The Italian Touch

Tony Steel

July 11th

It's been a week, I've barely talked to my mother. I'm hoping she'll come around soon, I know she needs to grieve but any longer and I'll start to worry about her health. I still haven't gathered the courage to give her the note, which is dumb considering it's simple as putting a piece of paper on one of the kitchen tables, I could even send it through the NC fabricator, simply put it in the fabricator in my room and it'd fabricate in her room. Well, I've given my da's note a lot of thought. Of course I want to do it. And I haven't even thought about what "it" is. I trust my da when he says reality will fall apart. Nothing's happened yet, so I wonder if reality will only break if, for some crazy reason, whatever might destroy reality can read my thoughts and will only destroy reality if I make the decision and stay true to the decision of not doing "it". I could just wait and see but I don't think there'd be much to see considering the destruction of reality would be over like that. I don't think anybody can really even comprehend the meaning of reality. It's literally everything. Everything you've ever known every object in space every second ever, everything. Let's not think about that now though. I'm going to deliver this note. Through the fabricator. I get up and look at the note one last time, then put it in the fabricator, press a few buttons, and the note turns to fine dust before being swept up into the fabricator. I glance towards the picture of me, my mom, my dad, and Nickie framed on the wall. Nickie. Six years ago, I was nine and she was 11. 3 months after her birthday she sacrificed herself. It was 2048, but there were still school shootings. You'd think by now, especially since Goodwall Middle in 2034 that there'd be some kind of technology that'd stop intruders. 400 kids, 42 minutes. It took 42 minutes for law to stop him. He killed a third of the school. 400 families ruined, 400 lives taken. That could've happened to our school, but my sister single handedly stopped it. I was in the class across the hall from her when we went into lockdown. He broke down the door. They say she didn't even hesitate. She ran at him, screaming. She bit off his fingers, she crushed his crotch, now he was screaming and Nickie had the gun. But she also had 3 stab wounds. She whacked him with the stock and knocked him out before collapsing to the ground. I shake the memories and run my fingers through my hair before falling onto my bed.

July 14th
You know those late summer nights where the air's warm, sticky, and sweet? Yeah, those nights you spend catching fire flies in your backyard, which may be dimly lit by some lights on the patio. Maybe you have a few friends over and you're having a bonfire. You have the entire summer to do whatever you want, no school, nothing. Reality is a bit altered. Ah, reality. I've come up with a definition. Existence. To put it relatively simply, everything you've ever sensed, everything that's ever been sensed, even everything that has never been touched, and everything that won't ever be touched.
I'm walking on the path in my backyard garden, specifically the path that leads to the rows of trees. I reach the trees and sit on a bench under one. The same bench that, seven years ago, I sat on with Nickie as she read to me. I stare down at my feet reading the plaque my mother has already put under the trees for my father. It's not that I'm not sad. I am. Very. I just can't cry anymore. I don't give two shits about "men shouldn't cry". Plus, I'm not a man. I'm just a weak boy. A weak, lonely boy. My father's note was very shallow, don't you think. Yeah, reality breaking etc etc. But did you notice there was a single "I love you" and "You were my world"? He didn't care about me. He lied to me to make me feel special, with the beginning part of his note. He said his dad's name was Cole, but his dad died when he was 3, his mom left when he was 6 and he met my mother at 14 and moved in with them after living with his strict grandma. He saw my mom's dad as his dad, which is technically pretty weird, but just like me he was a confused, sad kid. He didn't care about me, just about this thing; whatever "this thing" is. I adjust myself and lay on the bench with my arms and legs crossed, gazing up at the beautiful night sky. My father loved space, just like me, so he bought every light producing building a few miles around us and shut the lights off at night. Yeah, that was the kind of guy my father was, kind of like that old comic super hero, who was it? Tony Steel? Anyway, without all the light pollution, we could actually stargaze now. Along with space, we both loved physics, reading, learning new things, and essentially science in general. Coincidentally, my father's as well as my teachers always said that we were creative, logical, had a pronounced ardor for learning, and were both big lexicomanes, which essentially means we love words. I had my fathers face. We were very similar in multiple aspects, like how he was indecisive and so am I. You have proof of this, considering I just went from loving my father and mourning over him to hating him then to loving him again. God, I'm tired. I close my eyes for a second and dose off.