The Glow, by Angela Carlton

When she was a child, she sat under the tall trees with storybooks, for her mother was out roaming the streets with a broken mind. The mother moved to the rhythm of the voices in her head, amongst the whispers on the streets. She walked through parks and down by the river trying to clear her brain from the white noise.

Inside the storybooks, the child found comfort, somewhere in a faraway land, this place where the animals usually spoke to you, a place where the wildflowers grew-grew, peppering the fields with vibrant color. Yes, there was color, colors that seemed to cut deep through the blackness. Still, her mother continued to slither down sidewalks, backroads talking to the bushes and the stars.

The town healer had given the mother medications to balance out her brain but nothing seemed to stick anymore so she walked on and on and on until she grew weary, finally stumbling back upon her only child beneath the sycamore trees with a storybook under her nose.

“Mama, you found your way,” the child would usually say, with a bit of hope somewhere in her voice.

“The light. It was light-light, yes, light, stars, I think” she mumbled, “glow, the glow, brought me, here.”