Come Back Soon

With piles of crusty socks, the old cereal bowls of curdled milk and the mildewed towels, thirteen year old Mary's room looked as if a tornado had passed through and smelled of everything but cleanliness. Mary, on hearing her mother’s footsteps got worried about the state her room was in and quickly rolled her jackets and shirts and stashed them in her cupboard, as she was already given warnings by her mother at umpteen occasions.

‘Messy room’ was the something that got Mary’s mother, Mrs. Lockwood, agitated and rolling her eyes in frustration. “Mary, how many times have I told you to clean up your room?” On opening her cupboard all her clothes fell on the floor.  Mrs. Lockwood became red with anger and screamed at Mary who literally hid under her blanket. “Mary Lockwood, you filthy girl” “You will make up for your messy room.”  “But mom, why do you always torture me like this, says Mary”?  “I do not want to hear anything from you.  No watching TV and going out with friends for a month.”

 And there stood Mrs. Lockwood staring at the room. She slowly walked towards the cupboard took out the fungus strewn clothes, re-folded them and kept them back in their place. She glanced at the room and her daughter one last time and while going out, said “I’ll come back soon” and with this she closed the door behind her. After her exit from the room rats and cockroaches scuttled out of their homes and started nibbling on the torn bed sheets and the stale food on the floor and everywhere else in the room.

The stench of the room went out through the window’s crack into the garden and mixed with the fragrance of the white flowers.  Right next to the garden, were two men helping Mrs. Lockwood into a white colored van. The van’s body read, ‘Holby City Mental Hospital’. Mrs. Lockwood waved goodbye as the van drove away.  Mary’s mother was suffering from mental illness for the last 15 years, but she would visit her home once a year and have a scuffle with Mary on the state of her room.