The Universe in Their Mouth

The Mother slipped sideways through the carved oak door. Thick carpet silenced her white slippers as she entered the unfamiliar bedroom, lit by moonlight shining through the open curtains. The wedding reception downstairs was still loud despite the late hour; the men had separated for cigars while the woman waited, locked in their hierarchical performance in the living room. She tightened the sash of her new, white silk robe and made her way to the carved oak bed in the center of the room. A small boy slept peacefully under linen blankets.

The soft bed dipped as she sat beside him, smiling down at his face. His chubby fist lay on the pillow beside him with his favorite marble clutched tightly within it. The Mother stared at the glass toy, smiling sadly. They had found the marble exploring the creek that ran beside the cabin they had lived in since he was born. Inside the glass sphere was a tiny rainbow, dotted with tiny bubbles. The Husband had directed them to arrive at his home that morning without any belongings, as he would provide for them entirely from now on, but she had been unable to say no to his tearful pleas to keep his prize possession.

The Mother shook off her lingering thoughts of the home they left behind and looked around at her son’s new moonlit bedroom. Beside his bed sat a wooden nightstand with a lamp and a new football. On one wall, windows stretched from the floor to the ceiling with embroidered blue silk drapes framing the night sky. Beneath it, a window seat lined with deep pillows beckoned to her. The nook was illuminated by the moonlight slipping through the shear curtains.

With a glance to the closed bedroom door, The Mother gently pried the sticky marble from her son’s tiny palm and held the warm glass sphere tightly in her fist. Her footsteps were silent against the plush blue carpeting as she stepped around the toy cars on the moonlit floor, the unfamiliar heavy weight of the new diamond ring on her finger clinking gently against the marble.

The Mother climbed into the pillow-lined window seat and pulled her long robe over her folded knees. The street below was lit with a gentle yellow glow from the streetlights. Turning to the evening sky, she stared up at the pearl sliver of a moon barely visible in the starlit sky. Peering deeply into the universe, she looked for the constellation of the Seven Sisters, orienting herself to its new position in the sky and thought about the day she met her new husband.

One of the women in town had left her husband for another woman. Her husband was convinced his wife must have been possessed by witchcraft. Whispers about the unmarried woman and The Boy with the Universe in His Mouth began after they were spotted frolicking in the river at night. Reports claimed they had seen The Mother dancing in the light from the moon shining from the universe glowing from inside of the boy's mouth. The town held a meeting in the town square. The Men had gathered around the boy, peering into his stretched-open mouth, and then slid their gazes to The Mother with small, cruel smiles. The woman whispered and stared at The Mother from the corners of their eyes. The man whose wife had left him for a woman sneered, “It’s The Boy and The Mother. My poor wife was manipulated by the ideas they put in her head. They must be punished.”

The Husband had spoken the loudest. “The Boy is too important to not have a father. The Mother needs protection and it is my duty to assume responsibility.” The town had grumbled and whispered, but as the wealthiest man in town, no one had challenged his words. Not even The Mother.

The Mother tilted her face to the sky, the moonlight illuminating the sleeping child behind her, as a prayer tumbled from her lips and all of the Seven Sisters glared back at her through the darkness.

“Please forgive me, my Sisters, I have failed us. My son’s universe is no longer his own. Our future belongs to those who worship profit and punishment. I am the first victim of the universe my husband will use my son to build. But I am weak, I will let them erase me because I love my son. Because I know they erased him, too.”

Tears dripped freely now down her cheeks onto the white silk robe. The Mother held her palm out flat, moonbeams catching the bubbles in the glass marble nestled in the center of her hand. Shooting light flickered from the sphere.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, The Mother slid from the cushioned bench and held the marble up to the light, staring at the faint moon through the tiny sphere. The rainbow swirled inside of the little toy and refracted into a million shards of vibrant light, illuminating the room with a flash of color before casting the bedroom into back into darkness as it faded.

With a heavy sigh, The Mother tightened her robe tie and returned to her son’s bedside. The Boy's sleeping body twitched, his eyelashes fluttering against his chubby toddler cheeks, as she clasped her hands together tightly.

“Smok, keeper of the story.

Through the valley that once sang your name,

Through the ashes of those who kept your flame,

I call to you.

You sacrificed yourself so the light could shine-

So that the universe might speak our stories again.

I beg you to grant this one last prayer:

Protect my son’s light, so that one day, he can choose.”

Leaning down, The Mother tucked the marble back into his fist and then kissed his cheek before slipping from the quiet room to prepare for her wedding night.

The click of the bedroom door echoed throughout the room. The glittering response of the Seven Sisters caught the iridescent rainbow inside of the marble, illuminating the room in a magnificent swirl of colors. Dancing light swirled around the sleeping boy. Inside of the glass sphere, the rainbow pulsed a final time before the marble faded and the room grew dark once more.