Unsunken

Part 2: Drowning

On December 15th, 2016, Michael chewed his first bite of pork. It tasted strange in his mouth, like a foreigner in a land that prohibited its entrance. He laughed at the thought, He clenched his fork so tightly his knuckles poked through his cinnamon skin.

Mr. John, a man pregnant with years of heinous eating, sat across from him, swallowing obnoxious amounts of food down his throat. His wide eyes stared Michael down, daring him to so much as breathe wrong in his presence. After he settled from a rancid burp, Mr. John paused his eating and turned his attention to Michael. "I don't care what your diet is. I'm not buying shit other than whats in this apartment. So stop being ungrateful and eat that nice meal on your fucking plate." When Michael failed to produce the reaction Mr. John desired, he turned his head back to the TV but continued. "I'd be grateful if I was you. Really fucking grateful. You're lucky I don't change my mind and throw you and your shit out the fucking window." Content with himself, Mr. John returned his attention to the rather large television screen that mounted on a coffee table barely big enough to hold a laptop.

Michael had always thought the apartment was strange. It was junky for the most part, filled with empty wrappers, beer cans, and soiled paper plates. Most of the lights flickered if left on for more than two minutes, and rusty pipes bulged from the neck of the walls in unpleasant places. The carpet, an unfortunate baby blue in its naturality was stained in a layer of grime and beer from when Mr. John got too drunk to hold up the bottle in his hands. There was only one bedroom in the house, occupied by Mr. John and strictly off limits. Michael had no idea what was in that room. All he knew of it was the strange noises that snaked from beneath the door frame and into the storage room, where he slept. The only objects in the apartment that seemed to be worth more than twenty dollars was the shiny flat screen television propped up for all to see.

Mr. John's apartment felt as though it was made to suffocate Michael's dreams. The ratty sheets set aside for Michael smothered him in his sleep. The air conditioning blew out poisonous oxygen and told him that he would never become anything. Now, fidgeting uncomfortably in such a disgusting living room, Michael could feel whatever grotesque meat he'd been forced to eat crawling around inside him in search of a way out.

As he took in the sight of the living room and Mr. John, he felt a new type of sorrow unfamiliar to him. This wasn't supposed to be his life. There weren't supposed to be any foster homes. He wasn't supposed to be motherless. When he was younger and believed in good things in the world, he imagined himself tougher and stronger. He saw himself scoring goals and losing himself in soccer the way he loved to. He saw himself strong enough to face anything. Instead, his mind wandered off in the wrong directions. Michael felt powerless and broken. His lungs burned for air beneath the current and now he gagged, spitting the last piece of pork onto the paper plate in front of him. He felt lost.

"You know what?" Mr. John sucked meat from between his gums. "I'm tired of looking at you. Get the hell out of my living room, and take my plate to the kitchen while you're at it." He picked up the remote that rested on his stomach and turned up the volume on the large TV to a deafening volume.

It was these moments that he missed his mother the most. He missed the way she'd kiss his cheek in the old days and watch him run across the field with that old soccer ball. He missed her soothing voice and those rare times when she held his head in arms and whispered, "Mein ap say muhabat karti hoon." He'd been missing her for years, he realized, even before she died. When he crossed the corridor into his bedroom he collapsed onto the air mattress, letting the songs of past memories sing him to sleep. His breathing slowed, and it was almost dark enough for him to pretend he was somewhere else.

*        *         *

Lost in subconsciousness, Michael's mind played a movie of sunshine and an endless field. He sat in the center of a green blanket of grass, making shapes out of clouds. He saw his mother in the sky, staring down at him with eyes made of white. "Stand," She whispered. He obeyed, pressing his hands against the soft grass and hoisting himself up. He stood tall, a giant in a world made of grass and sky and she held a hand out to him, standing herself. It was the first time in his life he'd seen her without her wheelchair. His mother was the happiest he had ever seen her, and she glowed a pearly white. Before he knew it he was crying. His tears grew large and leaked from his eyes, their dewdrops falling to the grass in a stream that ran across the field and into infinity. A black boy rode its currents on a wooden sailboat, peering up at him with a grin.

He looked back at his mother, a small child. "Why did you leave me, Ammi?"

Michael waited for her to tell him that she was sorry, sorry for giving up and hurting him and leaving him lost and broken in her wake but she said nothing, smiling. Anger climbed out from his ear as a dog and took a seat on his shoulder, barking at his mother and scratching at his skin. He shook his head in sorrow, choking on his sobs and wiping the snot from his nose. "You don't love me, mama." His voice was stern and harsh. "You stopped loving me when you saw me on the field."

Michael looked once more across the field in shock, eyeing the sailboat and its mysterious passenger as it disappeared down the stream. He was there, he realized suddenly; standing in the field behind his house on that sunny day years ago. Laughing with that boy from school. Playing soccer with him. Running his hands through his hair and feeling the skin beneath his shirt. Touching him.

Michael's mother started laughing. She laughed so hard her shoulders shook with amusement and she gazed up at him, showing her teeth. "You're right."

The yapping dog leaped from his shoulders, chasing an old soccer ball.

"You're right," She said it over and over again, laughing all the while. Her words were slurred but they continued. "Yourerightyourerightyoureright."

Michael woke abruptly, choking on water.

If you are enjoying this story, please please please vote and comment. I'd love to hear any thoughts or reactions, and I get so excited when I get even one reader. Either way, thank you very much for taking the time to read my work.

*I made an important edit to this chapter to fix a mistake I made. Originally Michael's mother refers to him as "baba", which is actually the term for father in Urdu, the national language of Pakistan. I apologize for the error!  "Ammi" means "Mom" in Urdu. Since it is written in the third person, Michael's mother is referred to as "his mother". Michael himself, however, would refer to her as "Ammi." 

"Mein ap say muhabat karti hoon" is one way to say "I love you," in Urdu (without using written Urdu characters). I've included the language in the story to help articulate Michael's background/ethnicity. If anyone who reads this speaks Urdu, please let me know if this is not correct. (I'm still learning)

xoxo,

blackinalabyrinth