Operation Sanguine Luna

    It was another normal day. The sun was shining, and the weather was beautiful. Light sweater weather, that’s what my mom always called it. We were on our way home. My mom and I had just finished running errands like any other mother- daughter day. The car ride was smooth along the empty back roads of Greenville. And of course, our windows were down and music up. Our hair was flowing all around us. My mom let out a giggle as we sang out of tune together. We were unstoppable. Or so we thought. Then suddenly things go into slow motion and the color drains from everything. The radio sounding like its miles away.     This feels familiar, I’ve seen this before…      Then a ping hits me in my stomach, and I feel nauseous. I look over at my mom as her soft curls bounce all around her face. Then I look down at her moving lips but I couldn’t hear anything she was saying. I catch something dark from the corner of my eye as it darts out of the brush from the right side of the road. A dog.. No, It’s too big to be a dog…     “MOM!” I scream pointing at the large animal to get her attention back on the road and not me. That’s when things start to turn black, but I can still hear the loud squeal of tires, the smell of burnt rubber, and an even louder boom from the sound of crunching metal. Then when everything seemed quiet, the horn started blaring in the background without any end.     That horn.. why does it sound like it’s beeping now?     -BEEP- -BEEP- -BEEP-     The sound was so familiar. Almost as if it were…. My alarm clock.     I roll over in my bed and slam my palm down on my radio to snooze it. My eyebrows furrow and I squeeze my eyes tight. They stung so much and felt like sandpaper from all the crying I had done the past few days. I didn’t want to wake up. I would have loved to stay asleep forever and never live another day. I could feel my stomach lurk as my mind began to process that I was waking up from a dream. But was it just a dream? No, sadly it was reality. A reality that I was reliving in my nightmares repeatedly. The true reality was that my mom died in a horrific car crash.     Today marked day five without her. Well, I lied, today makes seven days. The first two I spent in intensive care from a concussion which took me two days to wake up from. What was I doing before the crash happened? Amnesia has stolen those answers from me. As I laid in bed, I started to day dream about that day in the hospital all over again. Waking up and seeing a hospital ceiling above you while being strapped to a bunch of wires with a splitting headache is a shocking moment to say the least. Little did I know that would be the easiest of my problems I’d soon deal with.     It became much worse when the nurse at the desk realized I had finally woken up. The white name tag had the name ANNA, RN on it. I can barely remember the nurses face but her name tag will forever be imprinted into my brain. I heard nothing Anna said after, “I’m sorry but your mother wasn’t able to pull through”. The most I could do was stare blankly down at her name tag.     Enough sulking… I begrudgingly slipped out from under the blankets that I had been hiding under. From the bed I took a few steps and stood in front of my wall mirror. In just a week I had gone from not recognizing myself. My skin had always been pale almost like porcelain, but at this point I almost looked transparent. The dark bags under my eyes so purple they looked like bruises. I had always been a bit above average for height which never matched my very tiny frame that seemed to be getting tinier. Death in the family is a great deterrent for your appetite, take it from me.     I raked my fingers through my hair and took in how dull my dark brown hair had gotten. The scar I got from the accident caught my eye again. I leaned closer to the mirror to examine it on my forehead as if it wasn’t the hundredth time I had looked at it. The wide scar dipped diagonally into my right eyebrow which no longer would grow hair. “Hello Ophelia, nice to see you..” I said sarcastically at my reflection.                                                             -----------------------------------     My mom and I had moved to South Carolina almost two years ago and this was the longest we had stayed in one spot. I guess you could say we lived like Nomads. Always wandering and never staying in one place for too long. This tiny house was just like all the rest we ever lived in. It was just enough space for the two of us. My footsteps creaked on the hardwood floor as I made my way to the cramped kitchen. I tried asking my mom several times why we moved so much but I never got a straight forward answer. “I enjoy traveling" or “look at the world we get to see!” was probably her most two over used responses followed up with a smile.     I looked around the kitchen and it was strange to not see my mom doing her magic with cooking breakfast. This was the part of the day we spent the most time talking. But now it was a sad reminder of what was. It was so quiet that I could hear the -tick tock- of the cuckoo clock on the wall. I grabbed the apron slung over the wooden chair and clutched it against my chest as I fought back a sob.     “I suppose now is as good of a time as any..” my voice cracked as I tried fighting back the sting in the back of my throat. I walked back down the hall a few steps and took the first door on the right to our bathroom. We barely had any counter space in here and my mom’s makeup was always scattered across almost every inch of it. I tried to gather myself as best I could. The outfit I had picked out was hanging on the shower rod. Most of my wardrobe was all black, but today, I wished I didn’t have to wear the color at all. Once I was dressed I brushed out my thick long dark brown hair that almost reached my butt and then cleaned my teeth.     The sound of magnet popping from magnet echoed as I opened the mirror to the medicine cabinet and grabbed my prescription bottle. It was the only one there. Since I can remember I had been taking this med. The deep blue capsule was my life line. Without it I probably wouldn’t have made it this far in life. “Down the hatch" I spoke as I threw the pill to the back of my throat and with a swig of water from the sink it was gone. Before leaving the bathroom, I saw my mom’s favorite lipstick. The smooth texture on my lips and the pink hue brought me back to all the times I used to watch her put it on. I took a glance at myself in the mirror and fought to hold back tears.     Last night before going to bed I placed some of my mom’s ashes in a keepsake necklace so that I always had a piece of her with me. It was a beautiful heart shape rose gold pendant with a purple gem on the face of it. That was her favorite color so it made the necklace all that more special. I placed it around my neck and squeezed it in my hand for a brief moment before leaving the bathroom. I made my way through the creaky house to the front door.     I sat down at the small bench next to the door and quickly strapped my boots on and my wind breaker. Then I looked over and stared at the bag next to me. It was a deep rich maroon color and the velvet texture was so smooth. Gold strings accented it with a tight knot to keep it all together and closed. This was what was left of my mom. She requested that if she were ever to pass, she wanted to be cremated. That her ashes be spread out and taken off with the wind. That was the task today.     Without a second thought I walked out of the front door and locked it. At this point I didn’t have a car anymore so I grabbed the rubber handles of my teal bike with a wicker basket on the front and threw my leg over the seat. I made sure the velvet bag was tucked down securely in my bag that was slung over my back. My mother and I were on our last adventure together. I pressed my foot down on the bike pedal and took off out of the driveway and onto the street.