Eating: The Breakdown of a Family

Don't Fake Your Sorrow

Don't Fake Your Sorrow

I don't know you

You don't know me

But welcome to my family

Our house is dark

Come inside

To watch the battle tide

Please don't fake your sorrow

For I may need your real sympathy tomorrow

What good would it do

for us to cry together?

You're a part of my life

But my life's calamity is not your strife

Please bear the brunt of my pain

For I am young and vain

In years to come

When my wound has healed

I'll be there to hold your shield

Until that day

Remember

I don't know you

You don't know me

But we are family

Chapter Ten

Mom has been sleeping for the majority of the day in the past week, and her frame is thinner than it has ever been, like her body is a real-life example of an exponential decay graph. She only drinks from the bottled water we find in other houses and occasionally will eat canned soup, or at the very least the broth from canned soup. The meat and vegetables upset her stomach too much and go to Persistence. Emily, Lila, Tom, and Brian all have a tendency to completely avoid her now. Like this walking corpse is no different than the others they fight in close combat.

Today I am sitting in the entranceway on our small white couch with Emily and Lila lounging on the floor. We each have a book. I am finishing up the Delirium series, a post-apocalyptic book for a post-apocalyptic world. I get to the last page and I am irritated. Love triangles always leave something unsolved and someone unhappy and a reader with unrealistic ideas. I set the book down on the blue cushions that I pushed to the end of the blue couch. There is that color again. So depressing. I get up and look through the cracks in the window. It's sunny out, not a cloud hangs in the blue sky.

"Zoe, come here!" Dad yells from the kitchen. He sounds irritated, which means I am about to be even more irritated.

I walk into the kitchen and say, "What?"

"Your dog made a mess on the floor. I'm not cleaning it."

"Okay," I roll my eyes, "It's not like it was my choice to get a dog. I didn't beg for it." I love Persistence, but he came to our whole family by chance, not by choice so why do I get the nasty dog duty?

Dad just throws a towel at me. It's blue.

"I hate this stupid house!" I shout. Dad just gives me a dirty look.

"Your mom is sleeping."

"Yeah, under a blue blanket in her blue room and probably wearing a blue shirt! I hate this crap." I wave the dish rag in the air.

Dad slams his hands down on the counter top. I throw the towel on the ground and soak up the dog's mess. I take the towel and throw it in the trash can under the sink by Dad. I give him a glare to match his to me.