What Not To Do In The Valley

The Family Home

The sky was grey and dark. A kid with ratty black hair watched a hooded figure put up posters when they thought they were alone. 

It was lost in the sea of other missing posters the second it was left alone. A wall of faces on crinkled yellow paper. 

They were rarely kids. Their photos repeated like patterns on the walls and poles. The pictures weren't interesting enough, the kid thought. He thought they had the same ones too close to each other, it would make people's eyes glaze over. 

The bus was late and it started raining before they got home. 

One time he found a dead bird on the sidewalk. It was being eaten by other birds. He was scared they were going to attack him if he got too close - like he was competing with them for it.

He thought what it would be like to swallow feathery meat whenever he couldn't sleep at night. The orchestral songs outside his window kept him up in the early hours of the mourning. 

He complained to his mum about it, and she said he should just get to sleep before it started.

When he was eleven, his little brother went missing for three days and he cried until his nose bled, and got so sick he couldn't walk. 

He was just in the hospital. 

When he was thirteen he got so angry at his insomnia that he held his breath until he passed out. He woke up only a few minutes later and went to sit outside in the dark. 

The music wasn't playing tonight, but the neighbours wouldn't stop talking. They were having a party, despite the time. 

He remembers scratching himself so hard his skin burned. He was shaking with hunger but too tired to move. 

He felt sick but wasn't. His body twisted and coughed. 

There was more time on that driveway than there was afterwards. 

The ground was rough on his feet. His toenails scraped and bled. 

He didn't want it to look like it would hurt. He fought off the aches and urges enough to pick up a pencil, dull and blue. 

He doesn't think about the rest. 

She was getting him water. 

Juno slept through it until he felt a hand on his shoulder. Leaning over him and breathing into his ear.

Juno brushed away the long necklace that hung from its neck, swinging against his collarbone. He opened his eyes when it held the back of his head.

With dilated pupils, his older brother stood, huffing and wheezing, wearing their mother's necklace. It dripped on him. Rusty water.

He was hit in the head, cut and held so tightly. He thought it would stop, but all he could do was pull on the necklace around his brother's neck until he stopped thrashing and fell heavy on the floor, cracking his skull on the dresser and leaving a dark smear of blood. 

Juno walked through the empty house at dawn. The windows were open and everything smelled like rust. Like when the roof leaked last rain. A soft breeze surrounded him as he checked each room.

His socks were wet from his own blood that dripped down the side of his leg, leaving spots in the carpet beside much thicker patches of glistening carpet. 

Juno went back to his bedroom and locked the door. Gripping his clothes tightly to distract from the burning wounds. 

Last night he'd gone to bed with a stomach ache. 

He could feel the thick red chunks in the blood stuck to his hands. Little pieces of meat and partially clotted blood. It looked black in the darkness. Dark smudges on his torn bedding. Dark pools in his carpet.