FEMBOY IN A BOX

один

Hello... My name is...
- Christian! - Called my mom from downstairs. - Hurry, or we're going to get late to doctor's appointment!
I was still shirtless on the bathroom looking with my blue eyes at the rectangular and frameless mirror in the middle of bathroom's plain beije wall tiles. Well, not quite rectangular, the mirror, as it was broken in one of the top right corner. I shake my short think soft blonde hair right before I open the squeaky faucet's cold water aluminium round handle. I wash my face...
- Christian! - She called again. She looked like me a bit, so people used to say. Blue eyes and blonde hair, her's being long and thin.
- Coming! Almost ready mom! - True. I dressed my beast jeans, my best gray boxers, my best gray socks and so all that was left was my best mixed blue hoodie sweater. So, probably the only outfit I had left with no holes... It was meant to be used on special occasions only, so going to doctor's appointment seemed to be one of those occasions...

I live in UK (where both me and my mother were born), in Home Farm Rd, right next to Spookies Wood, where I'm not allowed to play, because I might 'get lost', my mom says... I don't know if my dad used to say the same thing when I was younger... I can't remember as he went to some mission when I was still 3 years old, my mom told... She also told me he is Portuguese, from Portugal, thought I haven't figured out very well where that is. Anyway, he haven't returned yet, from his mission, and I wonder if his mission was in the place he was born, but my mom never told me that. Also, she's occupied with her own missions too... One would be to take care of me; other to take care of herself, I suppose... And their would be certainly other missions, and hard ones, as she always was stressed out, with anxiety, sad, tired, smileless... And/Or drunk too, sometimes... I know that. She was even the one who told me what drunk means.

I went down the brown stairs between a wall with an old bronze wallpaper with a repeated pattern and the treated wooden handrail. I skipped the last stair with a jump and moved forward through the short hall, then turned left towards the kitchen where my mom was dressed with her best black dress - she usually wears black, it contrasts with our bright skin, but rarely that dress with lace details on sleeves. She was finishing breakfast preparation. Kitchen was good illuminated. Daylight clarity easily entered through the windows, even when it wasn't a particular sunny day, which was rare thing...
- Pancakes!? Pancakes! - It was another rare thing, my favourite breakfast! Usually it was always bread and a glass of milk.
- Yes. - She flashed a smile with the corner of her mouth. Her sad eyes seemed like a contradiction tho... - But we shouldn't take too long. We can't be late.
- Okey! - I hop for the chair in front of the rectangular table, sized for four people, wrapped a simple pancake and took a bite. - You don' eat mom!? - Questioned right before another bite.
- I've eaten already. - She replied, simply, briefly, like she used to.

Day became gray. More than it was. It started raining, probably one minute before we leave home. We ran towards my mom's wine coloured small car, a Ford, Fiesta I think. Means party in Spanish, according to my mom. It was parked in front of our brick coloured house with white door and windows... I sat on the back sit, left side, my usual traveling spot. She turned on the engine and I turned on the old MP3 player she offered me.
The MP3 reader used to be hers and most of songs in there were her favourite songs. She managed to ask a friend to "put in there" a couple of songs I asked for, as apparently it's something that could be only done with a computer and she had none. I put the headphones in my ears and started to listen to my one of "my songs" as my mom started to drive.
She turned right. After some meters we passed through the road, at my right, where it's located the school I used to go to. My mom told me I had to go to a new school for the 5th grade, after I turned 10 years old, in 26th August, but she sometimes told me that "we weren't prepared". She told me that it was because all of my friends would be a bit older than me, which could be a scary thing... But I didn't understand why she said "we"... Why wasn't she prepared? She's grown up! Thirty nine years old.
We kept moving forward, passing through Saint Mary's church, a place I never visited. When we turned right into the main road I remember it led to Manchester I asked if that's where we were heading...
- No, we're going to a private vaccination clinic. You're going to receive another dose of the COVID vaccine to prevent yourself from getting ill. I told you yesterday, didn't I!?
I shrunk my shoulders, but didn't sounded very exciting. I remember receiving that vaccine and I know it hurts, so, not a fun thing. I tried to entertain myself trying to solve my mom's Rubik cube while increasing music's volume a bit... One of my mom's song was playing. It sounded a bit sad... By the time , I never thought it could have a relevant meaning... "Don't go! I can't do this on my own... I'll be standing still... Too scared to move when you're not there...". I checked the small illuminated screen with rotating message to kill my curiosity about the name of the song. It was <"Dear Remorse" by the artist "Arshenic">... Unfamiliar, but I knew my mom really liked many different rock artists.