The boy lies at the foot of the bed. No shirt. Pale ribs, shivering in the pale light. An AC groans overhead, breathing machine-cold air onto the boy. The boy hugs himself, curling into the valley of chilled sheets between his parents’ feet. Room flashes, light stings, head rings. Through the AC’s low groan, voices appear then disappear. His parents are watching TV – a grown-up show. Things the boy doesn’t yet understand.
Grainy words solidify, then fade again. Fragments are all he can catch; broken letters and sounds – there, then gone. Gone into a story, hidden in half-formed memory: Jaw-clenched speech, Angry movements, No!, Ugly moans then suddenly a Slap and the hiss of Skin against Skin and and a Scream and the metallic clutter of pots and pans. Echoes recede into the groan of the AC. The boy stares at his parents’ shadows on the wall, trying to piece everything together in his head:
Jaw-clenched speech …
Angry movements …
No! … Yes … Jaw … Anger … N, … N,
Ugly …
Skin.
JANUS! The boy yells. He looks up at his parents: they are staring at the TV. No response. They are pretending as if they didn’t hear. But he knows they did, because he did. Through the screen and through the kitchen door, he heard. Though he doesn’t yet know what. He stares at the wall and whispers the word three times to their shadows, as if summoning an answer: Janus, Janus, Janus …
The TV laughs, then the parents. A funny word, apparently. The boy frowns. They are still not listening. They are laughing, silencing memory. He stares at them and says it louder: Janus! They look back at him. Four wide eyes, blind. They flash black. When the light returns, they are back to the screen. Numb, happy. Why won’t his parents listen? JANUS!
Room tenses, wood creaks, door opens. Something stretches across the floor – light from the living room, but no shadow. The door is opening, but nobody is there. Hello? Panicked sheets shift as the boy sits up, his body a frightened black cameo against the glow of the screen. The bed squeals as his parents lean to see around him, still staring at the TV. Hello? This time, a voiceless response: six taps against the wall – one loud, three quiet, two more loud. The boy stands in panic and runs to the doorway and glances, frantic, around the room.
On the floor, a bird. The bird is very small; it looks very weak. It is whimpering into the carpet. A draft whistles through the half-cracked window; feathers ruffle, then stiffen. Cars moan as they pass by on the road, their lights diffracting through the vane blinds in flashes. The ground rumbles. The bird trembles, releasing a soft coo. The lightbulb above hums, sputters, dies. A metallic rustle from the window. Wind blows, and the boy floats towards the small creature on the floor. Hello. He bends, his spine protrudes. Between two flashes, the boy sees: four pearly eyes, looking back up at him in fear.
In fear the boy yelps and jumps and runs back into the bedroom and yells to his parents that there is something out there something in the living room he thought he knew what it was he thought it was a bird but no it is something else its skull has split and it has four eyes and two heads now and something is wrong something is deeply wrong come look come help please. His parents stare at him. Please. They sigh. The remote hits the night-stand and the screen turns to static.
Huh?
Please, just come.
What happened to the light? his dad asks.
I don’t know, the boy says. I don’t know, just come.
They stand, and come. His mother feels her way to the door, hands irradiate at the edges from the sickly light of the screen. She stumbles slowly, as if sedated. His father’s fingers fumble through a drawer in the bedside stand. Clangs and knocks and then silence. A click. He is holding a flashlight. Its beam is solid at the edges, given form by the dense dust flowing towards the doorway. His father follows the dust, and finds the boy standing there.
What?
Come, the boy says, and steps into the living room.
His father steps forward, followed by his mother.
On the floor, the boy says. It was on the floor.
His father sweeps the floor with the light, searching.
In the middle, the boy says.
The spotlight reaches the middle, and nothing. There is nothing there.
But…
His father begins to turn but is stopped – his boy’s small hand, desperately clutching his wrist. At one time, that same small hand struggled to grasp even one of the man’s fingers. So different now, but still the same weakness. The same clueless love. The boy’s hand trembles with it. He pleads. Please. The boy tugs at his arm. The father clenches his Jaw and mutters something through tense teeth. The boy tugs again and the father turns and Angrily pushes away the boy’s hand and raises his hand and begins to bring it down towards the boy’s face when the mother moans and wails with a desperate No and she dives and then an Ugly echo of Skin stings the darkness. And then the boy knows. Now he has seen the sound; the door is no longer closed.
Sadness,
Understanding.
Never before has the boy felt this way.
All he wants is to turn back.
Just to turn back and forget.
The woman clutches her cheek. The man breathes, shakily. They are motionless, both staring at the floor. Turn back. The boy puts his hands on his man’s legs and pushes. The man does not move. Shoulder, now. The boy uses all his weight; finally the man yields and the two stumble back into the bedroom. The boy pulls him by the arm to the bed. They stop at its side, still for a moment. The man’s breathing grows louder – staggers as the boy sits him down and grabs his legs and hoists them up onto the bed, turning the man’s body to face the TV. The boy positions the man against the headboard, braces his back with pillows. He straightens the legs, shrouds them in the sheets. The boy asks if he’s comfortable. No response but breath. The boy jumps off the bed and runs and tugs the woman into the room. He positions her on the other side of the bed. She is still clutching her cheek, neck crooked, face downwards. The boy removes her hand by its wrist and lifts her head to face the TV. He makes for the chair by the closet, drags it across the floor with a screech. He leans it against the door, the top of its back bolstered against the underside of the handle. Close the door. Forget.
The boy grabs the remote from the night-stand and crawls over the man’s legs and turns on the TV. He lies back at the foot of the bed with a sigh, supine. Neck stretched, he looks up at the man and the woman. Strangers. The inverted visages of his former parents. Second faces, features formed by the shadows of the first. Frowning when his parents smile, smiling when his parents frown. Had they always been there? Had they been hiding from the boy all this time?
The boy sits up and changes the channel. The TV laughs. On its screen, a funny cartoon. The boy’s old favorite. He used to watch it together with the man and the woman and they would all laugh and hug each other and there was so much love. So much love. He smiles, laughs, points. Look, he says. Remember? Look. But the man and the woman do not look. Not at the TV. The boy laughs. Look! The man groans; the boy laughs louder. Look! The woman cries softly; the boy laughs louder, louder, louder. His laughter strained and shrill and bright like the screen. Look! He laughs louder and louder drowning the sounds of the AC the cry the scream and the laughter above it all like a deafening blinding light and everything is happy. Yes, everything is happy.
A woman sobs. A man screams. Across the room the chair falls, and a door creaks open. Open, forever.
