Affliction

the only day that mattered

November 6th, 2009 

I dialed the number one more time, crossing my small fingers, hoping my brother would answer. I jumped up in thankfulness when he answered, but then stilled as I listened to his tone of voice.

"Hello?" He sounded really weird and raspy, and was maybe crying a little by the small sniffles here and there.

"Hi, Michael. What' wrong? I've been sitting outside of the school waiting for you. The principle is getting sick of having to wait for me..."

He cursed quietly. "Sorry, little buddy. Can you just walk home, please?"

I gasped, instantly scared. "But I'm only ten!"

He sighed and said something to someone else, but it was too muffled for me to make it out. "I'm in the hospital. I can't come get you. Please, just this once?"

"Why are you in the hospital?!"

"Its not me buddy... its mom. She's sick."

I felt the ground heave under me. I wasn't a stupid kid, and knew how to read emotions. Michael's voice told me enough to infer that mom didn't just have a cold or something as harmless as that. It was worse. One of the ones you don't get better from. Sometimes, Michael says he wishes I wasn't so smart.

"Wh-whats wrong with her?"

"I don't know. But i'll see you when I get home later. She's gotta stay here so they can help her get better."

"But she won't, right? She's got the deadly kind of sick, doesn't she?"

He sighed again. "Damn it, Donnie. She'll be fine."

I knew better though. Like I had said before; I wasn't a stupid kid. "You don't have to lie, Micha-"

"Mom WILL get better, okay?! So just shut up and walk home!"

I pulled the phone away and just stared at it, listening to the tinny buzz that meant he had hung up. Why had he hung up on me like that? And why was he so upset when I said that mum would die?

As I stood there, staring at my phone as if it held the answer, a potential one came to mind. Maybe Michael, the strong, mature big brother that had been there for me forever, just couldn't accept that our mother would die. Maybe this was the thing that would finally break him.

Everything else had failed. From the time our dog Darcy died, when his best friend moved away, or even when dad committed suicide in our bathroom. I hoped mom was okay. For Michael's sake.

After telling the principle that she could leave, I started walking down the main street of the city and took my time looking around. Being the first time I had walked alone in the dark, I only now realized how beautiful the lights were against the deep black of the night. Within minutes, I had slipped into thought of being a butterfly, and fluttering in between and all around the pretty lights. The dream went on until I was suddenly ripped from it by loud crashes across the street. I paused to look over, but realized my mistake seconds later, because one of the men who had been banging on the door to the bar had caught sight of me and was now staggering across the road. I backed up in fear, but the man grabbed me and pulled me into an alleyway before shoving me into the wall, and holding a blade to my neck.

"I was real bored, ya' know kid? And then a thing like you comes along, and I think "Fresh meat!" You mind if I have a little fun tonight?" I screamed and squirmed from his grasp, almost getting away. His big meaty hands closed around my arm and wrenched me back.

"NO, NO! PLEASE! LET ME GO! HELP!!!" I squirmed and punched, but he wouldn't let go. He held me up and brought the blade up to my face, tracing it along my pale cheeks.

"Now, now. Wouldn't want to make me angry would you?"

I shook, trying in vain to get free.

He burped in my face. "TOO LATE!"

And then my eyes burned like I'd never felt before. Not even that time I'd gotten glitter in my eyes. But this was more terrifying, because suddenly I couldn't see.

"HELP!!! OW!!!! I CAN'T SEE!"

His liquor smelling breath hung around my face like a blanket, and before anything else happened, I passed out.