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Friday, November 11, 2011

Mood Swings

My first get-together at the new place on a warm night with a light breeze. A few friends from work and a few friends from out of town. We were all having a good time sitting in a circle in the garage with the overhead door open so we could enjoy the beautiful weather. Some edgy, raw music played in the background in contrast with our unified laid-back mood. Each guest had his favorite drink in hand.

Bubbles floated by, and we realized that as they popped the music became louder. We made a game of this, reaching up and popping as many as we could. Amanda used the cherry on her cigarette to stab them. When she did this, the song changed, and then the mood changed.

Something was wrong.

My guests started to hustle about and crowd around the edge of the garage, looking at something out in the neighborhood. I pushed through them. Bryan grabbed my arm to hold me back. His black eyes met mine with a fear, not of the scene he saw, but for my reaction to it. I pulled away from him, now desperate to see what had caught everyone's attention.

A freezing gust of wind shot through the garage and we pulled our heavy coats around us. About two inches of snow blanketed the ground, giving the neighborhood a false sense of peace. The world was dark and silent. I stepped into the snow, and then I was alone.

My house was gone. My friends were gone. There had never been a party. There had never been music or bubbles.

There was nothing but snow and silence.

Until I heard the gurgle. A familiar sound that I couldn't quite place, but soon enough I saw the man unconscious in the snow. The crunch of my shoes in the hardened snow echoed in my ears like the beat of my heart as I approached him.

I fell to my knees, distraught at the condition of my son. Blood pooled into the ice around him. Steam rose like fog, obscuring us from the rest of the world. A bestial, guttural roar ripped through the air, and a moment went by before I realized that the sound had come from somewhere deep within me.

My son lay lifeless on a freezing blanket of ice. When I scooped him into my arms, his pieces fell away. Somebody had chopped him up and now his arms and legs were rolling away like discarded shoes and socks. I grabbed at them and tried to put him back together in my arms. He could be fixed if we acted quickly enough, if I could scoop all the blood back into him fast enough, everything would be okay. Blue steam shot from his mouth, and one last gurgle rose from his throat. All the life escaped him then, but there was no convincing me.

I woke in the warm darkness of my bedroom, scooping the blankets toward me, scooping  the blood that wasn't there, grasping at air where my son's lifeless body had been.
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3 comments:

  1. Woah! This was amazing! The colours and scenes were so vivid. Quite frightening too- I found myself needing to read quicker to know more.

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  2. Every parent's worst nightmare. I am glad you were able to wake up from it.

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  3. Lizzie- that's funny, when I went back to read it over, I found myself stopping halfway through because I didn't want to know the ending...(I know that's silly, but I always hold out some far-fetched hope that the ending will change if I just ignore it.)

    Robbie- I have three sons. Two of them, having "aged out" have decided to be Wanderers. The farther apart the phone calls, the more my subconscious starts to worry.

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