Things Cosmic : Part one of a short story series

“They come from the dead,” my mother says, “but do not fear the dead.”

My mother holds a lipstick tube in her hand, passed down through generations; my family uses the lipstick to talk to each other, even if they’re dead.

“Only at midnight.” She quips.

The lipstick is blue-green like sea moss in the ocean, and the moonlight through the open window makes the colors look murky like waves. The tube is black, like my mother’s skin and eyes in this lighting. She’s wearing white, and I don’t know how she could not be cold because I’m shaking in the breeze, just like the white curtains made from the same material as my mother’s clothes.

My mother and I have always talked to our ancestors at midnight, during each full moon. To me, it feels like being forced to talk on the phone to a cousin I’ve never even met. The only thing I like about this is the lipstick.

“Here,” my mother puts the lipstick in my hand, and I reach up to carefully trace my lips’ outline.

“Like this?” I ask.

“Yes, make sure you coat your lips well, or the magic won’t make the portal through your mouth.”

This lipstick is a kind of magic that works through portals. We open up a weak portal to the ancestors that can only stay open as long as the moonlight is shining. My mother says we talk to our ancestors because we don’t have therapists. We’re supposed to unload our heavy burdens, cleanse our feet as she says, and tell them our dreams.

My mother always talks the most. She must have a lot of burdens. Last time she spoke about how she got a fishhook stuck between her toes and how the lighthouse woman had to help her. She crushes on the lighthouse woman. Says her skin reminds her of the earth’s red clay. For some reason, she always talks about her nails and how they match the ocean water’s color that day. “How does she do it?” she always asks me.

“Hoodoo ma,” I ruffle.

As I speak, my lips begin to glow. It is time.

Voices that sound like they come from seashells reverberate around the room. I spin to get the best look at the light pattern that paints the walls like the sun coming through a glass of shaking water. My favorite part. It kind of looks like the northern lights. My mother grabs my arm, steadies me.

“Honey, look, your grandma wants to speak to you.”

I groan and stop to listen, but as I do, a loud metallic sound cuts through the voices like knives twisting into themselves, the glow ceases, and my mother lays limp. It was so sudden that I only stand there in the awful quiet. It’s so dark that I could be standing anywhere.

“Mama?” I whisper.

No answer.

I reach out in the dark and pet the air until my hand finds contact with my mother’s shoulder. Warm, smooth, she is alive. I don’t know what I fear, but it seems that the connection with the ancestors was severed. I don’t know who…or what could have tampered with us.

As I run from the house barefoot, my feet, the color of a desert night, crunch dry marsh leaves. The humid southern night kisses my hair, and it floats to the sky. I am running to mama soup's house. Mama soup makes soup for all the people in our neighborhood, says we’re all family, and should feed each other. Her soup is so good it’ll hum to your belly a song of the most profound blessings. I think mama soup might have some answers for me.

Before I could knock, mama soups wooden door creaks open, and her old clay cracked face looks weary.

“Child, you too?”

My breath catches, “yes, mama,” and then I choke. And then I sob.

“Oh, child,” she croaks and pulls me close to her. I can smell bay leaves and oregano, roasted chicken bones, and lime.

“The spirits are upset,” she says, looking up at the sky. “They sense a static in the air. Like a storm coming, but not an earthly storm. I’m afraid this…thing won’t be something we’ve ever seen.”

Her words sound so far away, and then I remember the state of my mother again. “My mama! will she be okay?”

Her face changes, “What’s wrong with your mama, dear?”

I swallow hard. “She knocked out cold.”

Together we walk, briskly back to my home, where my mama is still slumped over a chair. We would run, but mama soup is old and has brittle bones. My mother is frozen in time, laying as I left her; the sight of her body makes me whimper.

Mama soup leans over my mother with a face of curiosity and reaches into her champagne-colored nightgown, and fishes out a half of a lemon. She cuts a piece of the peel with her fingernail and pinches it between her forefinger and thumb, squeezing citrus oil onto my mother’s cupid’s bow. Her body jerks, and from her orifices comes the brightest blue light, like ghosts, escaping her body. As if possessed, my mother’s mouth opens, and a voice, unlike this earth, says, “people of this land, I inform you of an incoming, an amalgamation of peoples. Your siblings from a planet not unlike this planet are suffering. The spirits have deemed your planet a solace. Please welcome your siblings with blessings. “The voice booms then goes silent, and all was like it was before. My mother stirs sleepily and rubs her eyes. “Mmm, what’s going on? Did I fall asleep?” She says softly.

Mama soup touches my mother’s face gently, “Everything is okay, honey.” Then, she stands up tall and announces to us, and others, we cannot see, “The spirits have told of our future. Our world, as we know, is about to change forever.”