Daughter of Rot

1. OLIVIA

OLIVIA

Like all babies, Olivia Velasquez had no choice in selecting her mother. Alone in the fluorescent hospital room, bundled in pastel pink, Olivia’s past life flashed behind the opalescent film of newborn eyes.

It starts with a guttural scream and then whispers fluttering above her.

A body thuds onto the desert floor, bones crack, and the body goes soft.

Breathing in desperate gulps of hot air aids nothing.

It’s fast, almost invasive, almost like a glimpse of what a rapture or abduction could feel like.

White light, harsh inhalations of dirt, a smoldering sun, one last exhalation, and then the aftermath.

Coyotes yelped at each other as they tore at her flesh in delight under the blazing blue desert sky.

Surrounded by sagebrush and yucca, fire ants crawled up her legs and found themselves inside a small red backpack filled with candy and a lone water bottle.

Some of the ants got into the toothpaste and torn up bible pages.

Turkey vultures sunned themselves around her.

They picked at the scripture. They lifted off when they caught the signal of another body.

A prairie rattlesnake burrowed into her belly and vibrated as it slithered in the viscera.

Crows called one another and landed around her head, playfully hopping on her body as they burst her eyes and pecked inside her nose, ears, and mouth.

With her mouth open to the sky, they pierced her tongue, peck by peck.

They prodded at the red bracelet around her left wrist and the rosary in her pocket.

They carried the rosary to a nest much further north.

She was an ecosystem, a splatter, and then, a shimmering skeleton, night after night.

Those were her last memories. That was before.

Now, she’s alone in a hospital room and her blood type is O.

Words sound like smudges. She feels an eruption in her chest. Her voice pierces into an echo.

Sharp and wild. She takes in a raspy breath and wails.

Her first song. A melody of sorrow and hunger.

In a sudden flash of blurs and whispers, she’s cradled by soft arms. The oval shape of her mother’s face is radiating beams of light.

A warmth. A resplendence. Her scent is sweet and rich. Olivia understands.

Mother.

A floating trail of pink, cerulean, and lilac spirals into the air as her mother sings. The colors hover over their heads. Olivia forgets her past life. The nebulous lights and sounds from this curious place feel familiar. Maybe violence. Maybe tenderness.

The burst of colors appear again and then drift off into the corners of the room.

Olivia’s alone. Her cries puncture the room and no one answers.

She waits for the warmth to come back. She’s in her clear hard-shelled basinet surrounded by pink vases overflowing with white daisies and light pink roses.

The room smells like musk and blood. Transparent balloons filled with circular golden confetti have settled under the gray and white splotched ceiling.

The lights buzz. Olivia listens for her mother’s voice.

Blood trails from the hospital bed into the shower where her mother had limped and then went silent under the rush of the water.

An entire universe gone. Olivia wails again until she falls asleep and her dreams are filled with dark waters.

Gray waves crash. Heavy rain clashes with the deep blue ocean.

The stars in the sky look like twinkling capsules of neon lights.

The stars burst and then the world is illuminated.

Olivia opens her eyes again. She smacks her lips with hunger in her belly. She has no choice but to love this version of her mother. Her first home. She waits between ruptures of wailing. Her reality composed of instinct and helplessness.

She waits on her mother.

She waits on warm waters. It’s all she can do.

She’s a tiny pink stranger to the planet with ghosts built into her blood.