PARALLELS
ARC 2
(the writing style for the first section is juvenile but keep in mind a four year old is narrating)
Kaido
13 years ago
I've only ever heard about stars. I've never seen them. Where I live, a layer of smog sifts like clouds. It sits, collecting, a curtain of gray against the sky.
Dad leaves his tv on at night. I'm not allowed to watch, but I can hear through the wall. A lady speaks every time the clock over the front door strikes twelve. She says things about the stars being out on a clear night, chances of rain being less than this many percent.
While I listen, I look out the window over my bed. I don't have pillows or covers like dad does. My bed is smaller. In the winter, it stiffens. In the summer, it softens. Tonight, the street below my window is quiet, my bed the likeness of stone.
"Dad?" I call, my fingers pressed on the sill, the glass only clean enough to make out the sidewalk and some blurs of trash.
Dad sits at the kitchen table, a cigarette sitting in his ashtray. He does that a lot. Just sits and thinks. His hair sometimes falls over his eyes so that I can't see them. A mass of gray spikes marred with black that conceals a blue I didn't inherit. Dad says I look more like mommy. Although I never met her. Dad says I killed mommy when I was born.
"What is it?" he asks, voice rough with smoke, yet quiet for the nighttime.
I look back at the street, at the lack of street I can see. My fingers fumble together over the sill, a funny feeling crawling through my stomach.
"Can I stay inside tonight?" I ask, backing away from the glass "It's dark outside."
Dad sighs. The air travels straight to my back, sending shivers up it. Dad sighs when he's unhappy with me. When he's unhappy with me, his hands are stone. Like my bed in the winter.
"We've been over this, Kaido." he says, his chair making noise against the ground as he stands. His footsteps creak against the floorboards, one after the other, until he finally crouches to my level. His elbows fold over his knees. His palm casts my hair from my face. He likes to keep it short. He cuts it every time it gets long enough to reach my ears.
I flinch when dad raises his hand, but he lets his touch fall down my arm and to my sleeve. He tugs it, playing with the material. This shirt, he said, was my present for being good. For always doing what dad says. For walking out of the apartment after the lady finishes talking about stars on his tv. For roaming the street till the sun rises.
It's always dark when dad makes me go outside by myself. It's full of trash and people sleeping on concrete and other people who try to hurt me.
"It's important you learn to fend for yourself," Dad says, still playing with my sleeve, rubbing it with his thumb and forefinger. "What if I get hurt, hm? What if I have to be gone for a while? You've got to protect the house."
"Please," I beg, biting my lip. "I don't want to go out there. There's bad people."
People who spit on the road and laugh with beer bottles in their hands. People who chase me, laughing still, throwing things at me, yelling bad words, saying they'll take my little knife and slit my throat with it. Those are the loud people. The bad people who show me their teeth.
Then, there are the quieter people. The people who offer me food. The ones who open car doors and tell me they'll take me home. They're liars. Dad taught me that. He said liars only show their teeth when they smile.
