By Jessica and Caleb, Bored at Work.
Sorry kids: no music, just words.
Mom came home late last night. I could hear her stumbling around in the kitchen, cursing under her breath as she rummaged through the kitchen cabinets. She must have just returned from Whoville, the place where my father is from. You see, my parents don't really get along very well; so whenever my mom visits him to handle matters pertaining to their divorce, she tends to return piss drunk.
Mom yells at me from the kitchen, "Charlie, where are my fucking cigarettes?" I just ignore her and light up a smoke, take a few drags and put it out. I fall into bed and try to doze. I can still hear mom downstairs. I hear her move into the living room and flip on the television. The light from the TV seeps through the crack under my door, she'll be asleep soon.
My eyelids grow heavier and heavier; I can feel sleep swallowing me. I am just about to go down when: "Charlie!" she screams. "I can smell you smokin' in there. Come and give me those cigarettes!" Her voice, even at its high decibel, sounds whiny and pathetic. I picture her rotting away on the coach, her hair mussed and greasy; staining the pillows. I try to drown her out with a slide show from my day. Scanning the images slowly, to the soundtrack of the faucet dripping from where she filled her water glass, I stop and take a few steps back... to her: Stacy. Willowy and beautiful in the moonlight of my mind.
Stacy is the girl next door. My relief when my home-world feels like it is going to sufocate me.
I cuddle in the carbon copies of her that stick to the walls of my mind. I imagine her rescuing me from the mundane manifestations of this life billowing before me.
I light one of my cigarettes and press my forehead to the wall. Her face continues to dance within the smoke rings I exhale. Struggling to stay trapped in my mind; I fight hard as the whining of my mother's voice seeps in. It screeches through the door and slaps me back to reality as each image shatters to the floor.
Why?
