Martha Lane

Content Warning

declining mental health, child neglect

The cheetah crouches low in the grass. Black tears streaming. Her sunset eyes focused, fangs still tinged with the kill.

The hyena laughs. 

Snickers and snorts.

The cheetah hisses, desperate to defend what is hers. 

What was hers. 

‘Is the hyena going to kill that cheetah, Mam?’

There’s a pause and a sigh. 

‘Maybe.’ Her voice is soft, too flimsy for the weight of false promises.

‘Why does the hyena want the cheetah’s food?’

‘It’s just the way they’re made. Some animals are built to take.’

Mam sits on the sofa; her hands cuddled together on her knee. I can still smell the fish and chip shop we walked past on the way home. The tangy vinegar, like the inside of a packet of crisps, itching my nostrils. My tummy chews itself.

‘Do you want any food?’ I ask hopefully.

She shakes her head, says she isn’t hungry. She hasn’t been hungry for a long time. Which means I’ve been nothing but, for a long time.

I slide down off the sofa, crawl under the television. As if she’s really watching. I roll my shoulders. Dig clawed fingers into the carpet. Stay low until the kitchen.

Then I hunt. I pounce on cupboards, throw their doors wide open. The hinges screeching.

Forty-fifty per cent of cheetah hunts are unsuccessful. 

I open the fridge, hoping Mum won’t hear the chirp it makes. 

She won’t.

There is milk. Blue top, almost empty. Dad never used to get the blue milk, said it was bad for us. Said it would give us spots and tummy aches. I strike. I can’t reach the glasses, so I gulp straight from the bottle. 

There is a box of eggs, but I’m not supposed to use the oven. Dad showed me how to make pancakes once. There was so much shell in the mix that we couldn’t eat them.

He’d laughed. 

Snickered and snorted. 

He took me out for real pancakes instead. Thick and fluffy and covered in syrup. 

My stomach growls.

I take the eggs through to the lounge. ‘Mam, do you know how to make…’

The cheetah, backing away, bats her paw. Kicks up dust. Yaps with frustration. The hyena’s face is drenched with blood and satisfaction. Laughs some more. 

Mam’s knuckles are white. No longer cuddling, but strangling. I rush over and put my hand on hers. Eggs rolling across the carpet.

‘Do you want me to turn it off?’ I whisper.

The hyena looks down the camera, right at us. Dark eyes frowning. It doesn’t even look pleased. It’s taken everything and still it’s pissed off.

Mam looks down, black tears streaming.

Martha Lane is a writer by the sea. She writes extensively about grief, nature and all things unrequited. Her novella (about grief and nature), Lies Over the Ocean, is available on Amazon. Balancing too many projects is her natural state. Tweets @poor_and_clean