Narcoleptic
by Michelle Reale
I curled in the crook of my mother's knees. The room throbbed and hummed. I felt the vibration through the heart of me. The television nature shows played to no one. I was too old to suck my thumb, but found comfort there anyway. She breathed in her sleep like a steam engine, hissssss. The Argentinean lady next door was frying a fish. I could smell it like a far away place. Sunday was like another country. My mother stirred, stretched a thin arm and palmed a cigarette. I flicked the lighter for her. The Argentinean lady called her husband, who paced the noisy street with his hands behind his back, to the Sabbath table: Aieoooooo! I held my breath. My mother smoked the cigarette in lazy puffs with her eyes closed, her lids transparent blue, like delicate things, precious and unused. I twisted her cigarette in the ashtray and touched her cheek with my finger. The Argentinean lady called my name like she was praying in church. I kissed my mother before heading out to my dinner. I touched my hand to my chest, felt the thrum, thrum, thrum. Adios! I called behind me. I think she might have raised her hand to send me off. But maybe she didn't.
Michelle Reale is an academic librarian on faculty at a university in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Her fiction has been published in elimae, Verbsap, Word Riot, Robot Melon, Eyeshot, Pank and others.