The True Meaning of Smekday Read Online Free PDF

You know how you always kind of hate characters who think that? You hate them, and you know you’d never be so stupid not to know a ghost when you saw one, especially when the title of your story is The Shrieking Specter, for God’s sake, pardon my language.
    This is that part of the story.
    You see, the problem is, you don’t know you’re in a story. You think you’re just some kid. And you don’t want to believe in the mole, or the ghost, or whatever it is when it’s your turn.
    I decided then and there that the mole had not glowed. It was a trick of the light, or a hallucination, or smoke and mirrors, or any one of those things people say that are supposed to explain what happened but don’t. Anyway, I stopped believing the mole glowed. I had to.
    It didn’t matter, because I still believed the thing had changed size and color, and that was scary enough. I shut down the computer and crept back down the hall. Pig followed, purring and making little figure eights around my legs. She probably thought she was getting an early breakfast, and when I didn’t acknowledge her she meowed.
    For a moment I thought I’d been caught when I heard Mom’s voice from her bedroom. I froze in place, and her voice went on, one word, pause, one word, pause, like she was calling a bingo game. I couldn’t help but be curious, so I padded slowly to her bedroom door. It was ajar, and I put an ear to the crack.
    “Tractor,” said Mom.
    Tractor? I looked in.
    “Gorilla,” she continued, then, “ Arancia …Domino… Emendare …Vision…Apparently…Mouse…”
    She was lying on her back, talking in her sleep. In English and Italian. And dreaming about the weirdest roll call ever.
    I listened a while longer, expecting her to stop, or to say something sensible. I don’t know much Italian, but I knew enough to realize the Italian-to-English dictionary wasn’t going to make any sense out of what I was hearing.
    “Lasagna,” said Mom.
    “Good night,” said I, and went back to bed.
    The next day I made Mom an appointment to see a dermatologist. The appointment nurse said they could have a look at her in about a month, and I was sort of politely rude about this, and after a really vigorous conversation she moved it up to next week.
    Next week. I’ll get her there somehow, I thought as I put down the phone; and I couldn’t have been happier, because I didn’t know Mom would be gone in four days.
    Let me just leap ahead those four days now, because there’s really nothing to say about them. They were filled with meals and sleep and arguments with Mom, as though she weren’t about to be taken, as though everything weren’t about to change. We went shopping, we wrapped presents, went to Mass, put up the white plastic Christmas tree. If my life were a movie, you could expect that musical montage of scenes right now, the kind lazy directors use to show time passing. You know: there would be a bunch of funny, short clips of Mom and me at the store trying on different outfits, funny hats, and now we’re trying to make eggnog, but the lid comes off the blender and the stuff splatters the walls and us, and we’re laughing, and now cut to us Christmas caroling outside someone’s house, but, whoops! they’re Jews, and all the while “Jingle Bell Rock” or something is playing. And the next thing you know, it’s four days later. It was Christmas Eve, in fact, but I don’t want to dwell on that. This isn’t a Christmas story. It’s a Smekday story.

    It was nighttime when it happened. I was in bed, but I wasn’t sleeping. I was just lying awake, listening to the noise of cars and people speaking too loudly on the street, and thinking about something. Okay, I suppose I was probably thinking about what I was going to get for Christmas the next day, and it was hard not to. Though I guess Mom was trying to be quiet in the living room, it was plainly obvious that she was still up, stuffing my stocking with candy and CDs and things, or