Evyn Ladendorf-Lilly
I used to put them in a canning jar on the table next to my nightlight. They rotted and grew white spores that climbed up the glass. The jar glowed neon green every night, like fireflies trapped under murky water. It overwhelmed the tiny room, so I covered the jar with a blue beach towel to sleep without its eerie cast of light.
A mound formed under the jar’s lid as hot, angry air forced its way upward, contorting the lid. The jar swelled in the years that passed and the bigger it got, the more I worried. I dreamt I could hear the glass shattering. I dreamt it would break into pieces and they would ooze out, thick and dark like spilled molasses filling the room.
The long nights of winter were the hardest. I lay awake, haunted and tired when it occurred to me that I might poke a hole in the metal top. That way the air would leak out gently, preventing the all-consuming explosion I pictured it was building up to be. I found a phillips- head screwdriver on the tool bench and stabbed a hole in the top. It wasn’t enough. Every day I punctured a new hole, every day the pressure continued to build. The jar bulged and grew so large I had to move it under my bed so that no one would see, but the glow trickled up the linens and lit my bed from beneath. Still, it felt safer to have the secret than to let its contents go screaming out into the world.
One day it became too big. I sat down on the porch with my mom, piecing words together through hiccuping sobs. I went to retrieve the jar from its hiding place under my bed. I unscrewed the lid, polka-dotted with puncture wounds, and handed it to her. She took it gently and appraised it as if it was only a jar. She could not see the great dark mass building inside, did not recoil in fear of its contents. She removed the top, pouring it out onto the grass like clean water.
My mother smiled, squeezing my hand, and we started a conversation. To wade through that jar, to sort the sludge and find my truth, is the ultimate struggle of life.