Callaghan's Hate

Callaghan’s Hate

T'was a dark and stormy night, and all Callaghan wanted was peace.

Was peace so hard?

The house's trembling was quite disquieting, and Callaghan just wanted to tell it, ever so frankly, to "Quieten your noise, childish house, for you will forever be the haven to many before and after me. Quieten your nerves."

The house would, in response, shake even more violently.

It's no use, thought Callaghan. This haven of a house will never quieten, just as mother and father will never close their voiceboxes. Callaghan remembered just this evening when her parents were fighting. They were speaking of some odd concept called "Mortgage," and how they needed to, "Save more money." Her father, Callaghan recalled, had stormed out of the house post-argument, thus bringing the house a storm.

Her mother, on the other hand, was a frail-minded thing. She shuddered and muttered constantly about how this and that would bring the end to her happiness. On one occasion, she even mentioned Callaghan in her mutterings.

Stupid mutterings. Callaghan never liked them. They proved her crazy to the rest of the women in the neighborhood. Stupid, stupid mutterings.

The children in the surrounding houses would surely have mothers who didn't have mutterings. Their mothers, instead, had pearls and kindness. No mutterings though.

I wonder, Callaghan wondered a lot, you see. I wonder if I could switch my mother with some poor woman from the surrounding neighborhood.

No, no, no. No woman would fall for that. No self-respecting woman. Callaghan released the thought into the dark corners of her brain. There are too many self-respecting women in this neighborhood. They wouldn't take me. They couldn't.

Because Callaghan knew. She knew that she was just like her mother. Or would be when she was a mite older. Muttering, stupid, and Mortgage-worrying. Yes. That summed up her mother nicely.

Oh, enough. Enough tormenting the mother of your thoughts dearest Callaghan, she thought. You needn't do that.

And so she set her thoughts aside. She became, once again, a real girl, and fell into a deep slumber, only to wake up in the morning for school. Another day.

Oh, well.