Nineteen, Twenties…Voicemail to Mom
Short Story
At twenty years old I imagined myself a famous writer who would have to drop out of college as a result of the insane success of my book. I would be traveling the nation for my tour and then eventually get a call from Paramount Pictures requesting my blessing to transform the book into a movie. I would then hire Tim Burton to direct it, and cast myself as the main character. But no, instead I am still in school, at my wooden desk in my dorm room, staring at my computer screen, contributing to the regression of my hairline as I continuously rake my fingers through my entangled curls. This is the first time I have looked at my novel in months, because I have been so busy keeping up with school.
“Ugh, this is complete garbage!” I stare at the neglected thing. Not only do I keep adjusting the plot of the story but I have been involuntarily reverted back from chapter eight to chapter one. It’s because I lost my flash drive and I never backed up the information on my computer. Now I’m left with a worthless nine pages of freaking nothing.
“Whyyyyy!” I howl to the ceiling. I shut my computer, get up from my desk, lean on my bed, and bury my wet face in my comforter.
“I hate my life!” I cry, my howling suppressed by my thick, lavender-scented blanket. “I can never do anything because I never have any mother fucking time! Ahhhhhh! Mother fuckery of fucking life! I hate this planet!” I continue hollering into the blanket, blaming the world for my inability to manage my time well enough in order to work on my novel. Once I finish cursing everyone and wishing I was born into the Kardashian family so that I could hang out on their show, create a bunch of clothing and makeup lines, flaunt my vanity on Instagram, appear on the cover of every damn magazine in Target, and simply enjoy the perks of the fame for which I unethically obtained, I get up to call my mom.
“Hello, you’ve reached Lizmar Estevez. I can’t get to the phone right now. Leave a detailed message and I will get to you as soon as I can.”
Beeeeeep! The recording obnoxiously buzzes in my ear. Of course she wouldn’t answer the phone. The one time I am in dire need of enduring one of her parental lectures so that I can hear her gentle voice, she is in the midst of her slumber. I seriously can’t believe this.
“Hello? Mom? This is your second-born daughter, Xiamara Estela Estevez. I am aware of the inappropriate hour for which I am contacting you, however I am in the middle of a crisis that I can no longer suppress, and I really need your guidance right now. I’m sorry that I’m imposing my problems on you, but these are the things you signed up for when you decided to have children and I am too livid right now to write in my diary. Unfortunately, I just realized that was a false statement because I don’t even own a diary because diaries are for thirteen year-olds in the early 2000’s. If I want to record my feelings I will just make a melancholy, ambiguous post about it online or scream into my mattress. But I’m not in the mood to make a melancholy, ambiguous post online and I’ve already screamed into my mattress, so I’m just going to vocalize all of my frustrations to you in a sustained manner. I hope that’s okay.”
I take a deep breath and face the mirror hanging on my door. I have this weird habit of looking at the mirror when I cry. It makes me feel like I’m in a movie. I’m also one of those pretty criers, you know, so it makes me cry even more when I look at my reflection because I feel bad for myself.
“I’m just so frustrated, Mom. I never have time to do anything I want. My life revolves around school and I can never get anything done. All I ever do as an English major is read the work of dead people and write papers on it. Why can’t we read the work of the living? Why can’t we study what I’ve written? My work contains many challenged concepts that could like, change the world, you know? Like my novel, which I have no freaking time to ever work on!
“And you know what makes everything worse? I lost my flash drive which had everything on it. It’s all lost! Everything is gone! My destiny, my purpose, anything that gives me any meaning as a person is gone! I just feel like a big, fat, pale, yellow glob sucking up oxygen that could be used for plants and other useful creatures. And I say pale and yellow because I’m literally pale and yellow. My tan is gone and I just look like a slimy crab without a shell!” I moan and sit back down at my desk.
“If anyone asks you what I want for Christmas, tell them to buy me a groundhog so that it can dig a hole in the dirt for me. That way I can bury my head inside of it forever and never come out. I’m serious.”
Anyway, I’m going to take a shower. It’ll be my second one of the night. I need to wash all of the guilt of my purposeless life off my body. By the way, I need some more body wash. So if you could please put some money in my account in order to make that purchase possible, it would be much appreciated. Okay, I’m done venting. I love you. Enjoy your sleep and the comfort of living within the purpose for which you were intended. To live in. I meant to make that one sentence. Good night.”
photograph by Angelina Litvin
