Bricks

Chapter 1: Wagon Consumer

I'm swimming. Swimming in a never ending darkness. I call out, but my muffled cries are silenced by the pressure enclosing me on all sides. Then suddenly, in the corners of my murky, scarlet tinged vision, I see them. Bricks. The rough cubes begin scraping at my freckled skin, closing in on me. Then he appears. A yellow man with a doughnut clutched in one hand.

"Doh! What exactly is going on here ?" His voice is raspy, sending tingles sliding down my spine.

"Homer! Help me," I choke out between the stony shapes crowding their way around my body, down my throat.

"Well you appear to be trapped. But that's just the thing, Hydrangea. I can't free you, you gotta free yourself."

"But Homer!" I wail, desperate now, "How can I believe that! You're a cartoon!"

"But that doesn't make me any less real,"
He observes, beginning to rise up and back into the smooth cloudy red darkness. "Freeeeee yourseeeeeelf."

I wake up in a cold sweat, body and teeth aching. I grasp for the dream, but already it's slipping through the cracks of my consciousness. Oh well. It probably wasn't that important anyway.

I stumble out of my bed and stretch my achy limbs. I walk over to the mirror, where the sight of a sleepy 14 year old girl with bed head greets me. I pull up my dirty blonde hair into a messy bun and slide on my favorite Checkered Vans and puka shell necklace over my purple polka dotted pajamas, and anxiously head downstairs. Uh oh. He hasn't left for work yet.

My father leers up at me with mean brown orbs the color of dirty bricks as I turn the corner into our small kitchen.

"I see you've decided to join us," He growls, his scaly voice dripping with sarcasm. Us. I've always hated that he counts them as a person. The bricks. He looks lovingly at the plate of bricks set before us on the table, and then scathingly back at me.

I feel my skin begin to warm. I know what happens next.

"Eat." With that simple command, all my power seeps away. I take a brick, and place it in my mouth. I begin slowly choking it down, taking my time for the rough, angular object to make its way down my burning throat.

"Not fast enough!" My father growls, as he reaches over the table to shove the brick down my gullet. I feel the pain of my throat being scratched by the stony bar, as his low, aggressive chuckle bounces around my ears. Finally, the load drops down into my stomach, and he nods deliberately.

"There. Now off with you you ungrateful child."

My eyes burning as much as my throat, I stumble back up the stairs before he can see the tears brimming in my eyes. I make it back to my room and collapse on my bed, a sob hitching in my stinging throat.

My dad wasn't always like this. Or rather, he wasn't always this bad. He's always had this weird thing about bricks, but I always chalked it up to his being a bricklayer, and  a bit of a creep. But when my mother developed Mesothelioma and died, it got so much worse. The bricks became his favorite child, and I was demoted to kicked puppy. They were the loved, and I was the unloved. The bricks, and the brickee.

I sobbed, my tears choking me. I cast my eyes around my small, rectangular room. It's painted lavender with white carpets and a small computer desk opposite the bed. It used to have a computer on it, but my dad sold it to buy more bricks. I cry.

I look up at 5 handsome men above me. Their strong jaws and sparkly eyes seem to give me strength. I steal up my eyes at one in particular. His chocolatey curled locks are gently tossed, and his white teeth stand out against his dark lashes.

I hold my shaking hand up to the faded poster, and gently stroke the lines of his face.

"Oh Harry, you'll never leave me," I whisper.

When my dad and his godforsaken rocks began to block themselves into my life, he was MY rock. Someone I could always look up to. Someone I knew could never do such a thing. His music was what got me through long, painful hours in the bathroom.

I finally pull myself together and finish getting ready. I grab my tan and black fabric purse, pull on a Styles T-shirt, and head out to the bus stop.