Good things come to those who wait.
The chide a sagely voice whispers in my head.
With gritted teeth, I heed the call.
You're right. I place my charging phone back on the bedside table.
Always the obedient child to a formless parent, it has been like that since I could remember.
In fact, I hardly remember anything.
Upon that realization, chaos ensues; threatening to break the balance I had carefully built upon myself.
In a desperate task to reclaim equilibrium, my mind starts to make a conversation with myself. Questions spill all over, needing answers to anchor onto.
Where did I come from? Who was my mother?
As natural as breathing, her name comes to mind: Cecilia.
She was beautiful.
How did you know? Another voice asked me. Its tone rang like a glint of a sharp knife hidden carefully in the depths of a jacket.
My mind scrambles to look for an answer, a response to solidify my claim but nothing comes to mind.
The wish to know urges me to swim deeper into the recesses of my mind. Give me a memory of her. Just something that I could see about her.
Cecilia. Cecilia. Cecilia. I repeat her name like a mantra, trying to evoke memories I had with her.
Abyss faces me, dark and unforgiving. My will slowly resigns to the fact that my own mind was never a friendly face to me.
Wrong. How'd we be here if you aren't.
Another voice, a quiet one, speaks to me as I feel the strength slowly leaving me.
You're no help. Just like the others. I spat bitterly as I begin to chain myself in the links of despair of not wholly knowing who I am.
Yes. I am of no help but I remember her.
The voice says to me. Numbly, I acknowledge that it seldom talks in the chorus of the others.
"Are you ready?" A firm feminine voice speaks. It wasn't as soft as the sagely voice that chides me every now and then but it beckons me just the same.
I turn back to see knees and green heels. My eyes trail up to see a floral dress of white with green flower prints then finally a face I've always loved to look at in my photo albums.
Cecilia. My mother.
She had the darkest of brown eyes that I've ever seen. It was a kind of dark that was compelling not terrifying.
Ignorant of my enthrallment, I see her knees bend down and her face was now a good distance from mine.
"What did I tell you about socks again?" One red-manicured finger points to my shoes. My eye followed and saw my sloppily-worn white socks.
With a start, her arms reach out to my side and hugs me close, effortlessly carrying me by her hip. I feel myself being made to sit on a sofa with my feet dangling at the edge.
She removes my shoes and then my socks. Her hands bunches up one of the pair. Her hand shows me the rumpled sock.
"Bunch it up and slide it on your foot. Make sure you know which part goes to your heel." She speaks as I watch her, donning me with a sock.
"You try the other one." She hands me the other of the pair. I could feel the springy feel of her palms. The back of her hand was soft but the skin slightly translucent as I see faint veins and splotches of freckles. Her hands are warm to touch and then everything went white.
In a blink, I was back at my darkened room, my phone silently charging by the bed table.
"Thank you."
I murmured to no one in particular as my eyes trickled with tears of relief.