Escapism

Chapter 1: Stargazing

We laid there, in complete silence.  Dad had turned off the headlights that illuminated the murky air several minutes ago, yet the stars hadn’t appeared from the blackened sky. I stop myself from blinking and ignore the unbearable itch that the long unkempt grass I lay in is causing, and instead choose to listen to the marsh frogs croaking nearby while I impatiently wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.  The majority of the frogs stop croaking as they become aware of the predatory owl circling above. The blissfully stupid ones remain unaware and continue until it’s too late and the owl has scooped up an unsuspecting tree frog. I hear their webbed feet splashing against the water as they desperately try to escape the hunters’ ambush.

With my ears I take in the sounds of nature and with my eyes I stare at the unreal. A mosquito attacks my nose and I swipe at it making myself blink.  When my eyes reopen it happens, the night awakens. Stars seem to pop up everywhere, saturating the heavens above. I scramble my gaze across the Milky Way in desperate search for the pointer of the Southern Cross or a roaming satellite. I start to get panicky knowing Dad would have seen this before me, cause he’s always bragging about his ‘scotopic vision’ whatever that means……..I sneak a glance over to my Dad; he’s got his arm pointing towards something, it’s the cross. He’s won again, how he finds it so fast is beyond me because I still struggle to even recognise it under the ocean of light. Unaustralian I know.

Dad’s a bit eccentric I guess. We always seem to do this, stop the car at the middle of night and gawk at the stars out in the middle of nowhere. It feels good to escape the city and school and just stare into nothingness. In the city, the lights of skyscrapers and neon billboards shroud the stars, and the constant thought of teachers and my parents fighting stalk me never letting me gain an inch of rest. The two of them are always ruthlessly at each other’s throats, and they don’t even bother to try and hide the fights from me.

Running is always an option, but I never take it. Neither Mum nor Dad can keep themselves afloat. They need me a lot more than I need them. When Dad returned from Afghanistan he had been hollowed out from the experience, watching friends die in your arms with their dry blood beneath your fingernails definitely wouldn’t have been comforting. Everything about him gives the appearance of a war scarred person, brown eyes that seem heavy and dull, a limp which he refuses to fix, a ragged beard and his grim smile that is never genuine. The only time he is happy is when he lays down with me in the dirt to just forget the world. His smile finally reaches his eyes and they glow like the stars he stares at. Usually he is suspicious of everything, and will only answer my questions with non-committal grunts but away from my Mum and the streets that haunt him, he turns into a completely different person. Before it all, he was always the stargazer not the ghostly person he is now.

I turn my head over to dad, “Why are we here?”                                                                                                  

With his head still facing skyward, he answers. “I don’t know it’s a great mystery isn’t it?”                          

I chuckle at that and correct him, “No Dad I meant why we are doing this. You know just staring at the sky.”                                                                                                                                                                                         

“Escapism”, he coarsely croaks.

“You reckon there’s stuff out there smarter than us,” I ponder aloud.                                                            

“I hope so, if we are the smartest living things in this vast universe it would be quite saddening,” he murmurs. I can’t help but agree with him on that, people are just plain dumb. After what seems like an hour we stand up in unison and brush the damp, sticky grass off our backs and hop back into the Toyota. We’d have to travel back to reality eventually.

Both Dad and I had been optimistic that Mum was peacefully asleep, we were rudely shaken. Her ears never  seem to miss the creak of the door inching open and her frantic eyes soon follow the sound darting straight to our own in an effort to death-glare us. She sits cross legged in front of us, patiently waiting for an explanation that would never come. Her hands are still pulling on her hair continuing to fray it. Usually it’s sleek, shiny, jet black and is cut short to her shoulders. At the moment I can’t even describe it, it’s just a mess; obviously from these last few hours of stress. After a minute of deadly tension, she caves and lunges forwards pulling me into a brutal hug. I always feel guilty in these embraces. I can tell that she thinks I’m just going to run off with Dad. How could I though? It would be a crime to choose either of them over the other. They’re my parents. 

“Go to bed Caleb you look tired,” she rasps.                                                                                                                 

“Sure thing,” I say.                                                                          

I break the embrace and climb the stairs to my left, avoiding both Dad and Mum’s gaze. It’s best not to get involved in their fights. Down the narrow hallway I walk, not bothering to hide the loud creaks of the floorboards as I stomp off to my room. The two spare rooms that I pass are testament to the feeling of loneliness that is taking me over. My shoulder buries itself into the door as soon as I touch the handle; I swing my arms back as hard as I can, slamming the door shut. Sleep is heavenly to me. I savour the obliviousness of it all. I squish the two pillows into the side of my head, determined to block out the yelling coming from downstairs. Exhaustion consumes me and I drift away into nothingness, thank god.

My first voyage into the ocean called 'writing'. Hope you enjoy. 

Please provide criticism! Pleeeeeeeease.