Budapest » [Clintasha]

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Stray

The orphanage was as dismal on the outside as it was on the inside. Actually, scratch that; the inside was marginally worse. There were small punctures in the roof, letting the moss and the damp infect the ceiling. Lichen, mould and mildew coated the walls in places. The floorboards were worn and scratched and a mouse hole was gnawed into the skirting board.

The wallpaper was peeling away from the wall, and the plaster crumbling to dust beneath. There was an ominous dripping noise sourced from god only knows where and moisture had pooled on the floor in one corner of the room.

Why Barney had dragged me across the state to take up residence in that hellhole was beyond me.

"That's your bed," he instructed, dumping his luggage on the bed with a less tarnished frame and less deflated mattress. He sprawled out on it like he was a king in a throne, propping himself up with the sagging pillows and staring intently at me. "Settle in then, this is our new home..."

I hugged my bag to my chest and peered around and reluctantly shifted away from the bed. I feared if I placed my possessions anywhere the thing, the bug-teeming mattress would infect my clothes with ticks and fleas and the mould would spread from the degrading mattress onto my bag.

"I don't like it here," I uttered, turning my nose up at the bleak surroundings.

"Should'a thought about that before you flunked in school and sent mom and dad to their death fetching thanksgiving dinner," Barney retorted, his words cutting.

Remembering how I was admonished last time, with word of mouth and impact of fist, I sealed my lips and hung my head. His hateful gaze resting upon me. Muted entirely by his words, I sat down on the bed and started unpacking my pristinely folded clothes into a nearby crude drawer.

"That's a good lad," Barney chortled with amusement from the other bed. "After all this is your home now... With the rats... Where you belong..."

After so many years, I could withstand the striking of fist and foot, but words still blistered me. I simply inverted the feeling and pretended it hadn't been said.

After unpacking, we exited the tiny dormitory that had been allocated to us and joined the other residents in the hallway. Other children with drab garbs that smelt of sweat and dirt milled towards the communal eating area. The corridors were just as dull as the dorms, not a singular decoration on the walls and the wallpaper was curling away from the wall. We all wandered down the stairs, through the entrance hall and into the dingy cafeteria.

The cafeteria was more of a box that a hall: we were crammed onto tables joined end to end, benches running parallel either side. And before us were cracked porcelain plates, discoloured from prelonged usage. The cutlery was rusty at the hilt and the tips still had remnants of previous meals sticking to them. I downed the utensils with repulsion. There wasn't even place mats or coasters, and the glasses sat by the plates and cutlery, a rancid translucence about them.

The room was poorly lit, the unwashed windows with its coat of green rot didn't facilitate good lighting and a few bulbs dangled from the ceiling without a lampshade: they were dim and flickered occasionally. A distinct whirring from the poor light fittings filled the rooms, an undercurrent to the murmuring of voices.

The floor was made of dented and scratched floorboards, and I swore I could see splodges of food from meals past decaying on it.

I felt like I'd fallen into a specific Dickens novel.

One by one we were permitted to queue at the counter at the top of the room and received a diminishing plateful of food. It wasn't appetising, but my stomach was roaring like a hungered dragon and there wasn't another option. So I spooned the slop into my mouth, desperately not trying to think about the lumpy texture or the off taste or how cold it was. As I picked at it and made gruesome faces, Barney glared across the table at me, clinching his fist on the table top; it was enough to encourage me to eat up.