Mother of the Year

The mug slid across the table. The trouble was that Ryu wasn’t holding it, and no one else was either.

“No, don’t,” he whispered, though he wasn’t sure who he was talking to. “Please, don’t.”

As if on invisible strings, the mug continued its slow trek across his kitchen countertop, making a scream like a witch’s nail against a chalkboard, leaving a water smear instead of a ring. If it kept going it would soon meet the counter’s edge and tumble over, shattering into a million tiny daggers. Ryu couldn’t bear to touch the mug for fear that his hand would accidently touch the one he couldn’t see, then the awkwardness felt from the same thing happening in mushy movies would occur; he’d pull back his hand, but still remember the tingle that penetrated his skin. Still, as much as he couldn’t fathom making contact with a phantom, he also wouldn’t be able to tolerate the hurt in his mother’s eyes when she saw the decapitated mug, dead and not put-back-together-able.

There was no doubt she’d blame a six-year-old rather than a vengeful spirit . . .

The mug was at the edge now, still moving inch by inch. When it was see-sawing on the counter, half on and half off, just waiting to take the plunge, courage swept through Ryu and he took action. He launched himself across the kitchen nook and caught the mug in midair, his little index finger feeling the weight of the Mother of the Year keepsake in its entirety. He sighed as he placed the mug in the cabinet where it belonged, out of sight but sadly not out of harm’s way.

The spirit had a habit of opening the cabinets too, pulling open the drapes and cracking open the windows. He didn’t know what it wanted, what it had in mind.

“Ryu, what are you doing still in the kitchen,” his mother said, entering in her kimono-styled night robe. “You should have been in bed ages ago.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted. “I got up for a glass of milk.” He wiped the evidence that he had indeed had a drink from his upper lip and white-mustached-old-man Ryu reactivated his boyish youth.

His mother laughed. “Well, you better get back to bed. You have school in the morning.”

“Okay, mommy,” Ryu responded, marching right off to his bedroom without another word. He wished he could mention the spirit, but trying would make him seem crazy or bratty or . . .

The door to his bedroom was swinging open on its own, inviting him in. The dark waited in the threshold, attempting to beckon him with the smell of cozy blankets and the sounds of cicadas playing their stomachs just outside the bedroom window, but Ryu wasn’t falling for it. He couldn’t go in there. Something wanted him to go in and so he couldn’t. Couldn’t.

But mommy will be mad, a voice licked at his ear. She’ll think you’re a baby, that you’re a trouble maker, that you—

“No,” Ryu whispered. A lion roared within him and set him in motion, bravery seeping through his pores. He stood just inside the room and stared at the dancing shadows, willing his eyes to adjust to them and start to form the shapes he was familiar with. But instead of catching his desk and his bed and his giant plush puppy, he saw a figure standing just in front of him, in the dim moonlight from the window—himself, but . . . not himself, older.

“I tried to warn you,” the older boy said. About thirteen, he wore the same pajamas Ryu wore now, blue cotton shirt and bottoms trimmed in red. He had the same haircut, had the same scar on his face from Ryu’s first bike tumble, everything was the same . . . expect for his expression. He looked sad, but not too sad, like his goldfish got flushed, something he knew would happen because fish don’t live long but still felt bad about because it was alive.

“What do you mean?” Ryu asked his older self.

His older self didn’t speak again, only pointed back towards the hall.

Ryu felt a chill that had nothing to do with his other self’s ghostly presence. He retreated back down the hall, to the kitchen. His mother lay there on the tile, not moving. Ryu’s eyes shook with tears, the lion in him diminished to a kitten.

“I tried to tell you, to warn you,” the ghost teen said behind him. “I thought you would understand when I tried to destroy her “Mother of the Year” mug . . . This was her last year to live.”