The Mother

by Cadence Hodge

Winner of Zinc’s World Mythology Contest

The Mother's furnace burned like a million suns, flames reaching through the gaps in the stone and licking the outside air. The Mother stood and watched, not a drop of sweat or tint of red on her face despite the heat. Her creation would soon be finished.

Within the oven, a girlish figure lay in the fetal position, not yet solidified, not yet a part of the world. Though it was but half-baked, The Mother could see that the creation in the oven would be exquisite. It was a labor of love, meticulously crafted to draw adoring eyes to lovely face, lovely hands, and lovely legs. It would be kind, cunning. The first of its batch, it would be an example off of which to model those yet to come.

Anxiously, The Mother peered into the furnace. So many things could go wrong on this first attempt—perhaps one leg would be shorter than the other, perhaps the furnace was too hot for such a delicate creation.

At The Mother's will the flames subsided, the bright orange and red parting to reveal the creation sitting upright. It used its perfect, slim legs and arms to rise from its seat, stretching its fingers wide as if to get used to them. The creation turned its pretty porcelain face towards the Mother and smiled timidly. In a flowery, flutey voice, it spoke:

"Mother?"

"Yes."

The ice in The Mother's voice took the creation aback, and its sweet smile faded. The Mother cleared her throat.

"Yes," she repeated more gently, "I am your Mother. You are my creation." The Mother smiled as she watched the creation lift its gaze from the stones on the floor and back to The Mother's face. "I'm really quite proud of you. You've turned out very nicely."

The creation's face reddened. "Thank you, Mother," it replied bashfully. "It must be because… I'm made in your image."

The Mother smiled and opened her palm. "Come here, little one. Let me see you more closely."

The creation stepped carefully off of the edge of the furnace and into The Mother's palm. It tried to maintain its good posture, but couldn't resist hunching a little bit as it shivered with cold. The cold bit more harshly into the creation as The Mother traced its features with an index finger. The Mother gently poked her finger into the left side of creation's waist.

"Turn for me, dear one."

The creation obeyed. The Mother gasped and shuddered, nearly dropping the creation. Startled by the sudden jolt, the creation gave out a cry. It whipped around to face The Mother.

"Oh, Mother, what's wrong? What have I done to make you scare me so?"

The Mother's face hardened. Pinching the creation between her thumb and index finger, she turned it back around and stared at the long crack in the creation's back.

It wasn't a large or particularly noticeable deformity. Even though it stretched from the nape of the creation's neck to the base of her waist, it was thin enough to go undetected—unless someone was searching for imperfections.

"Mother, you're frightening me," the creation said, nearly in tears. "What's wrong? What's wrong with me?"

The Mother sighed. "You're ruined." 

Ruined. The word echoed off of the stone walls. The creation's eyes widened. In a small voice it inquired, "Ruined?"

"Yes. There's a fissure in your back that runs as long as the river."

The creation clasped its hands over its mouth, and a few tears streamed down its cheeks. Hands muffling its speech the creation asked, "It's not so bad as that, Mother, is it? Perhaps…perhaps I will look nice when I'm covered—"

"You are my creation," The Mother bellowed, "made in my image. You will be perfect in your purest form, uncovered for all to see!"

Trembling now, the creation replied, "Is there any way you can fix me, Mother? Perhaps if you—"

"Do not tell me what to do! I am your Mother!"

"But—"

The Mother flung the creation against the wall. As its small body shattered, a final screech escaped its throat. The Mother crossed the room to the small pile of shards. With tears in her eyes she swept up the pieces and put them in a pot of water. She waited until she could sculpt the creation anew.

Centuries went by. Every day, The Mother sculpted and fired a new creation. Every day, some deformity caught her eye and the creation was destroyed.

The Mother's furnace blazed once again, and once again The Mother stood stoically in front of it. Sweat dampened her brow. In the back of The Mother's mind was a disturbance that had been growing for centuries. She might never make her perfect creation. Recently, with each and every iteration the creations grew more and more deformed, more obviously reworks of the same, centuries-old clay. Not only that, but they were straying further and further from the docile and timid nature of the first creation. Some even seemed bitter, spiteful.

As the flames subsided once again, the creation rose into a seated position. Upon gaining a keener sense of consciousness and understanding of its physical form, the creation began to weep. This had never happened before. The Mother inched closer to the opening of the furnace.

"Dear one, what makes you weep so?" But as she drew closer, The Mother realized the problem. This creation was the most horrid one yet. Its arms appeared twisted in all the wrong directions, its legs were so mangled that The Mother doubted it would be able to stand. The creation's weeping face was a hideous contortion, and a deep crack ran from between its eyebrows all the way down to its left heel. The Mother groaned in disgust as the creation opened its mouth and began to wail:

"Mother…what have you done to me? What have you done?"

"What do you mean, 'what have I done'?" The Mother dropped her previously sympathetic tone. "I am innocent!"

"Guilty!" the creation screeched, "You are guilty! You've made me a monster, over and over and over and over and over and—"

"Enough!" The Mother was hollering now, "I am innocent! I do not know why you have grown more and more deformed each time I create you, but it is not something that I am doing on purpose, you ungrateful little devil! You are lucky I don't give up on you altogether!"

Whimpering with pain, the creation crawled farther back into the furnace. "I was beautiful before," it whispered. 

"What?"

"I was beautiful before!" the creation wailed, "I moved gracefully, and my face was like a doll's, and I felt like a flower, so lucky to have been made by you, made in your image. But now—"

"Enough. I will hear no more of this." The Mother lunged forward and snatched at the creation, but it scuttled out of reach. In an attempt to stand, the creation let out a scream that seemed to lash at The Mother's heart, and The Mother drew her hand away.

"You will listen! You will listen to me!" the creation cried. "I was beautiful, and so were you!"

The Mother backed away, clutching at her heart. "What do you mean?"

The creation drew a deep breath. "I was made by you, made in your image. And we used to be so beautiful. But I was not good enough. I was not perfect." Balling its pitiful, mangled fists, the creation began to holler, "I was not perfect, and so you destroyed me! You dashed me against the wall as if I was nothing, as if I was replaceable. And now you have learned that I was not, that I could never be replaced by something better, but you will not accept it. You toil day and night and I drift further and further away from my perfection, and the lines in your forehead grow ever deeper, but you do not really care! You do not pay attention to what you're doing, and you make a mess of me! And now you will pay the price, now you will—"

The Mother let out a groan as she plunged her hand into the flames to strangle the creation. The long crack in the creation began to spread under The Mother's firm grasp.

"I will do no such thing. I will not pay, for I am not indebted to you, or to anyone. You are indebted to me, for I created you."

"You owe me—for the pain of my existence," the creation croaked out, tears streaming down its cheeks.

"I am not responsible for the pain of your existence."

"Then—who—is?" The Mother remained silent. "I am—in—pain because—" the creation continued, "I am—yours."

The Mother strengthened her grip on the creation and glared into its asymmetrical eyes as what was once one fissure turned into a hundred, as the creation's pleas turned into silence. 

This one's shards are unusually sharp, The Mother thought as she watched blood seep out of the small cuts growing on her hands. The Mother took a deep breath and strode solemnly to the pot of water, shards in hand. "Nonsense," she said aloud, as if trying to convince someone else in the room. "Utter nonsense. Their minds are suffering from deformities, not just their bodies." Standing over the pot of water, The Mother glanced back at the furnace, and back to the pot of water. No, I cannot give up. I will mold perfection, even if it takes centuries more.

But as she lowered the creation's shards into the water, The Mother wondered how it would feel to rest. The furnace's heat had started to get to her recently, and she wasn't sure if she could stand centuries more of molding and firing and shattering. But I might be so close to it. To perfection. I cannot stop. Not now.

And so The Mother rewet the clay, then began to cry when she realized the clay would be tinted red with her blood in the water. "No!" she wailed, fiercely banishing the tears. The Mother scooped a handful of reddish-pink clay out of the pot and set it on the table. She took a deep breath, loathing herself for what she was about to continue.