Maintenance

She was born to a world-weary mother and a quick-tempered father, both of whom smiled upon her in greeting of the world outside the womb. They named her Maya, and that was the sequence of syllables to which she gurgled and cooed. She liked these two unimpressive people; they tickled her toes and sated the rumble in her belly, and were warm and gentle when she wanted to close her eyes. As she grew, they kissed her ouches better and helped her run and play.

While she was still growing, they lay down in the dirt and let it swallow them up.

That’s what Aunty told her, in scornful, squeaky screeching: your parents are DEAD and you should have gone with them!

Maya doesn’t see Aunty anymore, and for that she’s glad. However, Maya doesn’t see much of anyone, and it makes her unhappy. Everything makes her unhappy, from the food, the clothes, and the quiet, quiet afternoons, to the foreign noises in the building and the way the sun lies in strips on her floor. She resolves to take it up with the Doctor when she sees him again.

The Doctor is the type of man who does not tower, despite his obvious height advantage. He smiles like a friend would smile after not having seen their companion the whole summer. He watches the way a cat tracks a bird, ready to clip its wings.

Maya sits at the other side of the table, and when she’s settled, the Doctor takes his seat. The surface between them is a barren white, like the surface beneath them, and the surface above them. It helps to keep focus, he once explained. She had nodded her head with tentative understanding, nervous in her new home. Now, she quirks an indolent brow as he asks how she is doing.

“I hate it here, Doctor,” she says in the adolescent tone of you should know. “I want out.”

“You can’t leave yet, Maya,” he smoothly replies, reiterating notes he’s sung probably a thousand times. She hates how the song isn’t special to her; nothing in this place belongs to her. “Do you remember,” he continues, “why that is?”

“Because I don’t have a mom or dad.”

He looks at her with that probing stare, and she can feel the prickling beginnings of a self-conscious embarrassment. Just as she opens her mouth to speak, his voice slices through the stagnant silence. “How do you feel about your parents?” It is a measured question, heavy in implication. She taps the ground with the toe of her shoe and looks away.

“Um…” Someone told her once before that saying ‘um’ was a sign of stalling stupidity. “I… I miss them.”

His reply is quick, as though he’d known her response in advance: “What do you miss about them?”

“They were nice.” This wasn’t what she came here for. “Their— their eyes.”

The Doctor leans back in his chair, measuring her like he had his words. Her spine is ramrod-straight. She’s sitting nearly on the edge of her seat. She’s afraid of it, afraid she’s said something wrong.

“Maya,” he tilts his head a degree to the left, “how do you think your parents felt about each other?”

“They loved each other.” Automatically, she lifts her chin.

“All the time?”

“All the time.”

“They didn’t argue, nothing like that?”

Her world-weary mother and quick-tempered father. The ones who smiled at her and held her tight. “They were good people.”

“They were human, Maya.” She frowns at this. Humans were sickly, fragile creatures that bled and cried and hated. She shakes her head, prompting the Doctor to lean forward. “No?”

“They never argued,” she breathes, and, as though her words tripped some sort of mental wire, the images come rushing in: mother, father, the trigger of bills or eggshells or— well, it was white, just like the world is now— and noises akin to the groans and screeching the building makes, noises that grate on her ears and make her clench her fists; noises that humans make when confronted with any sense of pain.

“They never…” Mother, father, argue. She wants them to stop, but it only becomes worse as they turn their mouths to her, obscene gashes in the flesh of their faces that won’t stay shut— she’ll close them. She makes clumsy gashes but all of them are screaming at her, weeping red and crowding her ears; what can she do but make more? “They…”

More, and more, and more, until the room is quiet and the only movement is the sluggish drip of saccharine silence. Oxygen; she takes in a shuddering breath. The hush is ringing in her ears, so, so loudly, and she wants to break it— needs to break it— she pushes all the air out into a single declarative— “They never argued!”— and it leaves her panting.

The Doctor nods again, carefully, never breaking eye contact. This is a familiar scene, and, yet, he acknowledges each instance as a separate breakthrough; after all, her struggle to scream has been taking longer and longer every time. He watches her pale knuckles relax, her chest rise and fall, her eyelids meet. She inhales.

“I hate it here, Doctor.” She exhales. “I want out.”

Today’s session with Maya is over.

Written for a final assignment due January-oh-eight in English comp; it was supposed to be a theme of Hamlet and I chose death, but I think that I used the theme very loosely. I like to think it follows the same branch Hamlet did, though. Please, do let me know what you thought! I never got it back so I don't know how I was marked, haha.

Oh, Ms Williamson, this is Hazel fa' sho. Just in case there was any concern about that.