Alex Lorry

Mothers Making Mothers

 

Victor was bending over his desk, busily noting observations in his journal, when he heard the door of the lab creak open. He glanced up briefly, then put his eyes back on his writing.

 

“What do you want, mother?” he asked.

 

“I’m here to tidy up,” said the short, stodgy, graying woman with a determined tone of voice.

 

“Not now, please.” His tone conveyed annoyance. “I’m almost done documenting some very important data and conclusions. The ramifications for the whole world are staggering!”

 

“As usual,” she said dryly. “How many times have I heard that? For how many years?”

 

“If you could just wait a little bit, a few minutes--”

 

“If I give you half a chance, you’ll lock up the lab for the day and I won’t get anything done. Get out of here while I dust and vacuum.”

 

“Mother,” he began sternly.

 

“Don’t use that tone of voice to me! Up! Take your precious book with you to the kitchen. You haven’t eaten a full meal all day anyway. Eat something while you scribble.”

 

“Scribble!” Victor was indignant.

 

She gave him that reproachful look that all mothers master early in their parenting years. There would be no arguing with it. He stood upright. She shook her head.

 

“You look terrible. You’re too thin for your height. You’re pale, your cheeks are sunken and that flat, combed back hairstyle looks like something out of an old horror movie.”

 

Victor scooped up the broad book, a few relevant papers and a pen, and headed for the kitchen. Once absorbed in his writing, he forgot the passing of time. It was a good three hours before his mother appeared there.

 

“You can go back to changing the world now.” Snide.

 

Again Victor made no comment, merely returned to his lab to continue the seemingly endless work before him. This was typical of the relationship between this mother and son. 

 

His father, also a doctor, had died seventeen years before, leaving unfulfilled ambitions that intrigued the son’s curiosity. For that entire time Victor had applied his great intellect to the task of following his father’s line of thought. One thing he could be grateful for is that his mother had never said a word to discourage him. Never had she tried to persuade him to be a common physician who saw patients in an office and plied them with questions and tongue depressors and stethoscopes. Such a fate would be anathema to him. 

 

Over those years Victor had made slow, sometimes painful, but hopeful progress. Now he was ready for a historic experiment. He just hoped his mother would not ruin it somehow. 

 

One dark, stormy night he finally made his vision a reality. He used a lightning rod to draw down from the heavens all the power he needed to bring his experimental creation to life. When it began to move on the operating table, he was beside himself with excitement. His shrieks brought his mother from the far end of the house into the lab.

 

“What in the world is wrong?” She was half worried, half demanding. “Did you hurt yourself?”

 

Victor had to calm himself before he could calm her. 

 

“I’m perfectly all right, mother. I’m wonderful! Ecstatic! Look what I’ve done! I’ve proven father’s theory! Look!”

 

He pointed to the operating table. A huge, hulking figure was struggling to sit upright. Finally it did so. The face and form were a grotesque caricature of a man. It turned its deep-set eyes on them. His mother seized Victor in a bear hug. 

 

“Don’t be frightened, mother.”

 

“Frightened? I’m delighted!” she exclaimed. “Look at what we created!”

 

“We?” he repeated. “I beg your pardon. This is all my work.”

 

“Oh, you don’t understand at all,” she pooh-poohed.

 

She released her grip on him and rushed toward a back room.

 

“That’s locked, mother. I haven’t used it for years.”

 

Victor was surprised when she brought out her own key from a pocket of her apron and opened the door easily. He heard a shriek from her. He rushed into the room and stood next to her.

 

Another operating table was there with another figure sitting up on it. It was a short, stodgy, graying approximation of a woman with the same, strangely shaped cranium as Victor’s own creation. 

 

“We’ve done it! We’ve done it!” She practically danced where she stood in her jubilation. 

 

“Mother!” Victor gasped. “What have you done?”

 

“The same thing you’ve done!”

 

“But how? Where did you learn to do this?”

 

“From you! I’ve been peeking into your scientific notes for years.”

 

“Where did you get the power?”

 

“I ran a cable in here from your lightning rod. That was in your journal, too. Everything I needed was in there.”

 

“How could you possibly understand such things?” Victor was incredulous.

 

“You forget that I was your father’s research assistant. I could have been a doctor in my own right, but I gave it up for love of him, to help him with his work. To make it up to me, he treated me like a full partner. He explained everything he was doing all along. I understood his entire line of thought. When he died I lost all interest in his work. I never imagined I would get it back. You revived it. You revived me! Thank you, son!”

 

She bear hugged him again until he almost couldn’t breathe. Then she released him and hurried through the lab toward the door to the house.

 

“What are you going to do?” Victor called after her.

 

“I have to call my colleagues. They’ll be screaming for joy when they hear!”

 

“You can’t tell anyone! Not yet! Wait--what colleagues?”

 

“Women like myself. We all made sacrifices for our husbands. We’ve been putting our heads together on my project here. Now is our day of triumph. Just wait till this hits the blog!”

 

“What do you mean, blog?”

 

“Our website, Mothers Making Mothers! It’s a sensation!”

 

“Website! You--you--put this on the internet?”

 

“Of course, months ago. Everything is on the web these days. Even how to build a nuke. Why not this? Just think what this will do for the world. A do-it-yourself guide that anyone can follow. Never again will there be a shortage of mothers to keep children and husbands in line. Now there will always be a mother on hand to take charge of things. Whoopee-e-e-e-e!”

 

She whooped and howled and cheered as she ran to a phone. Victor stood rooted to the floor of the lab. 

 

Then he heard another woman’s voice. His mother’s creation had entered the main room of the lab and was scolding his creature until it hung its head dejectedly in submission. 

 

Victor struggled to get his breath, tugged at his shirt collar, and almost choked on a few words.

 

“What have I done?” 

 

Alex Lorry is a retired telecommunications tech. I have written short stories for years as a hobby and am now trying to make a career of it. Bienvenue au Danse, Alex.

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