Flowers for Algernon

Algernon died two days ago. I found him at four thirty in the morning when I came back to the lab after wandering around down at the waterfront-on his side, stretched out in the corner of his cage. As if he were running in his sleep.

Dissection shows that my predictions were right. Compared to the normal brain, Algernon’s had decreased in 179 weight and there was a general smoothing out of the cerebral convolutions as well as a deepening and broadening of brain fissures. It’s frightening to think that the same thing might be happening to me right now. Seeing it happen to Algernon makes it real. For the first time, I’m afraid of the future.

I put Algernon’s body into a small metal container and took him home with me. I wasn’t going to let them dump him into the incinerator. It’s foolish and sentimental, but late last night I buried him in the back yard. I wept as I put a bunch of wild flowers on the grave.

September 21-I’m going to Marks Street to visit my mother tomorrow. A dream last night triggered off a sequence of memories, lit up a whole slice of the past and the important thing is to get it down on paper quickly before I forget it because I seem to forget things sooner now. It has to do with my mother, and now-more than ever-I want to understand her, to know what she was like and why she acted the way she did. I mustn’t hate her. I’ve got to come to terms with her before I see her so that I won’t act harshly or foolishly.

September 27-I should have written this down right away, because it’s important to make this record complete.

I went to see Rose three days ago. Finally, I forced myself to borrow Burt’s car again. I was afraid, and yet I knew I had to go. At first when I got to Marks Street I thought I had made a mistake. It wasn’t the way I remembered it at all. It was a filthy street. Vacant lots where many of the houses had been torn down. On the sidewalk, a discarded refrigerator with its face ripped off, and on the curb an old mattress with wire intestines hanging out of its belly. Some houses had boarded up windows, and others looked more like patched-up shanties than homes. I parked the car a block away four the house and walked. There were no children playing on Marks Street not at all like the mental picture I had brought with me of children everywhere, and Charlie watching them through 180 the front window (strange that most of my memories of the street are framed by the window, with me always inside watching the children play). Now there were only old people standing in the shade of tired porches. As I approached the house, I had a second shock. My mother was on the front stoop, in an old brown sweater, washing the ground floor windows from the outside even though it was cold and windy. Always working to show the neighbors what a good wife and mother she was. The most important thing had always been what other people thought-appearances before herself or her family. And righteous about it. Time and again Matt had insisted that what others thought about you wasn’t the only thing in life. But it did no good. Norma had to dress well; the house had to have fine furniture; Charlie had to be kept inside so that other people wouldn’t know anything was wrong.

At the gate, I paused to watch as she straightened up to catch her breath. Seeing her face made me tremble, but it was not the face I had struggled so hard to recall. Her hair had become white and streaked with iron, and the, flesh of her thin cheeks was wrinkled. Perspiration made her forehead glisten. She caught sight of me and stared back.

I wanted to look away, to turn back down the street, but I couldn’t-not after having come so far. I would just ask directions, pretending I was lost in a strange neighborhood. Seeing her had been enough. But all I did was stand there. waiting for her to do something first. And all she did was stand there and look at me.

“Do you want something?” Her voice, hoarse, was an unmistakable echo down the corridors of memory.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. My mouth worked, I know, and I struggled to speak to her, to get something out, because in that moment I could see recognition in her eyes. This was not at all the way I wanted her to see me. Not standing there in front of her, dumbly, unable to make myself understood. But my tongue kept getting in the way, like a huge obstruction, and my mouth was dry.

Finally, something came out. Not what I had intended (I had planned something soothing and encouraging, to take control of the situation and wipe out all the past and pain with a few words) but all that came out of my cracked throat was: “Maaa…” With all the things I had learned-in all the languages I had mastered-all I could say to her, standing on the porch staring at me, was, “Maaaa.” Like a dry-mouthed lamb at the udder.

She wiped her forehead with the back of her arm and frowned at me, as if she could not see me clearly. I stepped forward, past the gate to the walk, and then toward the steps. She drew back.