Post by paintedmusic on Mar 2, 2008 1:26:47 GMT -5
Forewarning: I love sunshine and daisies and rainbows and happiness and all that happily-ever-after jazz (just not when I'm reading a novel, of course)... just keep that in mind while you read. I'm told that people will want to get me a shrink after reading it, so just -- you know, keep what I mentioned in mind. And please, after you read, don't go saying stuff about shrinks and seeing people for thoughts of... oh, I don't know... murder, suicide, etc. I love kids, remember? If you didn't know that, go check my profile. And now, without further ado...
At 8:17 I hear a heavy knock on my bedroom door… and roll over and ignore it. It’s Sunday, I have no school, and under my covers is where all the warm air sleeps. Besides, I know I’ll be woken again if Daddy really wants me to be awake.
At 8:19 I’m shaken awake and not released until my eyes are wide open, like someone who just saw the teeny-tiniest baby mouse that ever existed. Right in front of my sleepy eyes, Daddy’s blurry face is watching me, smiling as if I made a funny joke. He bursts into the quiet chuckles that I’m so used to hearing. His voice, deep and booming, matches the rest of him, which is tall and strong like the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk.
“Hey, Tiger,” he grins, pulling back the covers. All the warm air that kept me company during the night spills out from my bed to make friends with the cool breeze from the open window. “Did you sleep well?”
Shoving my shiny, round glasses up on my nose, I grin as Daddy comes into focus. “Yeah,” I mumble sleepily, rubbing Mr. Sandman’s dust out of my eyes. I try to drag the blanket back up to my shoulders, but Daddy yanks them back again.
“Up and at ‘em, mister,” he laughs, grabbing me ‘round the middle and tickling me real hard. I laugh until my sides start to hurt, until I’m gasping for breath. Finally, he releases me.
“Come on, Tiger. Meet you downstairs?” When I nod, my lips pressing tightly together, he ruffles my messy, flattened hair and walks out. The sound of his shoes clumping down the hallway reaches my ears through the open, creaking door.
Waiting a couple of seconds first, I slip off my bed and pad over to my dresser to find something to wear. I can get dressed all by myself; I even know that stripes and polka dots don’t match.
Daddy’s voice came, muffled, to my bedroom. “Tiger, you comin’?”
I call back, “Yeah!” and race out of the room, leaving the drawer hanging all the way open. Soon, Daddy’s gonna leave for work; and I don’t want him to go without giving me a hug and kiss goodbye.
At 8:24 I’m sitting ‘cross from Mommy at the kitchen table. She’s eating plain toast that got all black ‘round the edges; I like the way it crunches when she takes a bite, like stomping on all the colorful leaves on the sidewalk in the fall. While she munches loudly, I reach over my bowl of Captain Crunch to drag the full jug of milk back to me. Tipping it carefully, I try to balance the jug as milk splashes into and over the sides of my bowl. Just as it begins to slip from my fingers, Daddy’s arms encircle me. His hands steady mine, unburden me from the weight, and cap the jug.
“Careful there, Tiger,” he chuckles brightly as I turn bright red like the Red Delicious apples Daddy buys in September. To hide my face so he won’t realize how embarrassed I am, I shovel a spoonful of Captain Crunch into my mouth and dropped my gaze to my overflowing bowl.
At 8:28 Daddy glances quickly at his shiny, new watch that Grammie bought him for his birthday two weeks ago. Eyes going really round like basketballs, he jumps up from his chair, turns on the faucet, and rinses his bowl before dumping it in the sink. I turn ‘round to watch him gather up his striped coat, which he always leaves in a lump in the corner of the kitchen floor. Mommy hates it; whenever she walks by it, she presses her lips together ‘till they turn white.
“Can’t be late,” Daddy murmurs to himself, shrugging his coat onto his shoulders. Quickly striding back over to the table, he pats my head and kisses it right there on top. “Be good,” he says, “and we’ll go to the park when I get home. ‘Kay, buddy?”
Without looking up, I nod. “Arright,” I agree through a mouthful of food.
He replies, “’Atta boy,” and leaves Mommy and me alone in the kitchen. The room is so quiet that Mommy and I both hear the car keys jingle as Daddy takes them off the hook. His whistling tune echoes back to us.
As soon as we hear the front door click shut, Mommy’s chair scrapes back against the tile floor. As she crosses the room to the counter, my eyes follow her every move; but the moment she drops her crumb-filled plate into the sink with an echoing ‘clang!’ I duck my head again… not that she looks up at me anyway.
Without a word she leaves the kitchen, and I’m left eating breakfast in piercing silence, completely alone.
At 8:32 I slurp all the milk from my bowl (Daddy claims it builds strong bones just like his) and slip off the chair. My bare feet thunk against the floor, and I pad to the sink, trying to balance my bowl in just one hand like the people at the circus can do. The floor is so cold; I didn’t notice it before because I ran into the kitchen, not wanting to miss eating breakfast with Daddy. Now, walking slowly so I won’t drop stuff, I wish I put socks on before I left my room.
To reach the knobs in the sink, I stand on my very tippiest toes and stretch my fingers all the way up. A stream of ice cold water explodes out of the faucet, and I hold the bowl underneath it until my hands get too cold to feel anymore. Then, I turn off the water and drop the bowl into the sink just like Daddy and Mommy both did.
Wiping my hands on my shirt (I couldn’t find the dishtowel), I turn ‘round to go back to my bedroom. My feet are really getting cold now; I need a pair of socks from that drawer I left hanging open. (Oops. I forgot about that.)
At 8:33 I jump backwards in surprise. Only a few feet behind me, Mommy stands with both her hands clamped behind her back. It reminds me of when Daddy gave me a birthday gift last year; he kept it hidden behind his back ‘till I sat down real quiet, held out my hands, and closed my eyes. His eyes sparkled, too, just like how Mommy’s do right now. I wonder why, though, since it’s not my birthday or hers.
She smiles, a gesture so rarely appearing on her face that I’m not sure if it really is a smile at all. Her lips turn up, and her teeth show, clamped tightly together like the dog up the block that always growls at me when I walk past the house. Her eyes may sparkle, but they don’t crinkle at the edges like crumpled wrapping paper. When Daddy smiles at me, his eyes go real tiny ‘till all you can see is two little slits. They crinkle. Mommy’s aren’t crinkling.
It’s not a smile, not like Daddy’s; but I smile back anyway. Maybe she’s just out of practice. I don’t mind teaching her how to do it.
Slowly, I walk forward to leave the room. My feet are freezing now, as if I jumped into a pile of white, white snow without wearing any boots or socks or anything. Hopping from one foot to the other, I stare at the floor so I don’t have to watch Mommy’s eyes following me. It’s really creepy when she does that. I wish she wouldn’t.
Before I can walk past her, she opens her hands and brings them in front of her. The five fingers of her left hand curl ‘round the handle of one of the super sharp knives we have for cutting steak.
For a second I just stare at it; Daddy doesn’t let me use the ones like that, so I don’t see it very often. It glitters all pretty-like. The shiny part is silver, like the jewelry Daddy buys Mommy after they have a fight. The only difference is that jewelry can’t hurt you.
Without saying anything, the stretched smile sticking to her face like hot glue, Mommy holds up the knife as if she wants to show it to me. She takes a slow step forward, her eyes never once leaving the knife… never once look at me. Confused, my smile wanes.
At 8:35 Mommy’s eyes leave the clean knife and finally look at me. In an instant my grin returns; I don’t want her to think I’m not happy she’s looking. Like wisps of clouds, her own smile sort of fades away. She takes one more step forward, and she could reach out and hug me now if she tried. She holds up the knife…
I never saw so much blood before, at least not just from me. Eyes wide in fascination, I stare at the thick, sticky, red goo that creeps underneath the handle of the blade. I can also feel it trickling down my back, hot and slow. Suddenly, my legs start to shake; but I can’t figure out why since I’m not scared or nothing, just shocked. Dangling from the tip of my nose for a few seconds, my glasses finally slip from my face. Then, all of a sudden, I’m sprawled out on the floor, staring up at the pale, blue ceiling through squinted eyes. Slowly, slowly, the black at the edge of my vision sneaks forward. I wish it would stop; I’m afraid of the dark.
Mommy’s face looms into view, reminding me of Daddy waking me up this morning. How long ago was that? Even though I’m not too great at math just yet, I’m pretty sure it hasn’t been more than half’n hour. Gently, calmly, Mommy touches my hair, which is slick from the sweat that wasn’t there two minutes ago.
Daddy told me you sweat when you get real hot, but I’m oh-so cold right now. I wish Mommy would get me a blanket.
Leaning in real close, Mommy opens her mouth to speak. For a few seconds all I hear is muffled sounds until my sluggish brain makes sense of the words she’s saying. “It will be okay soon,” she whispers, her breath tickling my quickly numbing skin; and because she’s my mommy, I believe her.
Patting my shoulder almost comfortingly, she smiles. This time, when her lips curve up, the tension drains from her eyes; and they crinkle like a real smile. As I try to smile back (I don’t want to disappoint her, even if I hurt all over), I choke on nothing, on air, on life. Coughs rub my throat raw ‘till I can hardly breathe at all.
Still, Mommy just sits there and watches me.
For a little while there, my hands feel kind of cold and clammy. In my head I can almost hear the headache-monsters throwing their loudest party ever, with cymbals and drums and everything. Right there in the middle of my stomach, like a nail hammered into a block of wood, that sharp knife sticks out boldly. Since it hurts oh-so much already, I’m afraid to touch it or try to remove it somehow. My arms and legs start to get kind of stiff; my eyelids feel kind of heavy… and then I don’t feel anything at all.
By the time I open my eyes again, I don’t know how many hours passed. Now, when I look at Mommy, it’s like I’m standing right next to her instead of lying still on the floor. It’s kind of creepy to see what I look like without looking in the mirror. I can see me and everything around me, including Mommy, as if I’m someone else. It’s sort of like I’m not even there anymore.
It looks like I’m sleeping; only the floor is red and sticky and my face is all white. Either she doesn’t notice or she ignores it, but Mommy kneels beside me same as ever. The blood doesn’t seem to bother her at all, and she doesn’t get bored of just holding my hand, even though I can’t feel it. So much time has passed that it’s starting to get dark out, but Mommy still hasn’t moved an inch.
Finally, Mommy stands up. Her foot presses down hard on my glasses, and they crunch, not cracking just a little but breaking into lots of itty-bitty pieces. She doesn’t even seem to notice.
Down the hall the front door creaks, and Mommy glides out of the kitchen without a word to greet Daddy. Like a ghost in those movies that give me nightmares, I follow behind her. Not once, not one single time, does she bother to look back at my body on the floor or at my glasses. Daddy will be mad that they broke again.
I don’t think Mommy did it on purpose. She prob’ly just didn’t realize how sharp the big, silver knife really is. Daddy never lets me play with it because he says I can cut myself and get all bloody everywhere. Maybe she forgot ‘bout that.
‘Sides, if she really did it by purpose, she wouldn’t have started to cry in front of Daddy the minute he opened the door. There are lots of tears, too, like the time I started crying when someone at school called me stupid. Daddy kissed my cheek to make me feel better, but he doesn’t kiss Mommy now. He doesn’t give her a band aid neither, even though she has blood all over her hands.
The second he sees her sobbing, Daddy’s face gets real red like he’s angry. He doesn’t see all the blood everywhere in the kitchen, but he can smell it from the hallway. It smells like the big, metal pots Mommy uses to cook soup, ‘cept the smell’s a lot stronger when it’s spilled all over the floor.
Nervous that Daddy might start to yell, I bite my lip hard enough to break the skin. It doesn’t bleed, though; I guess I ran all out of my blood.
I can’t understand why Daddy looks so mad at Mommy for the blood on her hands. It was just an accident; he can’t be angry when it wasn’t by purpose. She was annoyed; that must have been it. She was annoyed at me for not closing my dresser, so she took the knife to make me say sorry. Maybe, just like me, she didn’t know that dead means forever.
When I realize Daddy isn’t going to comfort Mommy or make her tears go away, I reach out and hold her hand in mine to make her feel better. She doesn’t have to cry; I forgive her.
author's note: Please review. No, I'm not insane. I love kids and hate people who harm them. Don't go asking me to up my medicine dose, all right? Thank you.
At 8:17 I hear a heavy knock on my bedroom door… and roll over and ignore it. It’s Sunday, I have no school, and under my covers is where all the warm air sleeps. Besides, I know I’ll be woken again if Daddy really wants me to be awake.
At 8:19 I’m shaken awake and not released until my eyes are wide open, like someone who just saw the teeny-tiniest baby mouse that ever existed. Right in front of my sleepy eyes, Daddy’s blurry face is watching me, smiling as if I made a funny joke. He bursts into the quiet chuckles that I’m so used to hearing. His voice, deep and booming, matches the rest of him, which is tall and strong like the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk.
“Hey, Tiger,” he grins, pulling back the covers. All the warm air that kept me company during the night spills out from my bed to make friends with the cool breeze from the open window. “Did you sleep well?”
Shoving my shiny, round glasses up on my nose, I grin as Daddy comes into focus. “Yeah,” I mumble sleepily, rubbing Mr. Sandman’s dust out of my eyes. I try to drag the blanket back up to my shoulders, but Daddy yanks them back again.
“Up and at ‘em, mister,” he laughs, grabbing me ‘round the middle and tickling me real hard. I laugh until my sides start to hurt, until I’m gasping for breath. Finally, he releases me.
“Come on, Tiger. Meet you downstairs?” When I nod, my lips pressing tightly together, he ruffles my messy, flattened hair and walks out. The sound of his shoes clumping down the hallway reaches my ears through the open, creaking door.
Waiting a couple of seconds first, I slip off my bed and pad over to my dresser to find something to wear. I can get dressed all by myself; I even know that stripes and polka dots don’t match.
Daddy’s voice came, muffled, to my bedroom. “Tiger, you comin’?”
I call back, “Yeah!” and race out of the room, leaving the drawer hanging all the way open. Soon, Daddy’s gonna leave for work; and I don’t want him to go without giving me a hug and kiss goodbye.
At 8:24 I’m sitting ‘cross from Mommy at the kitchen table. She’s eating plain toast that got all black ‘round the edges; I like the way it crunches when she takes a bite, like stomping on all the colorful leaves on the sidewalk in the fall. While she munches loudly, I reach over my bowl of Captain Crunch to drag the full jug of milk back to me. Tipping it carefully, I try to balance the jug as milk splashes into and over the sides of my bowl. Just as it begins to slip from my fingers, Daddy’s arms encircle me. His hands steady mine, unburden me from the weight, and cap the jug.
“Careful there, Tiger,” he chuckles brightly as I turn bright red like the Red Delicious apples Daddy buys in September. To hide my face so he won’t realize how embarrassed I am, I shovel a spoonful of Captain Crunch into my mouth and dropped my gaze to my overflowing bowl.
At 8:28 Daddy glances quickly at his shiny, new watch that Grammie bought him for his birthday two weeks ago. Eyes going really round like basketballs, he jumps up from his chair, turns on the faucet, and rinses his bowl before dumping it in the sink. I turn ‘round to watch him gather up his striped coat, which he always leaves in a lump in the corner of the kitchen floor. Mommy hates it; whenever she walks by it, she presses her lips together ‘till they turn white.
“Can’t be late,” Daddy murmurs to himself, shrugging his coat onto his shoulders. Quickly striding back over to the table, he pats my head and kisses it right there on top. “Be good,” he says, “and we’ll go to the park when I get home. ‘Kay, buddy?”
Without looking up, I nod. “Arright,” I agree through a mouthful of food.
He replies, “’Atta boy,” and leaves Mommy and me alone in the kitchen. The room is so quiet that Mommy and I both hear the car keys jingle as Daddy takes them off the hook. His whistling tune echoes back to us.
As soon as we hear the front door click shut, Mommy’s chair scrapes back against the tile floor. As she crosses the room to the counter, my eyes follow her every move; but the moment she drops her crumb-filled plate into the sink with an echoing ‘clang!’ I duck my head again… not that she looks up at me anyway.
Without a word she leaves the kitchen, and I’m left eating breakfast in piercing silence, completely alone.
At 8:32 I slurp all the milk from my bowl (Daddy claims it builds strong bones just like his) and slip off the chair. My bare feet thunk against the floor, and I pad to the sink, trying to balance my bowl in just one hand like the people at the circus can do. The floor is so cold; I didn’t notice it before because I ran into the kitchen, not wanting to miss eating breakfast with Daddy. Now, walking slowly so I won’t drop stuff, I wish I put socks on before I left my room.
To reach the knobs in the sink, I stand on my very tippiest toes and stretch my fingers all the way up. A stream of ice cold water explodes out of the faucet, and I hold the bowl underneath it until my hands get too cold to feel anymore. Then, I turn off the water and drop the bowl into the sink just like Daddy and Mommy both did.
Wiping my hands on my shirt (I couldn’t find the dishtowel), I turn ‘round to go back to my bedroom. My feet are really getting cold now; I need a pair of socks from that drawer I left hanging open. (Oops. I forgot about that.)
At 8:33 I jump backwards in surprise. Only a few feet behind me, Mommy stands with both her hands clamped behind her back. It reminds me of when Daddy gave me a birthday gift last year; he kept it hidden behind his back ‘till I sat down real quiet, held out my hands, and closed my eyes. His eyes sparkled, too, just like how Mommy’s do right now. I wonder why, though, since it’s not my birthday or hers.
She smiles, a gesture so rarely appearing on her face that I’m not sure if it really is a smile at all. Her lips turn up, and her teeth show, clamped tightly together like the dog up the block that always growls at me when I walk past the house. Her eyes may sparkle, but they don’t crinkle at the edges like crumpled wrapping paper. When Daddy smiles at me, his eyes go real tiny ‘till all you can see is two little slits. They crinkle. Mommy’s aren’t crinkling.
It’s not a smile, not like Daddy’s; but I smile back anyway. Maybe she’s just out of practice. I don’t mind teaching her how to do it.
Slowly, I walk forward to leave the room. My feet are freezing now, as if I jumped into a pile of white, white snow without wearing any boots or socks or anything. Hopping from one foot to the other, I stare at the floor so I don’t have to watch Mommy’s eyes following me. It’s really creepy when she does that. I wish she wouldn’t.
Before I can walk past her, she opens her hands and brings them in front of her. The five fingers of her left hand curl ‘round the handle of one of the super sharp knives we have for cutting steak.
For a second I just stare at it; Daddy doesn’t let me use the ones like that, so I don’t see it very often. It glitters all pretty-like. The shiny part is silver, like the jewelry Daddy buys Mommy after they have a fight. The only difference is that jewelry can’t hurt you.
Without saying anything, the stretched smile sticking to her face like hot glue, Mommy holds up the knife as if she wants to show it to me. She takes a slow step forward, her eyes never once leaving the knife… never once look at me. Confused, my smile wanes.
At 8:35 Mommy’s eyes leave the clean knife and finally look at me. In an instant my grin returns; I don’t want her to think I’m not happy she’s looking. Like wisps of clouds, her own smile sort of fades away. She takes one more step forward, and she could reach out and hug me now if she tried. She holds up the knife…
I never saw so much blood before, at least not just from me. Eyes wide in fascination, I stare at the thick, sticky, red goo that creeps underneath the handle of the blade. I can also feel it trickling down my back, hot and slow. Suddenly, my legs start to shake; but I can’t figure out why since I’m not scared or nothing, just shocked. Dangling from the tip of my nose for a few seconds, my glasses finally slip from my face. Then, all of a sudden, I’m sprawled out on the floor, staring up at the pale, blue ceiling through squinted eyes. Slowly, slowly, the black at the edge of my vision sneaks forward. I wish it would stop; I’m afraid of the dark.
Mommy’s face looms into view, reminding me of Daddy waking me up this morning. How long ago was that? Even though I’m not too great at math just yet, I’m pretty sure it hasn’t been more than half’n hour. Gently, calmly, Mommy touches my hair, which is slick from the sweat that wasn’t there two minutes ago.
Daddy told me you sweat when you get real hot, but I’m oh-so cold right now. I wish Mommy would get me a blanket.
Leaning in real close, Mommy opens her mouth to speak. For a few seconds all I hear is muffled sounds until my sluggish brain makes sense of the words she’s saying. “It will be okay soon,” she whispers, her breath tickling my quickly numbing skin; and because she’s my mommy, I believe her.
Patting my shoulder almost comfortingly, she smiles. This time, when her lips curve up, the tension drains from her eyes; and they crinkle like a real smile. As I try to smile back (I don’t want to disappoint her, even if I hurt all over), I choke on nothing, on air, on life. Coughs rub my throat raw ‘till I can hardly breathe at all.
Still, Mommy just sits there and watches me.
For a little while there, my hands feel kind of cold and clammy. In my head I can almost hear the headache-monsters throwing their loudest party ever, with cymbals and drums and everything. Right there in the middle of my stomach, like a nail hammered into a block of wood, that sharp knife sticks out boldly. Since it hurts oh-so much already, I’m afraid to touch it or try to remove it somehow. My arms and legs start to get kind of stiff; my eyelids feel kind of heavy… and then I don’t feel anything at all.
By the time I open my eyes again, I don’t know how many hours passed. Now, when I look at Mommy, it’s like I’m standing right next to her instead of lying still on the floor. It’s kind of creepy to see what I look like without looking in the mirror. I can see me and everything around me, including Mommy, as if I’m someone else. It’s sort of like I’m not even there anymore.
It looks like I’m sleeping; only the floor is red and sticky and my face is all white. Either she doesn’t notice or she ignores it, but Mommy kneels beside me same as ever. The blood doesn’t seem to bother her at all, and she doesn’t get bored of just holding my hand, even though I can’t feel it. So much time has passed that it’s starting to get dark out, but Mommy still hasn’t moved an inch.
Finally, Mommy stands up. Her foot presses down hard on my glasses, and they crunch, not cracking just a little but breaking into lots of itty-bitty pieces. She doesn’t even seem to notice.
Down the hall the front door creaks, and Mommy glides out of the kitchen without a word to greet Daddy. Like a ghost in those movies that give me nightmares, I follow behind her. Not once, not one single time, does she bother to look back at my body on the floor or at my glasses. Daddy will be mad that they broke again.
I don’t think Mommy did it on purpose. She prob’ly just didn’t realize how sharp the big, silver knife really is. Daddy never lets me play with it because he says I can cut myself and get all bloody everywhere. Maybe she forgot ‘bout that.
‘Sides, if she really did it by purpose, she wouldn’t have started to cry in front of Daddy the minute he opened the door. There are lots of tears, too, like the time I started crying when someone at school called me stupid. Daddy kissed my cheek to make me feel better, but he doesn’t kiss Mommy now. He doesn’t give her a band aid neither, even though she has blood all over her hands.
The second he sees her sobbing, Daddy’s face gets real red like he’s angry. He doesn’t see all the blood everywhere in the kitchen, but he can smell it from the hallway. It smells like the big, metal pots Mommy uses to cook soup, ‘cept the smell’s a lot stronger when it’s spilled all over the floor.
Nervous that Daddy might start to yell, I bite my lip hard enough to break the skin. It doesn’t bleed, though; I guess I ran all out of my blood.
I can’t understand why Daddy looks so mad at Mommy for the blood on her hands. It was just an accident; he can’t be angry when it wasn’t by purpose. She was annoyed; that must have been it. She was annoyed at me for not closing my dresser, so she took the knife to make me say sorry. Maybe, just like me, she didn’t know that dead means forever.
When I realize Daddy isn’t going to comfort Mommy or make her tears go away, I reach out and hold her hand in mine to make her feel better. She doesn’t have to cry; I forgive her.
author's note: Please review. No, I'm not insane. I love kids and hate people who harm them. Don't go asking me to up my medicine dose, all right? Thank you.
. I like the fact that you left out the actual part where she stabs him. In that case, less was more. And no I dont think you need any medication, I think you are reasonably sane LOL. As sane as any writer can be ;D 
