A bright sunny day in a town you might remember if you thought back to those times when the streets were quiet and the sun was gentle. A boy walks slowly down the street, the air full of the smell of trees thick in their summer growth. His eyes aren't on them though, but the sky. His hands are behind his head and his eyes are not very brown as they peer through the wisps of his disheveled hair at the clouds overhead. "The clouds up there," he wonders, "Do they get monster homework assignments?" A crack in the asphalt trips him up and he wheels his gangly arms around barely maintaining a precarious balance. With a sigh once he knows he's not going to fall down, he walks now with hands in pockets, eyes cast to the treacherous earth.
The puddles from a recent rain sparkle as he wanders around the corner to enter that lonely house he lives in. He's about to walk in when he sees someone gardening to his right. The daffodils and tulips sway merrily as the man expertly picks through to find the offending weeds and tear them cruelly from the earth. "Hello mister Nowalker," the boy says in a thin voice, one that just bears the crackle of someone beginning to take the long road into adulthood. Very calm, very polite, perhaps a trace of fear in there but it doesn't even reach the boy's eyes.
"Hello Red," the man says, brushing off his mud encrusted leather gloves and standing up, "How was school today?"
"Big research paper of the term," Red answered with a darkness that surprised even him. "We--" he stood up straighter, "The teacher gave us our topic today. I had better get..."
After a moment of silence, the man laughed, kneeling down before his garden again "Well that's life. The weeds wait for noone."
Red looks at the other front yard, mostly rock and ornamental trees. "Thanks I'll... remember that." He takes the three steps up to the house opens the door, calling out, "Mom I'm home!" He frowns as there is no answer, then calls again, "Are you home yet mom?" No answer. A look of relief washes over his face, and he walks in more confidently, putting his bag down to remove his shoes and store them carefully in a cubby along the side wall.
The house is deadly silent, but lugging his bag in enough so nobody will fall on it, he vaults over the couch to where a cabinet sits locked. Producing a beaten up looking key, he opens the padlock and the cabinet, and inside there is a black screen, a television set peering out from within. He fishes out the remote, and doesn't even sit on the couch again, crouching in front of the television as the blackness fills with color.
"Oh yeah, I didn't miss it!" Red cheers. The screen has a set of strange creatures running around on it, dancing really in their own strange way. It isn't the thing a high school student would be expected to look at, the main characters five and six year old human beings, but Red remains captivated by the creatures they lived with, sitting back at last in a splay legged half cross while the characters dance on the screen. Their mouths move but he has it on mute. No music sings out, no songs fill the air. It is just the dancing, and the odd creatures that play with the children and help them.
His trance breaks as a car pulls up in the cement driveway. He jumps forward and turns the knob, the screen blinking out easily. He shoves the remote in the cabinet, and closes it and slaps the lock in place. As footsteps clomp up the porch and the door opens, a well dressed woman walks in the house. She has a ruffled shirt on and the same color hair as him, but instead of the golden brown, her eyes are light blue. Her face is drawn in a careful frown as she walks up to him silently, seeing him lounging there on the couch, nose buried in his textbook. Then she looks at the cabinet, seeming reassured that the lock is in place. Without another word, she's walking down the hall into another room.
Two hours later, he is at her door, timidly knocking on the doorframe. "It's... it's 5 o'clock, I need to go to the..."
"Are you finished with your homework?" comes her curt answer, seated at a desk in her room, papers spread out around her.
"I worked on the new project since I have been home, and..."
"Answer me, are you done with your homework?" she turns around suddenly, her eyes full of an angry glare, an anger for him...
"I--I'm not..." he stutters, shaking his head violently, "No, never mind sorry I bothered you. I'm leaving."
"You can't leave until you are finished with your work," she shouts, running at the door. He gave a choked back scream at that, and backs away down the hall. Grabbing his strategically placed backpack, he has his shoes half on before she is on him, clawing at him and screaming at the top of her lungs. He makes it out--somehow, spilling onto the porch holding his bag in both hands, extending one smooth palm to shield himself. As always, the door seems to bend in its sockets, but remains a barrier, not opening, protecting him from the mom.
He starts to walk down the street, looking left and right worriedly. Mr. Nowalker is still in his garden, standing and smiling at him... he ducks behind a tree, desperate to be seen by nobody. Everything, the sun, the trees, it all seems to be watching him, watching and waiting. "I'm not crazy too..." he whispers twice, starting to run. About that time he ran into Blue.
"Hey!" she squealed as he collides with her head-on, both of them going down in a tangle of arms and legs. "Oh thank heavens you're here," he said in a low urgent voice, pressing his head into her chest in a crushing hug.
"Let...go...of..." she pushes him away, breathing hard and putting her hands on her knees. "You don't know your own strength these days, Red!"
"I'm sorry..." he chewed on a finger, looking down at her from his perch atop his own body. "My mom was being ...that way again. It's a good thing we have that
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