To love and to hate

A woman sat on a mat, her legs propped over each other, a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of whisky on the other. Smoke rolled from her lips, diffused through the air and gathered like a cloud in the house. The carpet she sat on was riddled by cigarette butts and ash. Her hands that always shook whenever she wasn't smoking held steadily on her precious items of debauchery. The hands were wrinkled, not by time but by her vices, while the nails were darkened by soot. She had stopped staring at her hands that were once manicured. However, before she stopped staring at her hands, she had stopped staring at her face once it got wrinkled by endless frustration and her teeth collected tar. Once a while, only once in a year or 2 years, would she drag her pathetic thin frame in front of a mirror and smile mirthlessly, her tarred teeth barred out, her wrinkled hands running through her thinned greying hair and her wrinkled face drooping funnily as her eyes gleamed in mockery. She hated her eyes, the only thing that reminded her that she was alive; that she was once beautiful and well taken care of. As the most beautiful and lively part of her body, her eyes retained their beauty and life despite the wrinkles. Afterwards, she would let out a hoarse laugh of helplessness which would turn into squeals of pain and tears.

The wispy-like woman crashed the piece of cigarette she had, lit another and dragged her feet to the kitchen, one hand still holding the whisky. The kitchen looked deserted with traces of thin cockroaches that survived on take-away leftovers until the time garbage will be taken out. Her gleaming eyes danced over the numbers written on the wall while her hands moved absentmindedly over her phone's keypad. She ordered chicken, her daily staple. Not really daily because she could go for 2days without food until the hunger beckoned, which it rarely did in view of her deplorable habits. Ever since her husband joined the dead, her soul and being died with him. She remained a shelf of herself. The only reminder of the love of her life was the eyes that always gleamed; the eyes he always loved to stare into. Her daughter was neglected and left to fend for herself.

'Mama, are you making an order for chicken again? You can't live like this'.

A sweet voice rang from her back as a fair hand grabbed the phone away and whisky on the other hand. Those manicured hands reminded her of her previously youthful hands. Her eyes opened wide as she turned back to look at her daughter as she grunted an 'uhu'. The look was fleeting and brief. The hands that had a phone and whisky grew restless after five minutes of being in daze. She grabbed a cigarette stick from her pockets and lit it up. The young lady who had taken out the garbage was confronted by this sight once she got back to the house. She looked at her mother helplessly and took away the cigarette.

'You have to eat first'. She said while dragging her to the water tap.

'Follow me to your sitting room after washing your hands'.

The young lady's presence had brought light in the house. The curtains were drawn, windows opened and a fan blew through the room, blowing away the smoke that had gathered within. After setting the table, the duo ate in silence. The utensils were cleared and washed, the fridge was emptied of stale food and fresh cooked food kept in.

'Try as much to eat what I cook, I need you alive', Binti said.

The old lady snorted indignantly.

'Don't think that I cannot read what you are thinking anymore. I can't allow you to die now, not because I love you but because I want you to see just how much the daughter you neglected has grown up'. Binti was harsh knowing that the woman in front of her neither wanted her care nor pity.

Binti was her last born daughter, borne out of love and neglected as a result of losing the same. After Binti's father died, nothing mattered. All she wanted was to join him on the side of the dead. To be with her love even if it meant leaving the reminder of her love. Binti's rich dark hair and defined jawbone reminded her of her beloved whereas her eyes and physique was a mini version of herself. The fact that very little about Binti reminded her of her husband broke her more. The last straw of her sanity was the few barely discernible traces of her husband. She stopped looking for her husband in her daughter. The more she stopped looking at her daughter for her husband, the more she sank into her memories to hold onto traces of him and the more she neglected her daughter. She resorted to cigarettes to deal with the anxiety that she experienced whenever she felt that she had forgotten her husband. She began smoking whenever Binti left for school. Eventually it became a habit and she would smoke even when Binti was around. Binti was taken away by her former husband once he received a call from her that she was dying.

Binti was found with a fever in a house covered by soot and smoke. The smoke had sneaked into her room and seemed to choke her. The woman who had given birth to her kept on smoking oblivious to her child's plea. After a brief glance at her, Paul realized that the woman he once loved and let go to be happy in love was gone. As much as she existed physically, her whole being pined for her dead beloved; that scene made his heart ache. He ignored the heart ache while the soulless woman ignored him. He ran into Binti's bedroom and carried her out to the hospital. Seeing her daughter slumped in her ex-husband's hands, a slight pain ran through her heart but she ignored it. Paul saw the fleeting change of emotions that were always reflected in her eyes. However, it was so brief and the soulless lady had kept on smoking as if she did not care that he doubted whether he had really seen it. Binti barely escaped with her life and since then, she had lived with her mother's ex-husband, occasionally coming back with food for her. It was a habit that endured for years and was not about to be crushed.

Her mother's take away orders were paid for in advance. Binti updated the list of restaurant's that could serve her, including those that cooked wholesome meals as opposed to fast foods. She knew that her efforts to get her to eat everything else but fast foods was futile, however, she persisted. She cleaned up the house, arranged clean clothes in her wardrobe and took the dirty ones that ought to be dropped at the laundry. Her mother's sheets were changed into clean ones and the house dusted out of cobwebs, soot and dust. Her mother's home, her source of nightmare and fear of enclosed places was the exception to the general rule. Though the source of her horror, it was the only place she stayed in without feeling suffocated.

After she was done, she headed out without any ceremony; no goodbyes and no take care, no fussing like other mothers would around their daughters. The only sound discernible after she closed the door and leaned on it was the cries of the woman she lost to love that came out in painful squeals and occasionally interrupted by bursts of coughing. She would stand on the door until the squeals died down, wiping a tear that would inadvertently fall, she would pick up her luggage and head away from the woman she loved and hated at the same time.