The extent of worrying

The street lights turned on, and Natalie had not returned. Her mother furiously paced through her rooster-themed kitchen with a combination of fury and fear. It was hard to take her seriously as she was still wearing her rooster apron that Natalie had just gotten for her the previous week. Beads of icy sweat made their way from her forehead to her lower lumbar. She couldn’t decide whether she was more frustrated that her daughter had disobeyed her, or that she feared whatever situation her naive Natalie could be in at this moment.

Every tick of the old wooden clock felt like a knife digging into her. She used to value that clock like one of her children. She had been with it for years and she had a strong connection to it. But now, all she wanted to do was smash it, so she proceeded to do so. She had now murdered her child, and she had felt not one ounce of remorse. She thought that releasing her anger would help, but she felt just the same as she had 30 seconds prior.

The possibilities ran through her head faster than the cross country team. Natalie could be in the back of a cold, dark car. A cloth bag covering her face, which she loved most. The thought that her daughter could be losing the ability to breathe made her chest began to tighten.

She continued to pace around the frigid kitchen. She regretted turning on the air conditioning at full blast in an attempt to stop her from sweating. She didn’t notice that her excessive walking had caused her feet to bleed. The tile had scraped her bare feet to the point that her skin had become raw. The white tile had a trail of blood that had been smeared from her pacing the room in the same spot. She sat down, not caring about dirtying her new outfit. The hens and chickens that covered her apron were drenched in blood. She sat in her blood and looked closely. She stared to the point that she could most likely see the particles that made up the blood, and there were many. Why was the blood so thick? She thought. She couldn’t imagine all of that blood fitting into her body. She looked at the trail of blood, and all she could imagine was that her daughter could be bleeding in the same way. She wished that she could shed the blood for her.

As she looked up, she took an overall glance around the kitchen. She noticed that every portion of this house had a piece of Natalie in it. If her daughter didn’t return, how would she walk into this house without having an emotional break? The kitchen table was decorated with a cheap and scratchy checkered table cloth. Natalie had insisted on buying that stupid rag when they spent the day together at thrift shops. She looked towards the stairs and remembered the time that her daughter was only four years old. She had been so excited to visit her grandparent’s house that she had managed to slip on her socks and fall head-first down those stairs. She had landed sprawled across the floor, and her tooth was a few feet away from her. At that moment, she was convinced that the screeching coming from her daughter caused her the most pain possible. She never thought that Natalie would experience any pain more severe than that.She wanted to believe that she could still be right.