into the light - hallway XI

Mamushka Petrovich rose just after midnight. Her deep sleep was disturbed by the olfactory aura of stale cigarette smoke, clean vodka (not that one can necessarily smell vodka, but in this circumstance we must assume that this is so) and smoked herring. But Mamushka was not awake. She was in a place between worlds, straddling a foreign threshold . Yet she could feel the slip of fish oil on her fingertips and sense the burn of vodka on the back of her throat. She never did smoke, but her life was certainly surrounded (smoked itself) by plumes of cheap tobacco.
Just this past evening, Rosa Mambo, the gypsy from Romania, had looked deeply into Mamushka's wrinkled hands and talked of a blinding light into which Mamushka must walk. Mamushka's top lip was damp. Her mouth was dry. Rosa brushed her own palms together as if to wash away some unwanted energy, then dismissed Mamushka with no further ceremony.
Late the following morning, Mamushka's son came to visit, after driving his silver Mercedes the two-hundred mile distance from his marbled apartment in the city. When he arrived he found his mother's bed disheveled, unusually unmade. There was a half empty bottle of vodka on the parlor table, along with fish bones sprinkled over a dark blue plate as if an otter had sucked then clean. The room smelled of cigarettes, but not an ash could be found.
Mamushka Petrovich was never seen again.



HALLWAY SERIES