Blood in the Water

Chapter Five

When Edd was ten years old he had a pet hamster named Gimly. It was small and fuzzy, a mixture of white and orange with big black eyes. He was a gentle little creature, who squeaked quietly in the corner of his cage whenever Edd walked into the room. His cage was cleaned twice a week and while he cleaned the cage Gimly would sit in the pocket of Edd's coat or on his desk. Edd practiced some of his first live-animal tests with Gimly, including mazes and comprehension tests.

One day when Edd awoke in the morning he sat up in his bed, bade good morning to Gimly only to notice that the little ball of fuzz was not sitting at the corner of his cage. Curious, Edd went over and opened the cage door, and picked up the hamster only to realize that it was not moving.

It was Edd's first experience with death. He decided that it was an altogether unpleasant situation.

However he was forced to understand that life moved on. He was driven to school by his mother who spoke to him about what he needed to remember for that day's math test. Ed and Eddy were still obnoxious, as if not even realizing something was wrong. He came home to find his father had set out a healthy snack of apples and peanut butter. When he went up to his room the desk where Gimly's cage once sat was painfully empty. Though Edd had never been able to hear the hamster's breathing, the lack of presence was enormous for the child. He sat down at his desk and stared at the stack of books resting there.

A week later Edd accompanied his father to a hardware store and as they perused the garden section Edd saw a cactus sitting alone on a shelf. He had learned a lot about cacti from his books, they were very study plants who could survive even the harshest of conditions and lived anywhere from fifty to over a hundred years old.

Perhaps Edd's father felt bad for his son's loss, Edd was unsure for the man rarely expressed emotion, for he said, "Ask me in French, son." With a light tone of voice.

"Est-ce que je peux svp avoir ceci, père ?" Edd asked, his words blurring together as he still did not yet fully understand how the consonants were supposed to flow. He smiled up at his father who nodded back and took the cactus from the shelf.

As the days went on, a shift in the paradigm of Edd's household began to take place. He was walked to and from school now by his mother, told to pay attention to their path. He was taken to the supermarket more often and the importance of a healthy diet was reiterated and stressed over and over. Overall, nothing was actually changing except that his parents now stressed that he pay extra attention.

It was relatively unclear to Eddward at first.

The day he came home and found a suitcase on his parents' bed he looked up and asked his mother if they were going somewhere.

She smile at Edd and said, "We're going away for a while, but don't you worry Edd. You're a big boy aren't you? Mrs. McAlister will be watching over you." She pat Edd's head.

It was less than a week later that his house was suddenly empty. He remembered wandering about and peeking into rooms he had already checked a hundred times only to find his parents' were not there. He did not sleep for three days waiting for the garage door to open and his mother and father to walk through the door. More than once he heard the front door open and rushed down the stairs with all of his boyhood speed only to skid to a stop and find that it was only Mrs. McAlister having come to check on him.

The fourth night of his loneliness he cried, and because he was alone and there was no one there to comfort the confused child he only sobbed harder.

When the tears finally dried and he awoke from one of the worst sleeps of his life he found that he was still alone. And so to cope he often slept in his parents' bedroom, with pillows nested on either side of him so that he could pretend that they were there.