The pillars of creation

In a frenzy of fear and rage, he ran forward and swung the shovel at her head, over and over. The ringing blows of steel on bone echoed around the barn, creating one long clangorous din. The rats, watching with their little black rat eyes, scurried for their holes.

Oba staggered back, gasping for air after the violent effort of silencing her. He panted as he watched her still form sprawled atop the mound of frozen muck. Her arms were spread out wide to each side, as if asking for a hug. The sneaky bitch. She might be up to something. Trying to make amends, probably. Offering a hug, as if that could make up for the times he'd spent in the pen.

Her face looked different. She had an odd expression. He tiptoed closer for a look. Her skull was all m-.sshapen, like a ripe melon broken on the ground.

This was so new that he couldn't gather his thoughts.

Mama, her melon head, all broke open.

For good measure, he whacked her three more times, quick as he could, then retreated to a safe distance, shovel at the ready, should she suddenly spring up to start yelling at him. That would be just like her. Sneaky. The woman was a lunatic.

The barn remained silent. He saw his breath puffing out in the cold air. No breath came from his mother. Her chest was still. The crimson pool around her head oozed down the muck mound. Some of the holes he'd chopped filled with the runny contents of her curious melon head all broken open on the ground.

Oba began to feel more confident, then, that his mother was not going to say hateful things to him anymore. His mother, not being too smart, had probably gone along with Lathea's nagging, and had been talked into hating him, her only son. The two women had ruled his life. He had been nothing but the helpless servant of the two harpies.

Fortunately, he had finally become invincible and had rescued himself from them both.

"Do you want to know who I serve, Mama? I serve the voice that made me invincible. The voice that rid me of you!"

His mother had nothing more to say. At long last, she had nothing more to say.

Then, Oba grinned.

He pulled out his knife. He was a new man. A man who pursued intellectual interests when they arose. He thought he should have a look at what other odd and curious things might be found inside his lunatic mother.

Oba liked to learn new things.

Oba was eating a nice lunch of eggs cooked in the hearth he had started to build for himself, when he heard a wagon rumbling into the yard. It had been over a week since his sneaky mother had opened her mean little mouth for the last time.

Oba went to the door, opened it a crack, and stood eating his eggs as he peered out to see the rear of a wagon pulled up close by. A man climbed down.

It was Mr. Tuchmann, who regularly brought wool. Oba's mother was a spinster who made thread for Mr. Tuchmann. He used the thread on his loom. With so many new things demanding his attention lately, Oba had forgotten all about Mr. Tuchmann. Oba glanced over to the comer to see how much thread his mother had ready. Not much. Bales of wool sat to the side, waiting to be spun into thread. The least his mother could have done would be to attend to her work before she started in causing trouble.

Oba didn't know what to do. When he looked back to the doorway, Mr. Tuchmann was standing right there, looking in. He was a tall man, thin, with a big nose and ears. His hair was graying and as curly as the wool he dealt in. He was recently widowed. Oba knew that his mother liked Mr. Tuchmann. Maybe he could have leached some of the venom from her fangs. Softened her a bit. It was an interesting theory to contemplate.

"Afternoon, Oba." His eyes, eyes that Oba had always found curiously liquid, were peering in the crack, searching the house. "Is your mother about?"

Oba, feeling a little violated by the man's roving eyes, stood holding the plate of eggs, trying to think what to do, what to say. Mr. Tuchmann's gaze settled on the fireplace.

Oba, standing ill at ease behind the door, reminded himself that he was a new man. An important man. Important men weren't unsure of themselves. Important men seized the moment, and created their own greatness.

"Mama?" Oba set down his plate as he glanced to the fireplace. "Oh, she's about, somewhere."

Wool-headed Mr. Tuchmann stared stone-faced at Oba's grin for a time.

"You heard about Lathea? What they found at her place"

Oba thought the man had a mouth kind of like his mother had. Mean. Sneaky.

"Lathea?" Oba sucked at a piece of egg stuck between his teeth. "She's dead. What could they find?"

"More precisely, what they didn't find, I guess you could say. Money. Lathea had money, everyone knew that. But they found none in her house."

Oba shrugged. "Must have burned up. Melted."

Mr. Tuchmann grunted his skepticism. "Maybe. Maybe not. Some folks say maybe it was gone before the fire started."