vox populi

IV. Those Left Behind

Today, in a small apartment room, an old couple sit across one another. They’re not mother and father, because their kid died when he was twelve. He was hit by a car. They are Mr. and Mrs. Grounded. Mr. Grounded, since his early retirement, wakes up every morning to walk down the street he used to walk with his son. It was the same street he died on. He was on the gutter, that’s where he died. Not in a hospital room, or in some caring family’s arms. There was no one around when it happened.

Mrs. Grounded wakes up every morning to make breakfast. She puts a kettle to a boil, sets three mugs on the table: one for coffee, one for tea, and one for chocolate milk. She brings the coffee out on the sitting room where her husband would be sitting, done with his morning walk. And she would go back to the kitchen, drinking her tea while smiling at the mug of chocolate milk. That’s not quite accurate. She smiles two feet higher than the level of the chocolate milk mug. She smiles at her son, the way she always does every morning for the last 30 years.

And later tonight they would return to separate bedrooms, she to her son’s room and he in his study. She would gather the sheets in her arms and imagine it smelling like her son, although it’s been 18 years and all it smelled of now is mothballs and dust. He would sit on his study table for a while and take out the baseball glove he bought in the past. The baseball glove that kept him from walking his son home that day. The baseball glove that was supposed to be a surprise. He would wear it and smile for a minute and set it down. And then he would pick up the only other thing in the drawer with it: his gun. He would cry ever so quietly and hold it to his head. He would cry and tremble and curse everything. And he would return to his son, smiling and always happy. He would put the gun back in the drawer and go to sleep.

Mrs. Grounded, hearing the drawer creak close without the sound of absolution, would cry herself to sleep. They made it another day.

Today, in a small apartment room, brother and sister sit across each other. They’re not the son and daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Gunnedtoosoon, they are just brother and sister. Every morning they wake up, get dressed and go to school. They wave at each other and awkwardly tell the other to take care. Then they would part ways. Brother goes north while Sister goes south. You might be wondering why they’re not nephew and niece of Mr. and Mrs. Someoneweusedtoknow. They were, for a little while. But no one’s supposed to sit at the head of a table where someone else used to sit. And no one’s supposed to comb her hair in front of a large mirror the way someone used to do as well. So they ran away together.

A street before school, Brother takes a sharp turn. He’s dropped out of school for years now. Going to school won’t put food on the table at the end of the day. He sits at the bottom step of a dilapidated building and waits for the rest to arrive. They specialize in selling things, things that people don’t usually sell displayed on shop windows. Until recently, the pay’s been enough for them, but Sister’s got some school thing and they need extra cash. So he steals another stash and walks away to sell.

Sister doesn’t have friends like Brother does. Friends ask you out to some fancy place, force you to go out on a date. She doesn’t have time for that. So she goes around by herself. She has some school thing and they need extra money but Brother is working hard enough at the school library for small dough. She’d have to get it herself one way or another. She’s noticed some girls in school. And they’ve noticed her. They confronted her once, thinking she’s judging them for doing what they do somehow. The truth is she’s just wondering how to get in the business. There’s always someone looking for an easy girl at night. She didn’t think she’d be competition that much. I’d ask today, she thought.

That night, Brother sat on a gurney fighting off the male nurses. “I need to get home! My sister would be worried!” he tells them. But they wouldn’t budge. He’s spilling too much blood, he has to stay if living is on his agenda for the next few days. He kept shouting until am attendant came rushing in to put him out. The curtain, the smallest gap, showed him Sister lying on a gurney. She was wheeled next to him. He jumped off the bed like his guts weren’t racing out of his body and went to her bedside.

She saw him, but not the blood. She assumed someone told him what happened and she cried. “I wasn’t ready,” she just said as she cried.

Still they made it another day.

It's ok as long as they make it through another day.