My mother

My mother has started weighing the trash bags before she takes them out.

She bought a digital bathroom scale.

She puts the white Hefty bag on it.

She writes the number down in a little black notebook.

If the bag is over ten pounds, she gets angry.

Not annoyed. Furious.

She whispers to herself, “Too much mass. The foundation can’t hold it.”

I checked the notebook while she was in the garden.

It’s a ledger of weight leaving the house.

Tuesday: 8 lbs removed.

Wednesday: 12 lbs removed.

But the last column is terrifying.

It’s labeled: Target Weight.

The target is 0.

She wants the house empty.

Not just of trash. Of everything.

I noticed little things missing first.

The toaster. The spare blankets. The books on the bottom shelf.

Gone.

Likely in the bags.

I asked her where my winter coat was.

She didn't look at me. She was staring at the floorboards.

"It was heavy," she said. "It was dragging us down."

"Dragging us down where?" I asked.

"To the soil," she said. "The house is sinking. We have to float."

Two nights ago, I woke up with a sharp pain in my leg.

My mom was standing over me.

She had the kitchen scissors.

She had cut a chunk of my hair off.

A large chunk.

She was holding it in her hand, weighing it.

"Too heavy," she muttered. "You’re too dense, honey."

I sat up and yelled at her.

She looked at me with dead, flat eyes.

"I’m trying to save us," she said. "If we don’t get lighter, the earth swallows us."

I locked my door.

I slept with a chair under the knob.

But this morning, I woke up and the room was bright.

Too bright.

I looked at the wall.

The drywall was gone.

She had stripped it down to the studs while I slept.

And she was standing in the doorway.

She wasn't holding scissors this time.

She was holding a bone saw.

She was looking at my legs.

And she was holding the notebook.

"I did the math," she said.

"If I take them at the knee, we’ll finally be light enough."

I kicked the notebook out of her hand.

I scrambled backward on the bed, pressing my spine against the headboard.

“Mom, stop,” I screamed. “Look at me. It’s me.”

She didn’t blink. She didn't look at my face.

She was looking at my knees.

Calculating the angle.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I have a tourniquet. You won’t lose too much fluid. Blood is heavy, but we need some of it for the pressure.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a blue plastic tarp.

She shook it out. It floated down over my legs.

“To catch the mess,” she said. “We can’t have it soaking into the floorboards. Water weight is the hardest to dry out.”

I tried to lunge past her.

I’m twenty-four. She’s fifty-five. I should be faster.

But she swung the saw.

Not at me.

At the doorframe.

It sparked against a nail.

She blocked the exit with her body. She was trembling, vibrating with adrenaline.

“Don’t make me take the arms too,” she said. “I’d rather you be able to feed yourself.”

I grabbed the lamp from the bedside table the only thing she hadn't thrown away yet and smashed it against the wall.

“I’m calling the police!” I yelled.

She laughed.

It wasn't a maniacal laugh. It was a sad, pitying sound.

“The phone is gone, honey. The copper wiring in the walls? Too dense. I stripped it all out while you were at work on Friday.”

My stomach dropped.

I realized why the outlets looked sunken.

“Mom,” I begged. “Please. You’re hurting yourself.”

She stopped. She looked hurt.

“I’m leading by example,” she whispered.

She set the saw down on the dresser.

She lifted the hem of her oversized t-shirt.

I gagged.

Her stomach was covered in fresh, angry stitches. Crude. Done with a needle and thread.

And her side…

There was a concave depression where her ribs should be.

“The kidney was four ounces,” she said, touching the scar. “The appendix was useless weight. And I removed three ribs on the left side.”

She looked at me with pride.

“I’m doing my part. I’m almost floating.”

She picked up the saw again.

The teeth were rusted. Stained brown.

“But the house is still groaning,” she said. “I can hear the foundation cracking. It’s your femurs. They are the heaviest bones in the human body.”

I jumped off the bed, aiming for the gap between her and the door.

I shoved her. Hard.

She stumbled back, light as a feather, frail.

I sprinted into the hallway.

I ran for the stairs.

I needed to get to the ground floor. I needed to get out.

I turned the corner to the landing.

And I stopped.

There were no stairs.

Just a drop.

A twelve-foot drop to the basement concrete.

She had sawed the staircase away.

The wood was gone. The railing was gone.

Just a gaping, empty hole in the center of the house.

I stared down into the darkness.

And then I heard the floorboards creak behind me.

I turned around.

She was standing at the end of the hall.

She pulled the starter cord on the saw.

It roared to life. A deafening, mechanical scream.

She started walking toward me.

She pointed the buzzing blade at the empty space where the stairs used to be.

“Jump,” she yelled over the engine.

“Jump and prove to me you can float.”

I looked at the drop.

I looked at the saw.

“If you fall,” she screamed, “then you’re too heavy to live here.”

She lunged.

The blade nicked my ankle.

I didn't float.

THE END

I have something to tell you, i wrote my first short story book.

It's name is "THE PLACE".

If you want to check it out *click on the title*.

Thanks for you support