Houmi woke up with a thousand arms today, though she usually woke up with this many—give or take a few. On certain days, perhaps she could even get the number down to the mid hundreds. But only on a really, really good day.
Before she made her morning tea—chamomile for the headaches caused by the arms banging against her head the entire night—she checked on the little one now in pre-school. There was another hour before both her husband Xingmu and their Lulu wakes, but Houmi had to work fast anyhow.
Eggs in the pan—one scrambled, one poached; toast in the toaster—one for a minute, one for half that time; water in the boiler—for the instant coffee mix, the vitamin juice, and, of course, Houmi’s long-awaited tea. Then she rushed to wake the two still dreaming, whisking up the bags she prepped for them and placing them on the table by the door.
A kiss on each head—one with knees bent, one on tiptoes—and the two were off with a quick “Thank you!” and a smiley “I love you!” and that was enough.
As soon as the door closed and her family’s blue Dodge van disappeared from the driveway, Houmi’s smile grew tired. Though she knew she should be content, her heart itched each time she scraped the leftovers into the trash and scrubbed at the dishes and glasses.
There were two hours left before she had to be at work at the local travel agency—Dream Journeys—when she settled onto the couch in the living room, her weight crinkling the newspapers she set under herself. She was grateful her employers allowed her to work part time after her pregnancy and offered the same hours after.
As much as she hated to admit it, it was these moments of quiet she enjoyed most during the day. She couldn’t remember when was the last time she went on a vacation.
With her frontmost right arm, she reached over to her left and tugged, loosening the joint that connected the arm to her shoulder. Blossomed around her frontmost arms were the thousand or so others—she had lost count since turning eighteen, when she had hundreds, perhaps as early as when she was in middle school, even though back then she only had tens.
She heard the satisfying pop and the arm dislocated, painless, as expected. Though she flinches anyhow because of the times she accidently knicks the skin with a knife when preparing dinner or bumps into furniture too sharp—those instances hurt. Sometimes when she was tired, it took a few tries because she’d done a sloppy job at whatever it was: half mopped floors, sudsy dishes on the drying rack, still-raw dinners. It was always a struggle when her mother-in-law visited. She never found anything Houmi did satisfactory, and the arms knew, and the arms listened. And rather than detaching smoothly, the skin would hold on, ache, sear when she tried to pull, the joints groaning. But thankfully, not today, not right now.
The skin around the arm, now hanging limp, flaked, but only where it had been removed from the shoulder, exposing the bone underneath. And as soon as Houmi pulled the limb off entirely, the other surrounding arms shifted to close the gap, repairing the torn skin, hiding the bone once again. Almost like she had never torn it off.
She took a sip of tea before beginning.
Delicate fingers plucked at the shedding arm. Houmi’s tongue folded the layers of skin and muscle into her mouth as she picked it apart, layer by layer and swallowed, feeling each piece scratch down the walls of her throat. The external layer was one she always dreaded most, laced with the scent of sweat and the taste of dead skin. But the muscle was always a joy—the dense liquid that came with lining her tongue with the contentment of a finished task. She indulged in individual veins, even though she knew she often didn’t have the time to—but today, she did, or at least, she convinced herself she did.
When there was only bone left, she smoothed the edges down before, like a sword-eater, she slid the lengthier pieces in with her head tilted upwards before working on those smaller. Houmi crunched each fingertip, each knuckle with her molars—bone against bone. And as she finished, she looked down, remnants of the arm littered across her clothing to remind her of her completed work, to remind her that there is still more to come. It should taste like success, according to many of her friends, but it never was quite as sweet as Houmi imagined it to be—at least from what she could recall, the arms she consumed during her childhood were like sweet nectar. Now, it tasted more of a grapefruit.
She wrapped up the newspaper with scattered flakes and placed it with the recycling.
Only then did her day start.
It wasn’t uncommon for Houmi to daydream at work, imagining that the vacations she planned for clients were her own. She couldn’t afford it, of course—neither monetary or time-wise. But to have the daydreams was enough. Though she often felt guilty because neither Xingmu or Lulu would be included in them. Sometimes. But rarely.
What would happen if she left her arms unconsumed? What would happen if she dislodged all her arms at once without completing each task attached to them first? What if—
“Houmi.”
She looked up and met the eyes of her manager, Julian. Houmi marvelled at the number of arms they had—two hundred, at most.
“Your . . . ” Julian cleared their throat.
Houmi tilted her head to the side. “What is it?”
She wasn’t initially concerned, but the way Julian’s eyes opened wide and continued to widen with each second had cold sweat breaking inside the fists she didn’t realize she was making.
“On your lower back . . . ” They said nothing more, but Houmi didn’t give them a chance to anyhow as she rushed to the staff washroom down the hall.
Houmi turned to inspect her arms, though it didn’t take long for her to locate what Julian was speaking about.
A gnarled limb sat at the small of her back when she looked into the mirror. A small, shrivelled thing hidden among the thousand full length arms in more or less perfect condition, though some had battered, bruised over the week with overgrown or chipped fingernails and untameable hair like the tall swaying hay of farm fields because she kept pushing those to the bottom of her to-do list, convinced she still had time—there were other more urgent matters at hand.
Houmi’s heartbeat quickened, blood pulsed, rushed down each arm, tingling at the fingertips, as she continued to stare at the anomaly. Houmi hadn’t a clue what the memory, task, responsibility, or perhaps the person tied to this withered limb. She continued combing her mind for a possible explanation. She hadn’t missed any deadlines yet. Houmi picked up the grocery earlier that week, prepped several itineraries for her clients to review, scheduled Xingmu and Lulu’s dentist appointments, and even doubled checked the checklist she taped to her desk, the copy of it secured with a Paris magnet from her client on the kitchen fridge, fed—
How was she so foolish? How could she have missed it?
Her mother-in-law would be visiting this evening, and Houmi couldn’t let her see the tragic limb. It was bad enough her husband and daughter would likely witness her failure. At the thought, the withered arm still dangling, barely hanging onto the small of her back prodded her, reminding her of its existence now that she was aware of it.
If she fed the cat now, would it repair the situation? It would be painful trying to remove the limb, but it wouldn’t be nearly as horrid if the limb detached on its own. The horror stories she’d read about such instances. Houmi shuddered.
She requested to leave earlier, only by half an hour. Her friend Avery Peters’s condo was only a five minute walk from Houmi’s house, so the trip would be quick. But as she neared the condo, thoughts of when exactly was the last time Houmi had fed the cat bounced around her mind. A day ago? Two days ago? A week? Surely it had not been that long. She would remember, wouldn’t she? Houmi feared the state Avery’s cat would be in when she arrived. What would she say to Avery? Houmi hoped they wouldn’t be too angry.
Houmi’s hand shook when she scanned the fob in the elevator. The ride up to the seventh floor felt longer than her mother-in-law’s stares while Houmi cooked traditional dishes in a way the elder woman disapproved of. It was as though every second might determine the life or death of Avery’s cat. She couldn’t even remember the small thing’s name as she rushed out of the elevator as soon as the ding signalled its arrival and before the door even fully slid open.
Unconsciously, she crossed the fingers of all her arms—not just the index and middle either but also the pink and ring, tossed in the thumb too for good measures. With cautious steps after opening the door, Houmi walked down the short hallway towards Avery’s living room, noiseless, as though any sound she made could cause death.
Houmi blew out a breath when she heard the slightest meow, her eyes darting to seek out the black cat whose name she now remembered was Ivory. She had forgotten she used to make fun of Avery for ironic name in high school.
She treaded into the kitchen and filled Ivory’s bowl. There were a few minutes to spare before she needed to head home to prepare dinner for her family… and mother-in-law, so she crouched and revelled in the softness of Ivory’s short brown fur. But when she stood, she noticed the fish tank on the kitchen counter, and floating at the top with the wrong side up was Avery’s red beta fish. Dead.
It was such a simple thing, and Avery hadn’t tasked her with it, had clearly even forgotten it themselves, yet Houmi fell to her knees on top of the worn, second-hand playmat she received a few years back from her aunt and gave to Avery when their child was born, stained with mashed squash she had tried to clean a week ago, when she brought Lulu over, but failed. Clear tears darkened the dirtied patches as they fell quicker and quicker still, barely catching at the point of Houmi’s chin before desperately trying to escape her pent up pain.
The average lifespan of a beta fish was only five years, and she knew Avery wouldn’t have such an attachment to the pet as to be angry at her for the mistake. Houmi could simply purchase another fish as a replacement—one that looked similar enough. But that wasn’t the issue. This small mistake somehow unearthed all the feelings of incompetency that Houmi had kept hidden over the years. All the incompentencies that her mother-in-law never failed to mention, a constant jabbing at not just her heart but each of her arms. She thought it would soon become a dull throbbing, but it hadn’t. Houmi had only become more afraid of failure, of forgetting something, of not performing well enough, of not being enough in the eyes of her mother-in-law. And encouragement? There was barely any of that because there should be no praise for her in accomplishing her duties.
She took a deep breath, wanting to think of nothing. Houmi stared at the dead fish, made a mental note to buy a new one, and felt the arm of the task sprout in place of the gnarled arm.
Tomorrow, she would bury the limb and the fish would be alive again.
Houmi curled into herself while Ivory batted at her hair. And she knew not how long she remained in that position, only that even as her body shook, her mind still focused on the vibration of her phone in her pocket and the missed calls that could compete with the growing number of her arms.
She didn’t return home that night but fell asleep in the same exact spot on the mat in Avery’s apartment.
Just for tonight, she let go of the thought of needing to complete all the tasks, the thought of her mother-in-law, even the thought of her family.
It wasn’t the sun streaming through undrawn curtains that woke her, nor was it Ivory’s whine for food, but it was the lack of a headache that shook the sleep from her eyes. Houmi’s gaze met two arms. Only two arms. She glanced behind her several times to see her back bare. But already, seconds later, the stubs of arms began protruding, slow, wiggling their way out.
And Houmi knew soon her thousand and more arms would return as she recalled her tasks for the day, for the week, for the year. And she though would love to fly to Paris herself to purchase an overpriced magnet, this small freedom in the quiet of Avery’s apartment, alone, would be enough for now.
With a deep breath, she collapsed back onto the stained mat, embracing not her daughter, not her husband, just herself—just for today.
Tomorrow, when she returned home and welcomed back her thousand arms and more—because it is what she must, and it is what she will.
Originally published in Mother: Tales of Love and Terror, edited by Christi Nogle and Willow Dawn Becker.
