The Bag Lady (: formerly published)

Absent dreams come back, floating through eternity, when she closes her eyes. To reopen them is difficult, so she pours water over her face. When she lifts her face she catches an involuntary glimpse of herself in the clouded mirror over the sink  - and THEN her eyes shot open. "What in the ...!" she murmurs, staring into a couple of blackened eyes that strangely enough sit in something resembling her face. She stands still for some minutes and just look at her face in the mirror, almost as if she has forgotten her blackened eyes: - All too fat cheeks, she thinks to herself, ugly! Fatso! She can't see her body in that small mirror, only down to her breasts which feel heavy and uncomfortable. - Fat, fat, fat, she thinks.
After this small excursion into the realities of middle-aged, unkempt womanhood she bends forward, her hands on the sink, and then she lets herself dig deep into those eyes. - What happened? she asks her reflection. No answer, no memory comes to her. She shrugs and turns around with her wet face dripping. Somehow she likes the feeling of coolness it gives her and then she realizes that she is in fact burning hot all over. Once more she turns to the mirror and takes a close look at herself - those once so pretty looks that were dubbed "the ruins" by Jack - but again she ends up shrugging and turning away.
Then she realizes doesn't look the way it should: "Dirt" is the word that pops up in her mind, but it's more than that. Everywhere in the room there are heaps of newspapers, furniture, clothes and what looks like food of various kinds. This is shocking and she gets a creepy feeling of having been transported into another world all of a sudden.
Then she sees a movement on the floor and to her utter amazement two small kittens make their way out of one of the heaps. "Hey!" she exclaims, "How did you get in?" The kittens come up to her and start rubbing themselves against her feet. Somehow this makes her laugh, but she doesn't touch them. "Just for your information, young felixes, I don't like cats ..."
She turns to where the door used to be, but now it's all covered in heaps. That is, she finds a narrow pathway leading up to it so that she can edge out on to the platform. Here she can see the staircase leading down into the hall, the kitchen and some other rooms which she has a dim recollection of. Brave, like was she entering a newfound jungle, she starts to walk down, step by step, the kittens close at her heels. As she walks she finds more and more objects scattered everywhere. At the foot of the staircase there is a small heap of blood-soaked towels which she stares at in disbelief. However, she does feel sore, especially in her legs which she starts inspecting. Many scratches, fresh scars and also some minor cuts, especially on her bare feet, tell a tale of misshaps of some kind, but nothing that can explain all this blood. Again she shrugs and starts making her way out into the kitchen. It's difficult because of all those heaps of "things", but she succeeds and in the kitchen she finds a bag with cat food and boxes with cereals, but no milk. It's right on the table which strangely enough is totally without any of all those things scattered over the place. As she sits there, eating her cereal with tap water and watching the cats dive into a bowl of cat's food she feels better, but she has no idea of how her nice home turned into a dustbin all of a sudden or how she got those blackened eyes. Actually she can't even remember her own name, only the name of Jack.
After having eaten she, without thinking of it, starts picking up items that must be classified as debris, put it aside and then dig deeper, deeper and deeper into the heaps. As she goes, layer by layer, she meets more and more strange items, also some sad ones, like e.g. five dead kittens, a dead mother cat and a ravished bird cage. Several layers down she finds a nice pile of bank notes as well as a lot of men's clothes, but she has no idea how it got there, only the name "Jack" gets more and more substance and after a while it even turns into a person by that name. Yeah, there had been a Jack, but obviously he wasn't with her anymore. Brown eyes, beautiful smile, slim body, hips like with ball-and-socket-joints and square shoulders - oh yeah, more and more comes back to her, only she has no idea of where he is or what happened. Like a dazed individual she digs and digs and digs, collecting debris to one side, and putting useable items to another, until she tumbles upon what used to be her beautiful bed, but is now just another part of the debris.

Several days later she starts her day by having a bath and the brownish water tells her that that must have been some time since she did just that, then she puts on an oldfashioned, but nice looking dress she found in a layer filled with ladies wear. Here too she found money as well as the skeleton of a dead cat and now she decides to do something radical about the situation: She goes out into the street, walks down the street to where all the shops are. People glare at her, but she ignores all of them, only she buys herself some food and a cell phone. After that she goes into a haulage contraction shop and takes their business card, but doesn't talk to anybody. Actually, her voice is so rusty that she doesn't dare to use it, but well at home again she starts talking to the kittens and it grows better and better by usage.
She phones the haulage people and they come and take away all that she has deemed debris. Some of it is put in plastic bags, some of it is not, but she has been through it all to make sure that it isn't worth anything. After having most of all that old, dirty stuff hauled away she asks the young, nice driver, John, if he knows someone who can clean and paint her house. It turns out that he and his wife would love such a job and in some weeks the house attains quite another look. Now it's the nicest looking house on the road and after she shops for furniture with a pile of money in her bag it's a home once again. All in all, it takes 2-3 months and still she doesn't know what happened, but letters from the bank and other papers tell her that her name is Carmen Fuente. It makes her laugh as she doesn't feel like a "Carmen", but the day when there is a knock on her door and she finds that luscious figure which she remembers as Jack outside on the stepstone then she decides that that's what she is: Seductive and beautiful as Carmen. However, he doesn't seem to agree, but pushes her aside when she flings herself upon him. Then he storms into her new home with a "What the Hell has happened here?!"
"Do you like it, Jack?" she asks, very expectant and proud. He doesn't answer only turns upon her: "Jack? What do you mean? I'm Sean, your son."
"My son??!!!"
"Yeah, stepson, if you insist. My father Jack is dead because of you, you stupid Fatso."
To hear this is like receiving a blow with a hammer and it makes her stagger with the shock. Now she remembers only too well: Yes, he is the son of that man with the brown eyes, beautiful smile, slim body, hips like with ball-and-socket-joints and square shoulders, the one who was her toy-boy-husband for a decade until he died because of her drunken driving.
"I don't come to pay you a visit, you imbecile, but to have my money."
"Your money, and what money is that?"
"You owe me for being such a bitch - a rich bitch, that is - and this time I mean to have it. In cash!" He lifts his arm, ready to strike her and that reminds her of the bloody towels.
"Well, Sean," she says quite composed, "You shouldn't have struck me that last time you came. Last time I was the baglady, but your blow brought back that creature you seem to remember. Now I'm the one who ruled yours and your dad's lives."
With a roar of rage he throws himself at her, but at the same moment the door opens and lets in the haulage man/painter, John, who sends him sprawling with one blow. "What happened, who was that?" the young man yells.
"Nemesis," Carmen says as she pushes Sean's prostate and moaning figure with her foot. "There always is, isn't there?"
 

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