five years after her, was the last to go in. My mother turned the volume up at that point, but of course, there was only that year’s selection of music playing.

She’d skipped the breakfast the next day, choosing instead to lay in and rest.

Well. It was unusual for a younger sibling to be chosen for The Passage, while an older still lived.

Maybe that’s when she’d hatched this plan.

Sure, as far as I knew, no one had gone quite this far in trying to hide their Rites - but perhaps this was the safest route. How could someone tell you it was time for your Rites, if you didn’t have a face?

Well...no. I was lying to you. To myself.

Just like she lied to me, when she’d peeled my face off a few years ago. Lying was my mother’s favourite thing to do.

Lying to my father, as she ate him, bit by bit. Every day she promised this would be the last sacrifice, as she nibbled on a toe, a finger, a leg soaked in brandy and slow baked for three hours.

Lying to me, as she’d stripped my skin off, while I lay in bed, and she mashed it into one of her facemasks. She promised she’d share the tub of white paste with me so my skin could grow back, healthier and younger. But she never did.

And her skin didn’t stay young for long. Of course, I don’t quite remember how many years it’s been since she used those bits of me. All I knew is that the smattering of white gooey paste on her skin at that very moment was the very last of it.

The very last bits of me.

Even as the blood gushed down, she didn’t stop. She gathered more and more of her skin, and pulled. Pushed.

Pulled a bit, then pushed down. Pulled some more, pressed down further.

I didn’t think she'd enjoy being stuck indoors with me. I hadn’t been able to go outside at all since she took my skin. Indoors it was softer, and when I left bits of myself behind on the sofa or the kitchen table, I could easily wipe it up. I had no idea how I would get dust and debris out of the remaining parts of me if I left the house.

In fact, this bed was my favourite. It was covered in a thin layer of plastic, and it allowed for easy cleaning.  It was also deliciously cool. I often laid down next to my mother at night, and she told me stories.

Lies, I should say. But it was all that’s left of the outside. That, and the annual Passage I was allowed to watch with her.

I wondered if they’d come looking for her, or whether they’d just believe she went the way of Jeanine, and Margaret, and so many others.

I wanted to ask her, but she’d reached her lips, which peeled off smoothly.

That was the end of the stories then.

You could still talk without lips. It’s just that so many more bits of you fell off when you tried. It was better to just sit silently.

My mother was almost done. The roll of skin was past her chin,with  only a thin edge left by her ears. She’d probably get those bits later.

I could see her teeth bearing down, and then she yanked the roll of flesh very hard.

It split off just at the top of her neck. It was hard to see her expression without a face, but I thought her eyes looked relieved. Her shoulders sagged a little, too.

The blood had slowed to a seeping as she placed her face on her make-up table. Gently, she massaged it, her fingers moving in a circular motion, over and over.

I watched from the bed, trying to smile for the first time in a long time. It was nice to see someone else who looked like me, even if I felt sorry for my mother.

After a few minutes, she gently, almost reverently, peeled a tiny sliver off her face, and added it to the tub with the remnants of white paste. She rubbed it in, crushing the bits of her into the bottom of the tub.

Then she looked up, her eyes finding my image in the mirror. Slowly, hesitantly her jaw moved, and her teeth stumbled against each other while her tongue waved about, a lone reed in a well harvested field.

I knew she was trying to mouth that she would share it with me, so our skin would grow back.

Shh, I wanted to tell her. You can’t tell me any more stories, Mum. What remains of your lips are already falling off.