It was now early evening. The surrogate family and I were sitting in the den watching the news.
“About ten miles south of Glenwood County North Dakota, a young man has gone missing. Locals claim extra-terrestrial intervention.”
“Glenwood County?” Jade pondered. “Isn’t that where you used to live?” She asked me.
I couldn’t help but wonder if this ‘extra-terrestrial intervention’ was the same I’d seen two and a half months earlier.
I nodded but hoped the conversation would end there. I really didn’t know what I’d say if a conversation began with the aliens as the focal point.
“What do you think of your hometown being a hotspot for ET?” Jade inquired.
I shrugged. “I always knew they were loony.”
Jade laughed in an “I’m bored” kind of way.
The wind began to howl. A storm was coming but in my opinion it was late; the forecast had been calling for heavy storms for the past week. Quite suddenly, the tempest didn’t just break, it shattered. Due to the ferocious downpour and also the refusal of my grandparents to update their archaic satellite dish, the television quality dissipated.
Because of this, my grandmother found other ways of entertaining herself. This entertainment was the antique piano in the other room.
My grandmother used to play the piano for a local African-American church, despite her Caucasian tan. The song she played was reminiscent of her old church accompanying days; it was a classic hymn.
When she finished her piece, I posed a question. “May I play something on your piano?”
“Sure, go right ahead!” She was always this enthusiastic and cheerful.
Where she’d been sitting moments earlier, I now sat. Letting my fingers caress the ivory keys, I marveled over the antiquity of the piano. It was so old, it actually had ivory keys; they probably weren’t the originals, but replacements of a higher quality. I played a few chords on the stiff keys to loosen my fingers and then pondered what to play with my audience keen for rhapsody. I was confident in my ability to improv a composition as I played that would satisfy the ears of my listeners, but again, I was nervous about performing for an audience of people who’d see me daily.
Instead of inventing one as I played, I selected another piece of my own composition. Though I’d written lyrics to complement the harmonies, I refrained from singing them. Not that it really meant much, but I’d titled the song “The Last Dog”. As strange as it seemed to me, I’d even gone as far as creating a printed, paper version of the song.
Yes, I was confident in my piano playing prowess, but that didn’t stop me from worrying over the quality or richness of the piece. Granted, to me, all I heard was the fragrance of a thousand roses while a choir of heavenly strings resonated beneath the beautiful stained exterior of the piano.
Before long, I’d completed the song with a few last minor chords. “My, my, I’m proud of you Sruun. You have real talent.” My grandmother patted my shoulder and left to check on her husband.
“Where’d you learn to play like that?” Jade whispered in awe.
“I don’t know, I taught myself to read music, and I play what sounds good.” I answered. “This song, I’ve gone as far as to print out with lyrics, if you’d like to see it.”
“Could you show me?” She was eager to accept my offer.
I led her upstairs to where the notebook containing the printed version of the song was. Jade entered my room but did so with some apprehension; I think she still felt nervous about entering a room where someone had died over a hundred years earlier. I handed her the pamphlet while an expression of interest crossed her face.
“This is amazing.” Jade breathed before softly singing to herself the parts she liked.
“He stood on Carpenter Street,
Watching the crowds go by
And scrounging for a bite to eat
Without anyone sayin’ ‘Hi’.
In his oversized ears,
He’s been kicked to the curb,
And forced to face his fears
Having been banned even from the suburb.
He has tangled black hair
And a cold wet nose.
His face says ‘I’ve been there’.
And claws protrude from his toes.
He wore a tattered coat
And a belt with a nameplate.
He’d never rock the boat
And cannot hate.
He’d been left for dead
Suffering from rejection
All he did was wag and shed
But love was a deception.”
“So, what did you think?” I asked tentatively.
“It was…”
“It was what?” I wasn’t very fond of incomplete statements in regards to something I worked hard on.
“I…uh…”Jade placed a hand on her mouth and the other pointed to the east window.
I looked out the window but saw nothing. “What is it?”
“You-you don’t see her?!”
“See who?” I looked again but saw nothing.
“There’s the silhouette of an old lady with wild white hair, hardly any teeth, and these horrible red eyes!” She began slowly backing away, as if there were a rattlesnake in front of her. “Oh God! No! She’s looking at me with those eyes! No, the eyes!” She hid her face and fled from the room, almost crying. For the last time, I looked, but saw nothing except a full moon creeping above the distant tree tops.
While the moon continued it’s sneaking, I heard the television click back on. Once back downstairs, I saw a sad news announcement; on the television was an Amber Alert. A seven-year-old had gone missing from a town on the Minnesota side of the North Dakota-Minnesota border. A twinge of anger boiled inside me upon hearing the news. What person would willfully kidnap a child? It was a despicable crime.
My grandfather whispered something in my grandmother’s ear. She nodded and asked Jade and I to listen to her for a minute. “Elbert and I have made a decision. We’ve decided that should something happen to any of us, we couldn’t make it to the hospital easily or quickly so we’re going to move to the city where we’ll be close to a hospital and to other people.” I knew she was referring to Jade or I. They didn’t care if something happened to them; they’d wanted to live their retirement in the middle of nowhere without images of the city polluting their minds.
“When are we moving?” Jade asked, less than eagerly.
“We don’t know yet, we’ve still got to find a place to live first.”
And so, for the next few days, the four of us toured various houses via the internet and robotically controlled webcams. Jade and I both found a few affordable apartments we liked but unfortunately, certain restrictions prohibited my grandparents from acquiring them. After nearly two weeks, my grandmother finally found an apartment to buy, yet she refused to tell either Jade or I anything about it; she wanted to surprise us.
Jade and I packed our things all in two boxes; we really didn’t have all that much junk to take with us. All I really had with my grandparents was my laptop, Hubert’s laser knife, my currency card, and about two weeks worth of clothes. Jade didn’t have much more; she had her clothes, a small handheld computer and a picture of her mother and my father when they were much younger. In the picture, my dad was twenty or so, while Jade’s mother was probably eight or nine. She looked like a younger version of Jade, though I saw my own shadow in the child as well.
Jade and I placed the boxes in my grandparents’ extremely old internal combustion vehicle. It didn’t run off of gasoline, gasoline hadn’t been around since before I was born. Now most internal combustion vehicles ran off pure ethanol, though this truck was so old, it ran off biodiesel. Rather than pour vegetable oil into the tank, the truck derived its fuel from one of the few remaining fuel stations, which coincidentally, found themselves neighboring restaurants.
When we were ready to leave, Jade and I squeezed into the back of the ancient vehicle and my grandfather took the front passenger seat while my grandmother slid behind the wheel.
The back of the truck wasn’t roomy but it wasn’t cramped either. I rather wished there had been more room though; it would’ve been nice to stretch my legs on the four and a half hour trip.
We were moving to a city on the Virginia-North Carolina border. From what I could tell, this city didn’t have much going for it except that it had North America’s largest sea port on the Atlantic Ocean. Other than that, I didn’t know if there was anything to be said about the city.
We arrived just after dark but had to park the ear in a storage facility and take a maglev train into the heart of the city. This was a fairly new city and wasn’t lacking in any of the modern conveniences. In fact the city itself was a radical concept that copied other big cities. The entire city was a hive of skyscrapers that were joined with hundreds of tunnels, catwalks, and maglev tracks. Because of the size of the city, housing costs were relatively low, which was probably why my grandparents were interested in living there.
The apartment we were living in was about a mile into the city, and about as far up. We traveled on several elevators and urban transport vehicles to reach our destination. Walking through the strangely dehumidified walls took some getting used to, though assuming one wasn’t claustrophobic, one could live in relative ease in this city.
The door’s hinges creaked when my grandmother opened the main entrance to the pseudo-house. She pushed my grandfather in his wheelchair into the flat before Jade and I sidled in behind her. I’d almost been envisioning something with at least a little warmth, perhaps like the bachelor pads many college and post-college students get, but sadly, my measly expectations were far exaggerated.
There was a dark blue carpet smothering the entire floor with its drab appearance. In the far corner was what appeared to have ince been a nasty stain, possibly a glass of spilled wine, which had been scrubbed out, leaving that area significantly more hideous than the ocean around it.
The walls were full of holes where a nail or screw had been inserted and forcibly removed without bothering to repair the crumbling plaster wall board. The paint on the walls was plain white. They lacked character and hospitality. If walls could talk, these would be mute. My first impression of this would-be house was that it was factory made. It lacked everything that made a shelter a home.
Jade seemed to share my disappointment but tried to console the fears of our grandparents that this may not have been the best decision. “It has potential; I think that with a coat of paint, this will be the perfect place to live.” I knew she lied but my grandmother didn’t detect the treachery. If only she knew it would take more than a coat of paint to make this place appealing, she would’ve ordered us to return to the decrepit house that had been used by beings on more than one plane of existence.
“And what about you, Sruun? What do you think?” She asked with a little sadness forming a lump somewhere between her tongue and vocal cords.
I put on the false smile that had convinced so many of my sanity. “It couldn’t be better.” I let my smile remain until she looked away. I hadn’t lied; this place really couldn’t be better. It was too wretched to have any meager hope of being “better”. A place as degraded as this was a creature without a soul, almost like a dog whose master is deceased. The only thing that might have been potentially pleasant was the degree of baseness it clings to, even if it took a sadist to say it.
“Why don’t you two go choose a room? You can have the bigger bedroom.” My grandfather instructed to Jade and I. Then I knew that I wanted to return to the home I’d lived in, the one with the pictures of the beloved relatives adorning the walls and the idiosyncratic bullet-scarred sign on the bedroom door of my grandparents’. I had no problem sharing a room with Jade but I was distressed by the surrogate family’s new financial situation.
We’d abandoned a life of country serenity for an impoverished and so-called better life in the city. We might have been immeasurably closer to a hospital now, but we were that much further from happiness or tranquility. I was bothered that m grandparents left the house they’d worked so hard to pay off, just so Jade and I could have a better life. It agitated me that they would forsake their life in content harmony to ensure Jade and I had all the benefits of an average teenager. I knew they were doing it for our benefit, but I was still disturbed by it.
I’d always been a country girl and had never lived in the city. Of course, I’d always wanted to live in some bustling metropolis but I’d always assumed I’d have the best of both worlds, like perhaps a house separate from those of the neighbors’ yet with easy access to the heart of a thriving city. I’d also always assumed I’d be living in the city with my father’s loving expression staring down at me without being contained by a frame. Maybe I’d wished to live away from the clean air too much because now I was living in an emotionless box at the center of a dense city that lived off a government’s need for an oceanic navy.
I followed Jade to the back of the apartment where the two bedrooms were. One of the bedrooms would undoubtedly be overwhelmed by the queen size bed my grandparents would assemble in it. Between that bedroom and the other was a small bathroom; it was barely big enough for my disabled grandfather. The master bedroom, the bedroom Jade and I were to share, wasn’t much larger and would probably be consumed by the two beds to be placed in either corner. In time, a bunk bed might be able to replace our two beds to conserve space, but such a hope was quite distant. The bathroom connected to this room was just behind the other and included a shower stall and what looked like a plastic sink. I noticed, as Jade did too it seemed, that the door to the master bath was missing. Yet another reason I fell in love with the place.
As our furniture wasn’t scheduled to be delivered for at least a week, that night, Jade and I slept on eggshell mattresses while my grandparents took their inflatable mattress. Jade fell asleep fast although I was unsure of the level of sleep she was in because she rolled and moaned a lot. Since Jade had been asleep, I’d put away my laptop and laid on my side with the weight of the world heavy on my mind.
I looked at my arms. The scars from my life with Hubert were still present, even if they’d healed long ago. These markings represented everything I’d come to bear in my life; everything unfair that had ever been given to me by who or what ever controlled life. It had been a very long time since I’d last seared another line in my flesh but I did not feel that I no longer had to. I’d merely not been faced with anything upsetting enough to receive a way to release my emotions.
Even though I’d not needed to in so long, I knew that these would likely always be times when I would need to vent. This was one of those times.
I rummaged in my sack for my laser knife. Grasping the blade in my hand, I began engraving on my right arm. It hurt enough for me to clench my fist and clamp my teeth together, but each cut was painful only for a moment. Blood flowed openly from the fresh would but that didn’t dissuade me from continuing. With each new incision, I felt my emotions drain from my face in the same way air seeps from a bicycle tire upon puncturing the rubber tube. I continued my carving, always in a circular motion, until I had relieved myself of the grief plaguing my conscious. The blood loss put me on a natural high, a euphoric sensation that probably had something to do with my emotions being freed from their mental prison. I was careful to mop up the blood with a clean sock and then wrap my own arm in another clean sock before going to sleep. Tomorrow I would be sure to wear long sleeves and dip both tainted socks in bleach to remove the evidence that might be unearthed by prying eyes.
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