Ozymandias

She kept pulling and pulling. The fabric of the long-neglected blanket began to rip as her feeble hands began to shake. As the material, now unrecognizable as anything remotely hospitable, tore in half, the embedded dust and rot seeped into the air. Her nose filled with the newfound stench as in one last effort, she jerked away, separating what she was holding from the rest. As she fell backwards onto the pile of bins none have ever sorted amongst newspapers none have ever cared to read, she sobbed to herself. Not because of any injury, not because of the hideous mound compiled of forgotten memories and leftovers, not even because this defeat was another in a series she would soon forget, but because she tore her mickey mouse blanket, her favorite one, of course. It didn’t matter that this was one of her many favorite blankets and even one of her favorite mickey mouse blankets, nor did it matter that she had just now discovered it beneath a hill that had been building for nearly eight years. In this moment, her blanket’s lost form was gut-wrenching and certainly warranted the grievance it received. Once her funeral was over, she cast the now useless piece of cloth atop the same pile it was buried beneath.

Kathy was always thoughtful like that, and her empathy did not only belong with her wealth of soiled blankets. Whenever she wasn’t home, she spent her time at church or serving the Lord in whatever capacity she could manage. The small, white steepled building was modest, just the way she liked it. Every Sunday she would sit on the left aisle, third row back, about halfway down the pew next to Alice. Although it hadn’t occurred to Kathy that some may find it strange that her and Alice never spoke outside of church functions in their forty-year relationship, it wouldn’t stop her from calling Alice her best friend. Whenever it wasn’t Sunday service, Kathy would help at the church’s food drive. She lived off her social security and barely at that between tithes and birthday cards, therefore what she couldn’t pay in donations, she made up for in labor, and a valiant labor it was. The homeless would come to see her veiny, arthritic hands pour their potato soup as if God had ordained them as such. When the winter months came, she’d begin to feel the cold prick needles into her bony fingers. She never complained on account of those who came to see her and simply doubled up on mittens.

She felt good about her role in the world, as she should. The fruits of her labor stood in front of her every Sunday as those from the soup line made their way to the aisle beside her own. The pastor knew it was mostly because the church wouldn’t give financial support to those who did not attend at least three services in a row, but the pastor felt he would be quiet literally damned if he spoiled Kathy’s optimism. Besides, it wasn’t all in vain. One night during revival, Justin, who was once another junkie in the soup line and now a deacon, stood up during testimony time and spoke of Kathy’s reputation and how seeing her serve him with a smile on Christmas Eve convicted him to get right with God. That Sunday, the pastor spoke on “The Widow’s Mite” and had Kathy come to the front during alter call as the entire church prayed around her and thanked the Lord for her spirit. She cried and told everyone she was just thankful to get up every morning. That was a good day for Kathy.

Unbeknownst to those in attendance, Kathy was right, she certainly was thankful to get up every morning. Next to her bed was a meticulous pile of family heirlooms. Everything from old wall clocks to boxes of porcelain dolls whose original owner she couldn’t remember. Her morning routine was simple; she would wake up, grab her glasses, look to see if the precarious collection of goods near her had or was about to fall, carefully make her way out of bed over the floor of compiled boxes, and get to the open corner of the bathroom in which she would change out of her nightgown and start the day. Her routine mattered to her, even if she didn’t know it, this level of normalcy helped justify her peculiar hobby.

Kathy had one problem, as the police would later attempt to understand, she cared too much. Every person, word, and item were sacred to her. She embodied the spirit of charity and devotion in a way few others could. This devotion, however, was to a fault. Every tin can and broken bowl held irreplaceable value. Walking across treacherous piles of glass and cardboard gave her a sense of self worth. Every item in this collection was personal, and her specific misplacement created a mosaic of stories and comfort. Kathy wasn’t blind to her situation, she knew how others would surely feel about it, as she knew what her husband and son thought of her.

It had been decades since she had seen her son’s father. Things used to be better, they were married in that humble, steepled building and the house was fit for a couple of lovebirds, of course the floor and walls were visible back then. As her husband began to spend more hours at work, she began to find more collectibles here and there. This led her husband to stay away more which led to her further collection until this hopeless dance ended with a note and an empty driveway. Kathy tried to confide in her son, but he had grown equally tired of her addiction. Everyday the kids at school would call his mom a hoarder along with other various slurs unbecoming of such a devout Christian. The words never bothered Kathy, nor did the odd looks and whispers from neighbors, however it seemed that all the grief fell on her son.

Then one day, not long after his fifteenth birthday, he was gone. She fought past the garbage bags gathered around his room and looked inside to see the idols of trophies and photo albums she had accumulated in his floor cast down, and scattered with rage into one, shapeless heap. Unlike his father, her son had not left a note nor any other indication of his whereabouts, no doubt a symbol of his absolutism, indicated by the disrespect for the belongings in his room. Kathy cried for him, then for her broken things in his room, then him again.

The one area untouched by her compulsion was Kathy’s prayer closet, or as she called it, her war room. A modest space no more than four feet in any direction occupied by only a crucifix, her good Bible, and her Sunday dress. That dress was as close to vanity as Kathy could manage. One untouched artifact amongst a coliseum of ruined goods. Every Sunday she wore that dress and sat in attendance to recognize what God knew, no one there was better than her and neither was she than anyone. Every morning she knelt in that war room and prayed for her son, her Sunday dress gently grazing her head. She prayed that the Lord would guide him and give him direction wherever he was and that maybe he would find his daddy. She never prayed that her son would come back to her, God was a miracle worker, but some things are beyond reason. Still, she would wonder about him. Some days she would imagine he found a girl and smile at the thought of her grandkids, other days she would think him a pastor and fantasize about the works he had done for the Lord. In her seventeen years of imagination, not once did she ever consider his fate anything but spectacular.

She was content to live this way. Alone, a king amongst her castles. However, unlike Alice and Justin who saw her as the kind, righteous woman, her neighbors believed her to be a decrepit hermit. The smell had begun emanating from her house and the kids walking to the bus stop were the first victims. Some horrid combination of mold and to-go boxes created a cocktail of awful. The kids began to tell stories of an evil witch that hides bodies in the basement and steals little children who miss the bus stop. Coincidentally, the corner by Kathy’s house boasted the most successful bus route in the county.

While innocent at first, stories become rumors and rumors become belief. The parents of the neighborhood began to talk about Kathy. Mothers did what mothers do and talked in circles about how something should be done and someone should do it, while fathers did what fathers do and walked by the house at least two times each, ready to brawl any beast that were to approach them. Of course, all of this strife could have been solved with a simple door knock or church visit in order to see that the big bad wolf is something much closer to little red’s grandma, however that would take all the fun out of a good game of gossip.

While this was all harmless for some time, if not rude, that all changed one Halloween. It was tradition for Kathy to sit at her front porch and hand out king-size Hershey bars to the approaching children. However, this year, the smell had grown so rancid that even Kathy’s generous offering was not enough to get kids to enter her front yard, and so she sat there, alone with her chocolate. One of the kids ran home and told their mother that they had seen Amy Crabgrass get dragged into the stinky house by the creepy old witch. Of course, Kathy did not kidnap Amy Crabgrass, nor did this child even know Amy Crabgrass, but it was Halloween and perhaps one too many urban legends led this mother to believe her mischievous son, devil costume and all.

The police arrived at Kathy’s house and quickly realized that she had, in no way, hurt Amy Crabgrass or any other kid for that matter; however, they realized the smell first. They told Kathy that they were going to call the health department, to which Kathy protested with all the fury of a sixty-eight-year-old Baptist widow. Nevertheless, the officers’ minds were made up and after weeks of notices filling her unchecked mailbox, the health department arrived at Kathy’s doorstep.

She had made no preparations for their visit, nor did she expect to make any changes after their departure. She simply stood in the front lawn as the men did their job. That was until she was told that they would be throwing things away or else Kathy would lose her home. She was devasted, the information almost too much to process. Men in PPE walked to and from her home, carrying boxes that meant nothing to them and a weight that was too little. For the first time that she could remember, Kathy felt something close to anger. She watched as uniforms hauled out picture frames they would never know the placement of, dolls of which they would never know the name, clothes that could be worn given a slight wash, empty boxes that could make for excellent storage, and gifts that each carried a story. Kathy fought back in the best way she knew how, with prayer and kind words. The clean-up leader, while polite, was absolute in his decision. Words like “mold” and “hazard” meant nothing to Kathy, at least not at the expense of her hoard. Just as she began another round of niceties. The man received a call on his radio that made him take off inside. There was a commotion of odd looks and whispers around Kathy until a police cruiser showed up. After the officers stepped inside, there was about six minutes of anticipation as the air filled with silence. Then, the combined crew stepped out.

There, in the arms of the clean-up leader, was the skeleton of a young boy, no older than fifteen. From out of a pile long untouched through a hallway now cleared, the group followed behind like a funeral precession. The body was something closer to a mummy than a corpse. What was once skin and flesh had become a dried paper gently laid across bones. Any resemblance to the child before was gone and replaced with utter stillness.

This information was beyond Kathy’s comprehension. Years of prayer now meant nothing and nearly two decades of hope had turned up worthless. Her mind ran, far away from this new truth and the notion of what his final hours must have been like beneath an avalanche of her own design. Her mind found another problem, one awful yet digestible, she looked at the empty body for some time and then glanced up at the man holding it. Through her denial she spoke, her voice was shaky yet desperate, “Can I keep my Sunday dress?”

Thank you to my producers!

Benjamin Allen

Publius Rex

Tim Freelove

Eddie Shoemaker

Pef

Kayla

Saucy-Deluxe

Alexander Goodwin

Kade Koster

TacitRonin

Benjamin Konikoff

A very special thanks to Kayla for watching reality TV with me and giving me this idea, Love you lots <3!

Let me know what you all think!