Mummy Loves You Pt. I

Janice Jenning had dismantled every single fire alarm in the house.

She gazed up at the remnants of their plastic enclosures, still stuck to the ceiling. Bits of wires dangled out, like disembowelled entrails. If she’d been a more composed woman, Janice would have no doubt cleared all sign of them away. Would have painted over the ceiling once more, so that no trace remained. But she didn’t have the heart to do so — she’d handled the main issue, at any rate. The actual alarm parts of the contraptions. How long ago had that been? That day she tottered on a kitchen chair, screwdriver in hand, and pried the buggers off? Like manmade barnacles on an off-white boat.

She didn’t know if she broke the law by doing so, and she didn’t care. Let them arrest her if they wanted, what would it matter to her? Nobody had come and checked on her, at any rate. Not here, in the gloom of Litwich. And she didn’t imagine a fire would get very far with all the water that fell from the sky. She found it remarkable that the town didn’t suffer from year-round floods.

Janice didn’t have a death wish. Oh, sure, she had pondered suicide for a while — in all seriousness. But that notion never took complete hold of her. At some point, the idea drifted from her consciousness. No, she’d rather accepted that life was something she’d have to deal with. For the foreseeable future, at least.

No, the issue came from the dreaded noises they made. Only ever when her babies showed up — without cessation. And she didn’t want to — couldn’t — tell them to stop dropping by. What kind of mother would that make her? No, she loved her children. Loved to see them, even now. She didn’t see their scars, couldn’t hear their laboured breaths. All that mattered were their hearts — still pure — and their eyes — still full of innocence.

But when they did turn up, hand-in-hand at her bedroom door, the fire alarms went nuts. At first, they screeched their siren into the world. DANGER. DANGER. DANGER. But as the seconds tick-tick-ticked away, the sound warped, twisted. As their plastic enclosures melted from the phantom flames. The solid material turned to liquid, dripped down from the ceilings. And still, the alarm bleated on — but as the death cry of some wounded animal. Out of tune and haunting. Like those old birthday cards that played songs — when you left them for too long and the batteries died. The half-hearted attempt at the same old song somehow hurts the soul more than the absent song would.

So, Janice did the only thing that sprung up in her grief-tortured mind. Kill the alarms. It took a bit of work. When she removed the batteries, they continued to blink and bleep. In the end, she went at their microchips and sensors and cables with all she had. Hammers and screwdrivers and wirecutters. Until nothing remained but plastic shrapnel and electronic guts. She felt as if she might have gone insane when she attacked the devices.

But that night, when her babies came to visit, the peace of the house told her she’d done the right thing.