On cold frost bitten nights when the rain is whipped into a frenzied blur, unsure of where it came from or where it's going to, and all the time losing its original understanding of itself as rain, becoming frozen hail, newborn should race for cover. These new spirits pupate in the skies above, they fly high above or crash into the gloomy darkness of the earth below. On nights like these our first thoughts are battered and bruised, caught in a wild whirlwind high above creation; our thoughts become darkened by hardship and the cold sting of the night and sit forevermore, ghosting the edges of our minds.
In family photos our parents match up to us. They glisten with the pleasure given by comparisons made by casual observers. But not all observers see the resemblence, not all onlookers understand the connection at all; not all parents are proud; and some parents wonder if their child is theirs at all, or some soul flung into the womb by the casual hand of the cold winter wind. Parents who wonder at it read up on the soul and it's origins, some discover the belief that a child's soul would flee the world and return to heaven's crib if it was unhappy and infant mortality was satisfactorily explained this way with the reassurance that, eventually, the child would return when it was ready. Here, in this world, far from those beliefs, our children accept the situation they find themselves in, or, don't know how to fly back to the one they left behind.
The cold winter wind's brush had reddened Miranda's cheeks, but she bustled on, oblivious to the cherry glow on her face. Christmas was nigh, time was precious; the food was all in bar the fresh veg, but that would be picked up the day before, she liked her carrots to crunch and snap before reaching the roasting tray. Her son idled in aisle five: the entertainment section. She passed the top end of it and shot a look down the length and there he was picking through a score of plastic cases or rearranging stationery goods held in the same section. At the counter she saw the video game, well beyond his age range, add itself to the moving belt; her son sauntered away to the magazines and she moved it aside out of the way, away from her shopping.
In the car, her son's face was a tumult of fury; rifling through the bags, as soon as they were under way, his addition was quickly found to be missing. Miranda knew that until tomorrow afternoon, at the earliest, things would be unpleasant. And indeed they were. Already a ruin, his room was now no place to vent any frustration and so the bathroom was spoiled, tiles cracked, mirrors broken and the toilet left overflowing. Only when he saw his mother on her knees cleaning the wreckage did his temper ease and abate.
Eleven years of this. Eleven years of what seemed like solitary confinement with a 'deranged beast', as her mother had once said. But he was hers, what else could she do but weather the constant battles, the movement from one school to another, from one care professional to the next. Christmas was coming and that was all.
In the night, when peace did descend, she sat in the box window praying to the night, to the dark spaces in the woods outside, to the shadows that hid from the light. Darkness brought her peace and so she wished on it, night after night.
Connor sat at the end of his bed; the sun was up and his mother's alarm had sounded from her room some time ago. At the window, white climbing arms spread like fungus, glittering against the pane. He moved to the glass and held his sweaty palm to the creeping face of cold, gradually it fell away under the transfer of heat and retreated.
At breakfast he watched his mother move about the kitchen, wiping surfaces and clearing the dishes from the machine to the cupboards. She moved with expert efficiency and only shot him the odd glance when she knew his head was bowed down to the wet cereal in front of him, even so he still saw her: nervous and fidgety. She wouldn't give anything away, but he felt her inward sighs anyway.
He moved away from his bowl. She lifted it revealing a milky ring on the wood below, cereal scattered in mashed piles by the spoon.
"I haven't finished."
She replaced the bowl after first cleaning the ring away, sucking it up into the sponge, the mashed cereal too.
He came back to his chair and finished the remnants; dropping the spoon with a ringing clatter into the bowl he looked at her eyes on him and moved away to his room. She cleared the bowl sopping up the milky ring again and the loose particles of cereal mashed into the grain of the wood.
After he left, she watched him march to the road's end and on to the bus there. He never made the five minute walk to the school. Only once had she urged him to before she knew better, deciding to leave out the bus money beside his keys in silent capitulation.
Outside the clouds rolled across the sky with vacant intention, removing the light and casting silken shadows that sprung up from the ground, unwilling or uncertain of their place in the world. Miranda let the phone click back into place, she would work from home today and finish putting the bathroom back in order.
By one o'clock both work for the day and the bathroom had come to a conclusion and so she locked the house and went out to the woods.
She found a frosted bench, sat, and wished in to the nothingness between the trees before letting her hope drop to the ground below.
At Miranda's feet the ice had cracked, sending splintered alarms to the edges of a frozen world. Leaves, browned and blackened, sat half in, half out of the frozen cage. Not even the light touch of the wind would pick at the exposed fringes. She worked her heel at the looser escarpment of ice and freed the dead and lonely things there, bringing the souls of her shoes together like gloved hands she picked the leaves loose; some tore, others were pulled free and with an exultant rush, the wind foraged deep and low and scattered them up into the air, pulling Miranda's gaze back to the skies and the distant rolling shadows.
When she returned home a police car waited.
"He's run away. Again. Hit a teacher this time."
In family photos our parents match up to us. They glisten with the pleasure given by comparisons made by casual observers. But not all observers see the resemblence, not all onlookers understand the connection at all; not all parents are proud; and some parents wonder if their child is theirs at all, or some soul flung into the womb by the casual hand of the cold winter wind. Parents who wonder at it read up on the soul and it's origins, some discover the belief that a child's soul would flee the world and return to heaven's crib if it was unhappy and infant mortality was satisfactorily explained this way with the reassurance that, eventually, the child would return when it was ready. Here, in this world, far from those beliefs, our children accept the situation they find themselves in, or, don't know how to fly back to the one they left behind.
The cold winter wind's brush had reddened Miranda's cheeks, but she bustled on, oblivious to the cherry glow on her face. Christmas was nigh, time was precious; the food was all in bar the fresh veg, but that would be picked up the day before, she liked her carrots to crunch and snap before reaching the roasting tray. Her son idled in aisle five: the entertainment section. She passed the top end of it and shot a look down the length and there he was picking through a score of plastic cases or rearranging stationery goods held in the same section. At the counter she saw the video game, well beyond his age range, add itself to the moving belt; her son sauntered away to the magazines and she moved it aside out of the way, away from her shopping.
In the car, her son's face was a tumult of fury; rifling through the bags, as soon as they were under way, his addition was quickly found to be missing. Miranda knew that until tomorrow afternoon, at the earliest, things would be unpleasant. And indeed they were. Already a ruin, his room was now no place to vent any frustration and so the bathroom was spoiled, tiles cracked, mirrors broken and the toilet left overflowing. Only when he saw his mother on her knees cleaning the wreckage did his temper ease and abate.
Eleven years of this. Eleven years of what seemed like solitary confinement with a 'deranged beast', as her mother had once said. But he was hers, what else could she do but weather the constant battles, the movement from one school to another, from one care professional to the next. Christmas was coming and that was all.
In the night, when peace did descend, she sat in the box window praying to the night, to the dark spaces in the woods outside, to the shadows that hid from the light. Darkness brought her peace and so she wished on it, night after night.
*
Connor sat at the end of his bed; the sun was up and his mother's alarm had sounded from her room some time ago. At the window, white climbing arms spread like fungus, glittering against the pane. He moved to the glass and held his sweaty palm to the creeping face of cold, gradually it fell away under the transfer of heat and retreated.
At breakfast he watched his mother move about the kitchen, wiping surfaces and clearing the dishes from the machine to the cupboards. She moved with expert efficiency and only shot him the odd glance when she knew his head was bowed down to the wet cereal in front of him, even so he still saw her: nervous and fidgety. She wouldn't give anything away, but he felt her inward sighs anyway.
He moved away from his bowl. She lifted it revealing a milky ring on the wood below, cereal scattered in mashed piles by the spoon.
"I haven't finished."
She replaced the bowl after first cleaning the ring away, sucking it up into the sponge, the mashed cereal too.
He came back to his chair and finished the remnants; dropping the spoon with a ringing clatter into the bowl he looked at her eyes on him and moved away to his room. She cleared the bowl sopping up the milky ring again and the loose particles of cereal mashed into the grain of the wood.
After he left, she watched him march to the road's end and on to the bus there. He never made the five minute walk to the school. Only once had she urged him to before she knew better, deciding to leave out the bus money beside his keys in silent capitulation.
Outside the clouds rolled across the sky with vacant intention, removing the light and casting silken shadows that sprung up from the ground, unwilling or uncertain of their place in the world. Miranda let the phone click back into place, she would work from home today and finish putting the bathroom back in order.
By one o'clock both work for the day and the bathroom had come to a conclusion and so she locked the house and went out to the woods.
She found a frosted bench, sat, and wished in to the nothingness between the trees before letting her hope drop to the ground below.
At Miranda's feet the ice had cracked, sending splintered alarms to the edges of a frozen world. Leaves, browned and blackened, sat half in, half out of the frozen cage. Not even the light touch of the wind would pick at the exposed fringes. She worked her heel at the looser escarpment of ice and freed the dead and lonely things there, bringing the souls of her shoes together like gloved hands she picked the leaves loose; some tore, others were pulled free and with an exultant rush, the wind foraged deep and low and scattered them up into the air, pulling Miranda's gaze back to the skies and the distant rolling shadows.
When she returned home a police car waited.
"He's run away. Again. Hit a teacher this time."
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