Parasite | Teen Ink

Parasite

August 22, 2015
By ellwist SILVER, Surabaya, Other
ellwist SILVER, Surabaya, Other
6 articles 2 photos 85 comments

Favorite Quote:
"They only let you be this happy when they're preparing to take something from you." -Khaled Hosseini, the Kite Runner.


My mother died because she needed to.

 

It was in our bloodline, our tradition. A human tradition. She bore parasites under her skin, fed them and raised them better than she did her own daughter, loved and hated them more than she did her life. I learnt of the news from the same source that I learnt of everything in my life—anywhere but my parents’ mouths. In this case, it was my grandmother. She stared at me with those small eyes, those dumb eyes, of a life wasted on ordinary, material things, learning nothing even after fifty-four years. Your grandpa was the one who gave it to her, she said, boldly. With all that smoke in his system, it’s a surprise only one of us got it.

 

I’d like to think the only people one can ever truly love are strangers, those whose flaws you’ve never got to call out on, those whose demons matter the least. Humans don’t love humans, they love concepts. Images. Little toy things to dissect, think over, without ever encountering them. That’s the only way I ever loved my grandfather: as a concept. One of the headless dolls I used to play with when I was five.  The most vivid memory I’ve ever had of him is as a dying man, waving carelessly at a little girl in Dora the Explorer nightgowns behind a surgical window. The rest was blurred, history. Immortalization. A grave was dug, a magnificent headstone made. With them, a story, a human being transcending into a deity. The only way my little brother will ever know about my grandfather is behind the glass frame of a portrait, hanging above his favourite antiques. And I’ll always look behind that frame, and think of it as a window into both death and eternal life. I’ll never think of him as a man. He’ll never be a man, to me. He’s always ever been a thought experiment.

 

I love you, mum, I told her, the day she was about to die. The day our college funds ran dry trying to keep her alive, to attach artificial lungs and electric life into her. I love you, so very much. Her eyes were the glass I’ve been looking through since my grandfather, broken and empty despite being whole. I stared into them for as long as the nurses allowed me to, and that’s how I knew; my mother was never going to be a woman again. She was never going to be a person or even a corpse. In my mind, in my brother’s mind, she’ll always be the heroine of a legend, fighting and dying valiantly against a parasite she’d nurtured just the same. A myth. A Hans Andersen fairy tale.

 

Her skin was cold, the night she died. I’d never seen a dead body before. I’d seen my grandfather’s closed casket, his body descending into the empty abyss where he’d fly upward into paradise, but I’d never seen his closed eyes. His grim demeanour. The gray of his complexion. The only thing I’ve ever learnt in Sunday school is that the Lord made man out of clay and there was no room to be human in the land of God, and the former was confirmed immediately after I’d met my first cadaver. I could almost feel His hands, shifting the material, planting coal and bits of earth into my mother’s eyes, her smile that stretched kilometres that the world so unfairly shamed, carving just a little bit in the chest to place a maggot in. A creature. A dragon to be slain.

 

Genetics never did anything wrong. They carried the little deaths, the mutated, indiscriminately, without thinking anything of it. It’s our fault, after all. We’ve birthed parasites into the earth, handed them crowns, fed them feasts. And we’ve passed it on, like an heir to the throne, monarchs of the sovereign nation blessed by the Lord. God save the queen. God save us all.

 

I will no longer stand for it. A year after my mother’s death, a year after a plague of thought, I’ve come, eye to eye, with the fact that I am going to die. I have faced the fact that I will, just like the generation before me, be a portrait behind glass frames, a woman waving at the reaper from the surgical room. I am going to die. Simultaneously, I am going to live forever. But I will make certain that the parasite never does.


The author's comments:

A personal piece involving my late mother. Written for an English class. 


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This article has 12 comments.


ellwist SILVER said...
on Nov. 6 2015 at 9:29 am
ellwist SILVER, Surabaya, Other
6 articles 2 photos 85 comments

Favorite Quote:
"They only let you be this happy when they're preparing to take something from you." -Khaled Hosseini, the Kite Runner.

Thank you!

A-C-Y BRONZE said...
on Nov. 5 2015 at 9:04 am
A-C-Y BRONZE, New Taipei City, Other
2 articles 0 photos 25 comments
I really loved it. It hit home and felt real with a certain amount of impact. Really nice, keep writing! You are very talented :)

ellwist SILVER said...
on Oct. 19 2015 at 3:52 am
ellwist SILVER, Surabaya, Other
6 articles 2 photos 85 comments

Favorite Quote:
"They only let you be this happy when they're preparing to take something from you." -Khaled Hosseini, the Kite Runner.

Honestly not one of my best works. I suppose the editor's liked it, because terminal disease's become the newest romantic endeavour (death's always been somewhat romanticized.)

on Oct. 18 2015 at 10:11 pm
Temperance SILVER, Austin, Texas
5 articles 0 photos 13 comments

Favorite Quote:
"The facts of this world seen clearly, are those seen through tears." -Margaret Atwood

Dark, enigmatic and beautiful. I really enjoyed it, and keep writing! Really, thank your for sharing.

ellwist SILVER said...
on Aug. 30 2015 at 12:12 am
ellwist SILVER, Surabaya, Other
6 articles 2 photos 85 comments

Favorite Quote:
"They only let you be this happy when they're preparing to take something from you." -Khaled Hosseini, the Kite Runner.

Thank you!

on Aug. 29 2015 at 11:46 pm
mahomie_d BRONZE, Lewisville, Texas
2 articles 1 photo 2 comments
This is absolutely amazing, I want to read it over and over agin! You wrote this very well, don't ever stop writing.

ellwist SILVER said...
on Aug. 29 2015 at 10:17 pm
ellwist SILVER, Surabaya, Other
6 articles 2 photos 85 comments

Favorite Quote:
"They only let you be this happy when they're preparing to take something from you." -Khaled Hosseini, the Kite Runner.

Thank you!

on Aug. 29 2015 at 2:54 pm
addictwithapen PLATINUM, Norfolk, Virginia
21 articles 14 photos 163 comments

Favorite Quote:
"I'm at it again as an addict with a pen." - twenty one pilots, addict with a pen

This is beautiful and very well written. Good work!

ellwist SILVER said...
on Aug. 29 2015 at 12:48 am
ellwist SILVER, Surabaya, Other
6 articles 2 photos 85 comments

Favorite Quote:
"They only let you be this happy when they're preparing to take something from you." -Khaled Hosseini, the Kite Runner.

Thank you for the comment!

on Aug. 28 2015 at 1:19 pm
Jtatsu PLATINUM, East Brunswick, New Jersey
26 articles 0 photos 77 comments
Your writing was truly mesmerizing, keeping me from taking my eyes even once off the screen. I loved all the unique little details; the concepts, the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales, the artificial lungs and electric life... Honestly, all I can say is good job! I liked the flow and portrayal of your ideas, and especially how you portrayed complex ideas like life and death as the paradox we humans know it to be.

ellwist SILVER said...
on Aug. 27 2015 at 4:44 pm
ellwist SILVER, Surabaya, Other
6 articles 2 photos 85 comments

Favorite Quote:
"They only let you be this happy when they're preparing to take something from you." -Khaled Hosseini, the Kite Runner.

Thank you for reading!

on Aug. 27 2015 at 2:57 pm
SkippyPeanutbutter SILVER, Utrecht, Other
9 articles 0 photos 49 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;Happiness can be found, even at the darkest of times. If one only remembers to turn on the light.&quot; -Albus Dumbledore<br /> &quot;We&#039;re all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?&quot; -the Eleventh Doctor

yet another brilliant article! You write so beautifully; once I start reading it's hard to stop.