Morning Glory

The first thing I noticed when I saw her was her grossly oversized glasses. Her prescription was so high the frames magnified her already too-big eyes and they made her look 5 years younger than we were. I swear those lenses got bigger every time I saw them. 

Even across the room, her giant eyes found my gaze immediately. I leaned farther back into the armchair I was sitting on and crossed my legs that were on the ottoman in front of me. I considered putting my hands behind my head, cupping my head with my palms like people do in movies when they’re lounging, but I decided that was too much. I knew she was already angry, so I decided I shouldn’t poke the bear.

She peered through the little window in the center of the door, balancing haphazardly on her tippy-toes even though she was plenty tall enough to see through. I heard the knob turn, quickly and aggressively, the way she did everything.

“Oh, thanks for getting the door,” she scoffed as she pushed the heavy wooden gate open and waddled through the doorway. The hinges creaked loudly, something they never did when I opened the door. 

I said nothing.

The smell of muffins I’d just taken out of the oven filled the air. The scent of nuts and grains reminded me of my mother, and her morning glory recipe that I still use to this day. The large-framed glasses and the body attached made their way to near the edge of the counter, next to where my muffins were in the pan cooling.

Big bug eyes blinked repeatedly as she crossed her arms and leaned on her hip, expectantly. She was waiting for an apology. I wanted to tell her to hold her breath while she waited. The door behind her was still swung wide open and the breeze was giving me goosebumps, but I didn’t ask her to close it for fear of having to hear her voice again.

“I hope you’re not expecting me to speak first.”

There it is. That high-pitched raucous voice that haunted my thoughts even when she wasn’t around. It was almost entertaining watching her squirm trying not to speak. I had never heard this girl shut up once in her life, pretending like she wanted to was so bizarre.

“No, why would I expect that? Why would you come to my house this early with something to say to me?” I took my feet off of the ottoman they rested on and placed them flat on the floor, leaning forward in my chair as I did so.

The blue vein that stretched across the center of her forehead protruded dramatically and I pictured it popping right there on her face. The blood could drip into her eyes, maybe that would finally leave her speechless.

“I have nothing to say to you,” she breathed.

I looked down to disguise the smile that was creeping across my face. Apparently I didn’t hide it well enough, though, because she started going off about how disrespectful I was. Or something like that. I wasn’t listening, my mind wandered to focus on the smell of the muffins again. The fruits, nuts and grains replaced her words in my thoughts and I breathed deeply for the first time since she walked in.

She continued her rant, volume increasing, but I still couldn’t tell you a word she said. I looked at her protruding forehead vein and thought about it popping again. Despite how satisfying it would be, I decided that it wouldn’t be worth the bother, and that even that wouldn’t make her stop talking. She would instead scream, loudly, no less. It would be pitchy and way too loud, she’d yell my name and I’d have to take her to get help, or bandage it myself. The whole mess wouldn’t be worth having to be that close to her face. 

“You’re not even listening,” She sighed, “Why would you? When have you ever listened? To anyone?”

Something about this re-oriented me. I noticed the muffin in her hand, multiple bites taken out of it. Or maybe just one big one. She did have a horse-like set of teeth, I wouldn’t be surprised if she could unhinge her jaw that much. I noticed that her normal pink-ish hue of her cheeks was replaced with bright red. She screamed so hard it seemed to cut off oxygen to her brain. I wondered if she was a smoker. Surely not, she was way too uptight for that. Maybe she should be. Could do her some good to relax a little. Maybe she had asthma or something, her lungs had something wrong with them, for certain. She continued trying to insult me, to get a reaction. Against my better judgement, I engaged with her. I always found that ignoring her was the best bet, she usually tired herself out at some point, but something about her pointed comments made me want to respond. Maybe I couldn’t help it. 

The argument that ensued was both heated and dramatic, while being incredibly petty and unmemorable. I hated to play into the catty stereotype, but sometimes pettiness was justified. I can’t say I remember what was said, or even why she was mad, but I remember regretting that I let her get me mad too. We yelled over each other, as if not listening to what the other said at all. I can’t speak for her, but I definitely wasn’t listening to what she was saying, I had to assume she wasn’t either. Minutes went by, felt like hours, before she slowed down her pace she spoke at. If only she could type as fast as she could talk, she’d have a promising career ahead. Her pace began slowing dramatically, and I took it as an opportunity to get more words in. She fell silent with this unreadable expression on her face. Dismay, regret, confusion… terror. I thought I had upset her, won the argument, even. But there was something else.

Her face went pale. Not pale like how she looks stepping into the sun, like white and ghostly, that kind I knew well. This was different, she looked almost purple, like all the normal color had been flushed out of her cheeks. Her eyes popped wide open and they looked even larger than they already did in her giant magnified lenses. I’d never seen a person open their eyes that wide and I hoped I never would again. I was worried if she opened them any more I would start seeing the brain behind them. It was like her eyelids peeled back to reveal more and more of her bloodshot eyes, the wrinkles on her forehead shriveling at the force in which her face contorted.

Confusion filled my thoughts, and I was brought to silence with her, but I made a realization. I saw the same understanding cross over her face. 

She opened her mouth wide as if to speak, but no sound came out at first. This faint croaking sound filled the air between us, so silent that I might miss it if I wasn’t looking right at her. Her bulging eyes stayed on me, looking right into mine and for a moment I worried she was trying to make me choke too, with her mind. I never believed in anything supernatural like telekinesis or witchcraft before, but that piercing stare was unsettling enough that I considered the possibility. If she was trying to put a curse on me, though, she was unsuccessful. Her gaze finally left me when her knees gave out and she crumpled to the ground. She fell on her side, but adjusted to be on her hands and knees and began crawling towards me slowly, right arm outstretched, pleading for help. She was all the way across the room, and never reached me. 

I stayed in my chair, deep in thought, as I stared at the now cracked lenses that lay on my hardwood floor. Her final fall knocked them off her head and appeared to have broken her nose. The small pool of blood around her head that was now face-down on the floor made me suddenly grateful that she didn’t make it out of the kitchen. Getting blood out of carpet would prove to be a nightmare, no doubt.

I sat for a long while, just thinking. Minutes had passed before I stood up. I walked across the small room to the door, carefully stepping over the blood and the body that took up most of the floor space in the kitchen. The door was still wide open and the breeze was making a strange whistling noise. I closed it slowly, and noted how the hinges didn’t creak as I stepped over to the counter and took a still-warm muffin out of the pan. Finally silence. After all these years, it turns out the thing that it took to make that girl speechless was just 2 cups of almond flour.