School
When the last of the teachers left her post to seek shelter in the chilly hallways, Yuri resigned to his fate. There was no one left to supervise the schoolyard of Lenyam Advanced School. A few kids had attempted to start a kickball game, but even they sat on the ground by now, beaten by a sun that watched from the sky with burning indifference. He leaned back against the wall, stretching to mask his glances around the yard.
The beatdown was long in the making, and his own making at that. He had skipped school to delay it, but that only worked as long as Ogi skipped with him. He couldn’t in good conscience let the fatboy return to class by himself. Buele was out here somewhere, and he was angry, angry enough to not care that what happened had been his own damn fault. Joking about someone’s brother on the day of his arrest was a thing not done without consequence. And Diaen was Ogi’s brother as much as Simoe’s, Buele knew that. Everyone knew that.
But Yuri had allowed himself to get cruel, and had slipped in a good half dozen punches that Ogi hadn’t asked for. Talk was, Buele had been standing outside school every morning since, waiting for him to show up. Talk was, he’d been kept company by Lilyan and Gum. Lilyan was a charmer and not much to worry about, but Gum had broken a boy’s arm for a couple toreks and a soda only a season past. No, Ogi wasn’t safe, not unless Yuri could distract them, give him a chance to escape.
“Does it smell like bacon to you?” Ogi asked.
Yuri took a sniff. “Not particu—“
“It does, doesn’t it?” The fatboy all but swooned beside him. “Fuck, I love chef Birekek. It’s as if he knew I’d be back today.”
They all knew Ogi was back today. The news of Diaen’s pardon had spread across the city like wildfire, the only difference being that you saw what was burned and what was not with wilfire. With the pardon, it took not a day before people started bickering about the meaning of it. Some claimed Diaen and his friends would be released within the Tenin; others said their execution had simply been postponed.
All Yuri knew was that the words had left the pale prefect’s mouth, and Ogi had witnessed it. Whether they’d hold up, only time would tell. His hopes lay with Pen, who had used many words to describe old man Lorne to him, but never ‘liar’. Pen, who had no reason to trust any Gralinn.
Pen, who seemed to have vanished from the face of the Known World.
“Yo, now I definitely smell bacon,” Ogi said.
Yuri took another sniff, and regretted it. “You’re disgusting.”
Ogi’s cackling laugh banged across the schoolyard. He may have as well fired a homing beacon. Yuri’s eyes shot back and forth between the groups scattered about the large square yard like piles of leaves, some of them always in motion, drifting from one pile to the next. A few kids greeted Ogi in passing, giving him friendly looks and words. Ogi returned their greetings with a grin.
Had it not been for the days of uncertainty leading up to the pardon, Yuri would probably have informed him of the peril they were in. He would let him enjoy every breath of relief right to the moment when the first punch was thrown. He deserved it a breather. Perhaps, the shock would even make him cry. Tears might keep Buele from beating him too badly.
“Hey Ogi, glad you’re back!” Hia said. The body next to Yuri stirred, almost bounced off the wall to step up to her. “Did you lose weight?”
Ogi gave her his widest grin. “Might’ve. Somebody has to keep this one in check, and he’s a handful.”
“Hey, Yuri,” Hia said.
Yuri gave her a reserved smile. Hila’s look at him, however short, was different than that which she gave Ogi. One was shy, the other full of warmth. Unfortunately, it was not the kind of warmth Ogi was hoping for, but the kind you gave a cute hound when it had performed a trick well.
“Is Simoe back, too?” Hia asked Ogi. “I haven’t seen her around.”
He nodded. “Should be. I think she’s got arithmetic next period.“
“Great, thanks! Hang in there, you.” She glanced at Yuri again. “You, too. Take good care of him.”
“Will do,” Yuri said.
Hia was off, and Ogi slumped back against the wall, mumbling, “You could take care of me too, Hia…”
“So ask her out.”
“Nah, we know how that’d play out. Denied with a small, shriveled ‘d’.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“I know that look.” Ogi sighed, and still, his mood seemed unperturbed. “Sucks being the little brother sometimes, y’know? Well, except y’don’t know, ‘cause y’don’t have brothers.”
“Not the brotherly type.”
“And they just love that, don’t they.” Ogi punched Yuri in the ribs. It caught him more than he showed. “What did your old man say?”
“… About slamming his dick on Gikyede’s table?”
“Nah, seriously. ‘Sucks if there’s supply and no demand’?”
“Something like that.”
When Ogi shrugged, the bottom end of his belly showed below his shirt. “Sucks just as much when there’s all the demand in the world, but no supply. One day, you oughta take out Hia. Take out any of them.”
Yuri raised his hands as if aiming a rifle, aiming around the schoolyard until the imaginary crosshairs landed on pretty Piore. He let his tongue smack and absorbed the recoil.
“You joke about it, but chances are, you could. Even Piore.”
“Isn’t she with Sanae?”
“That’s old news. Totally on the market, only no one dares ask her. I could do it for you, y’know. Matter of fact…” Ogi turned with a sly smirk. “Just say the word, Imma walk over there and ask her right now.”
“Yeah right.”
“Yeah right indeed. What, you scared she’s gonna say no?”
“I’m not scared either way. Point is, I’m not interested. Which doesn’t matter, because I know you’re bluffing.”
“I’m hearing a dare.”
“The only thing your fat ears hear is chef Birekek’s fryer.”
“Last chance to say no.”
Ogi’s eyes betrayed no fear, no matter how deep Yuri peered into them. He suddenly realized the trap he had stepped into. Saying no would make him a coward no matter what his reasons were. The fatboy would never let him hear the end of it.
Yuri didn’t speak, or move, as Ogi stepped off the wall. He won’t do it. Piore’s friends were known to be viciously protective. For all his good mood, Ogi was still terrified of girls, even his first kiss hadn’t changed that; and no wonder, with two mothers and a sister like his. He was kidding. He was trying to get him to show weakness.
He was walking onto the yard.
Fuck. Calling Ogi back would be even more embarrassing. Yuri stayed between the bushes, and took stock of the yard for the hundredth time trying not to follow his friend’s skipping steps toward the benches by the great lilahiem where the girls were hanging out.
He came to look at his schoolmates, gaze wandering from one to the next. Each year, more of them were younger than Yuri. Not long ago, they’d all been older, and he’d glanced around like he was today on every single day, afraid of getting on some upperclassman’s bad side.
Becoming that upperclassman had come as a surprise. Without anyone notifying him, it had taken a while for him to realize by the looks of others that they feared him. He was older, but he didn’t feel different at all. What did feel different was seeing his peers being cruel to the younger kids. It started gradually, a tap on the back of the head here, a challenged look there. Small things, things that he recognized as part of a cycle. His head had been tapped once, his looks challenged, and he had fretted about it with his friends just like everyone else.
Only now he witnessed his friends of old turn into the people that had bullied them. It made him dislike them, but also fed a great concern in him. Slowly, but surely, he was beginning to see the links in the chain between children and adults, and it sometimes filled him with great terror how few of them there actually were.
Buele was one of the kids whose change he had witnessed first-hand. It wasn’t that he was rotten to the core; having sat behind him in class for years, Yuri knew the good things Buele could be. Quick, for one. Smart. Not smart like Ogi, perhaps, but one needed only witness him pull a convincing answer out of his ass after coming to school strung-out and tired to know that there was a seed of greatness in him. That seed clearly withered at school—but success in life wasn’t always tied to school. It wasn’t hard to imagine Buele wearing suits and an easy smile, conning people into buying cars, boats, and houses. In a different world, he would maybe have started working for Yuri’s dad. Made him a decent mentee.
But Buele had never met Yuri’s father. Some kids said he barely knew his own. The teachers ignored him, and from his reactions whenever someone asked about his mother, Yuri suspected he wasn’t much seen at home, either. And so, over the years, Yuri had observed quietly as the seed died. Buele started lying for no apparent reason. He stole from people, his friends even. He hazed the new kids. He wasn’t fully grown, and yet lately, there had bloomed a cruelty in him that Yuri had seen before—not in children, but adults, the ones with scowls of regret ingrained in their faces. At sixteen years of age, it was getting harder and harder to remember the insecure kid with the keen eyes that had glanced over his shoulders on the first day of school before introducing himself. Sometimes, most times these days, it was easier to imagine that kid had just been a disguise for what had always been a rotten soul.
Other times, Yuri wondered if he had it all wrong. He wondered if observing Buele shutting himself off wasn’t the very thing that kept him vigilant to to take an interest in others, talk to Pennie next door, help Ogi. He wondered if, had the seats been switched, it would’ve all happened the other way around. Perhaps then, on this day, it would be Buele waiting for a shallow, grudging Yuri to come and beat the living shit out of him.
Yuri tensed up. The end of the break was near, and an unfelt draft had started blowing one student after another back to the entrance to the central school building. Among the slow-moving crowd, there was still no Buele, Lilyan, or Gum to be found.
There was no Ogi, either. Yuri spotted Piore and her friends by the bench picking up their bags. He jogged up to them as they turned to leave, and was met with a snicker. “Hey, you seen Ogi?”
“Well, hello, Yuri,” Mae said, hiding the upward twitches of her dimples with her hand. “Couldn’t wait for your messenger to return, huh?”
Yuri smiled weakly. “Please, it’s important.”
“Damn right it is.” Kaila crossed her arms as if to twice underline the disdain on her face. “I knew you’re cocky, but sending the poor boy to do the asking for you?” Mae and two others clung to each other’s shoulders laughing. “That’s just weak.”
“I thought it was sweet,” Piore said. Her smile shut up the other girls in an instant. It managed to do a number of things up-close, things deeper inside his chest than Yuri would have liked. “You look worried. How come?”
No time. “Ogi gets… mood-swings,” Yuri said. “Gotten worse since Diaen, and all.”
“Poor soul.” Gods, she is pretty. “What a relief the pardon must have been. We’ve all been praying to the gods for him and Simoe, you know. Well, except for Kaila. Kaila doesn’t pray.”
Kaila stirred, but stayed quiet. Yuri scratched his head. “Thanks,” he said, stupidly.
“You can relax,” Piore said with a soothing smile. “Ogi’s fine. Hia said Simoe wanted to see him, that’s all.”
“Oh.” Yuri found himself at a disconcerting lack of words. “That’s… good.”
“I’m sure it is. Hia’s so nice, isn’t she?”
“Super-nice!” Mae interjected. A happy tone broke through whenever she spoke, but it faded as quickly as her smile.
“Y-yeah.” Something eerie struck Yuri then and there. Mae seemed eager to talk and laugh, Kaila’s eyes kept piercing him with bad intentions, yet they both shut up the instant Piore moved a muscle. There was an air of obedience around her that he was slowly beginning to understand. He’d never noticed, because he had never been that close to her before.
Piore wasn’t just pretty—she was beautiful. Her smile was of an earnestness that almost hurt to look at, yet hurt more to risk losing. Her eyes were glowing emeralds. Every word she said sounded sincere to the bone, and so, so benevolent.
There was nothing he could say to a being that perfect without feeling like an idiot.
“You know,” Piore said with a smirk, “it seemed like your friend was more than delighted talking to her. Anything going on there?”
“Where?” Yuri asked, struggling to pay attention to her words.
“With him and Hia, silly!” Piore laughed a laugh that could have made stones weep. “They’d be cute together, wouldn’t they?”
As Yuri nodded, he heard Kaila mutter between her teeth, “Fat chance.”
Piore suddenly withdrew her eyes from him, looking at the ground instead. “By the way…” she said. “Anything else you might wanna ask me?”
“I…” Yuri felt a tightness in his chest. His mind was slowly turning to molasses, and even though he knew better than to keep looking into girls’ eyes for too long, the temptation was too irresistible. Too much hope, possibility lay there. He tried to think of Pen, smart, funny, lonely Pen talking to him through the opening, but she felt more distant and inaccessible as ever. She had left, and perhaps wouldn’t come back. Piore was right in front of him, and she wanted to be asked; how lonely must it be to have everyone being intimidated by you. He wanted to make her feel less lonely. He wanted to hold her. Ogi had been right, after all: he’d been missing out on something.
Ogi. “What did you mean, ‘fat chance’?” Yuri asked.
Piore’s smile waned a bit as he ripped his eyes from her and looked at Kaila. She shrugged defensively “I wasn’t referring to him, if that’s what you—“
“It’s not,” Yuri said. “What did you mean?”
“You don’t know?” Kaila chuckled. “Hia’s taken. She’s been going out with Lilyan for at least three—“
“Where?” Yuri noticed by their reaction how tense his voice had gotten.
Piore took on a look of concern. “What’s the matter?”
“WHERE?”
Her smile died right then and there. It was Mae who finally raised her hand. With a grumbled “Thanks,” Yuri stormed off in the direction she had pointed, not daring to look at Piore’s eyes again.
The entrance to Gossra Hall was wide open, its thick teak doors held in place by small rubber wedges. Every wall inside was plastered with b rightly colored posters for the yearly haigo play at the Sunyear Festival. After he took a corner, Yuri spotted a familiar figure standing at the door to the auditorium between the two staircases. Hia did her best to keep a friendly face as he walked up, but he could tell she was spooked.
“Where are they?” he asked.
“Hey Yuri,” Hia said. “They’re in the middle of rehearsing, better not get loud.”
“Drop it, I know about you and Lilyan. Tell me right now, or I’ll—“
“Quiet!” a voice hissed behind him. Miss Nour had exited the lavatory and went by them with a scowl on her face, the same she always wore. As she opened the door, Yuri heard a soulful voice phrasing its woes inside the hall.
“Tell me,” Yuri said once more, unblinking.
“… They only wanna talk to him,” Hia said.
“Houndshit. When did Gum ever want to talk to anyone?”
Her reaction confirmed his fears. Gum was in fact with them. “You shouldn’t have done what you did, Yuri. Buele was wrong to joke, but beating him up like that, it’s—“
“So? I fucked up. That’s no reason to beat Ogi, and you know that’s what they’re doing, don’t play stupid. Where are they?”
Hia stayed silent, and withstood his stare without flinching. Her eyes weren’t like Piore’s, but they had an appeal of their own. A thin dark line framed them. Her complexion seemed even, too even to not have been touched up, and a bit lighter than usual.
She actually cares about him. “Great taste in you, gotta say. Lilyan’ll drop you like a hot patiti after this.”
Hia slipped up for only a breath, but he caught it. Her eyes darted away from him, from the door, toward one of the staircases. The locker rooms.
Yuri left her behind, taking two, three steps at a time. As he arrived at the doors to the boys’ rooms, a long, unsteady note caught his ear. A whimper. Ogi. He took a long breath and collected himself. He took a step away from the door, grabbed the handle, and silently counted down from three.
The lock brought his tackle to a dead stop. Yuri sunk down just as it clicked and the door opened, letting him fall inside. He opened his eyes in time to see a huge shoe burrow into his stomach.
“Look who showed up,” he heard Buele’s voice echo off the tiles as he struggled for air. “Only took you half a Tenin.”
“Run, Yuri!” Ogi’s voice was quivering as he tried to get up. Buele held him back with his forearm pressed under his chin, making Ogi’s face run dark with blood. A bruise showed underneath his right eye.
“Let him go,” Yuri said. This time, Gum put his weight into the kick. It hit Yuri in the chest and sent his head caroming off the concrete wall with a dull thud.
When he looked up again, the room was all blurry. A different figure kept its hand near Ogi’s neck, a lean one. Lilyan. Buele walked over, reached up to give Gum a pat on his massive shoulder. “If you try to run, Gum’s gonna do the beating. If you manage to run, it’ll be Ogi instead of you. Simple enough?”
Yuri’s voice sounded frail as he tried to raise himself onto his elbow, and failed. “He’s got nothing to do with this.”
“Funny. I remember him whispering into your ear just before you flipped.” When Buele crouched down, his face surprised Yuri. Even blurred, there was still some discoloration around the temples. Was it that bad? He hadn’t meant for it to be that bad. “What did he say?” Buele asked. “ ‘Beat his ass?’ ‘Make him pay?’ “
“ ‘Make him stop’,” Yuri hissed at him. “After he told you to stop, and you kept going.”
Buele brushed his bruises with the back of his hand. “It was a joke. You took it serious.”
“What’d you think was gonna happen? Diaen’s his brother, you had no—“
The same hand now slapped Yuri in the face. “He’s not. I’m tired of hearing that houndshit. Diaen’s Simoe’s brother, and he’s grown up, we all are. Not my fault if he’s an idiot. I see an idiot, I laugh.”
“So buy a mirror. I don’t care about Diaen. You hurt Ogi, I hurt you, simple as that. Let him go.”
“He can go.” Buele stood up, touching his bruises once more. “But first, he’s gonna watch.”
A huge hand grabbed Yuri’s forearms and twisted them behind his back, forcing him to stand up. There was no point in fighting Gum, not since he’d hit his growth spurt. Words wouldn’t move him, either. Talk on the yard was, the only reason his pea brain hadn’t been expelled yet was that even the teachers were afraid of him.
“Get it over with,” Yuri said through clenched teeth. “I don’t have all—“
The first punch let him know it wasn’t going to end quickly. Buele was lunging, grimacing, hitting Yuri’s face with all the strength he had, making it light up with heat. The measured words were only a facade. This was still the same boy that would hold on to every grudge he had, the same boy that stole things just to destroy them. And he was mad, madder than Yuri had ever seen him.
The next two shots he slipped, but Gum gave him little space to move around in. Soon, Buele got wiser, and began hitting his stomach, his ribs. The punches became ebbs and flows in a current of pain that didn’t stop, spreading throughout his body. Yuri spat. Buele continued raining down his knuckles. When he mixed in a kick to the groin, Yuri bowed over as far as he could and spilled his breakfast onto the floor tiles.
“S-stop!” Ogi said, panicking.
“He didn’t stop,” Buele said.
Another punch caught Yuri mid-throwing-up, sending a half-digested piece of shrimp smacking against the wall. He shook his head and looked up again only to spot Buele panting, sporting a wild smile. His next kick was blocked by Yuri’s knee. Buele followed up with a blow to his liver. Yuri’s legs gave out under him, which made Gum punish his shoulders all the more.
“That’s more like it,” Buele said. “Don’t worry, I’m just warming… up!”
Like that he went back to work on Yuri’s face. Yuri rolled with the punches as best he could, thankful for the break to his body. Buele hit hard, but he also faded fast. It wasn’t long until he was huffing after every punch, and wincing. His knuckles were covered in cuts. Yuri could only guess how bad his own face looked from how numb it was.
After a lunging overhand right, Buele stumbled to the side, and rested his hands on his knees. Yuri used the break to spit, and feel around his mouth with his tongue. All teeth were still there, but there was one molar that did not feel all too firm in its socket.
“Learned your…” Buele started, and had to catch his breath. “… lesson yet?”
There was an urge in Yuri to respond, but he quenched it.
Buele turned and eyed him for a long while, looking displeased. Then, he grinned. “Ey Lil, wanna get in on this?”
Lilyan looked at Yuri, then at Buele. “Nah, I’m good.”A shame, Yuri reckoned. A few more punches would have been a worthwhile price to see a slimy wimp like Lilyan bloody himself.
Buele’s grin persisted. “Gum?”
“Sure, why not,” a deep voice said behind Yuri. “I don’t like his tone.”
Ogi shot up, but Lilyan grabbed his hair, yanking him back onto the bench screaming. “You—you said only you were gonna—“
“I was joking,” Buele said. “You don’t really get jokes, do you?”
Ogi suddenly donned a different look. “Only good ones. Like when you brought in your dad’s signature for the exam.”
Though nothing changed about the room, the silence that set in was a different one. Yuri shook his head at his friend. “The fuck did you just say?” Buele asked.
“Everyone knows he ha-hasn’t been home in years.” Ogi was shaking, and yet didn’t stop. “And even besides that, I doubt he can even spell his own—“
Buele smacked Ogi with an open hand and followed it up with a knee. Yuri tried to wrestle free of Gum’s embrace, but it was no use. He could only watch as Buele beat up his friend some more before turning around dead-tired.
“Your turn,” Buele said, looking at Gum. “Make it count.”
The prospect of Gum doing the punching made Yuri’s hairs stand up. It made him scared. It also made him suddenly aware of the relief in his shoulders. Gum couldn’t hold him and beat him up. He was going to let go.And Buele was off his guard.
Yuri made his body slack and waver while keeping an eye on Buele as he stretched. Grinned. Closed his eyes to wipe them on his arm.
Yuri shot forward ignoring the pain in his shoulders, as far away from Gum as he could, and raised his left knee. He only had one shot. Letting his head and shoulders drop until they almost hit the ground, he kicked his heel back as high as he could, right between the thick legs of the giant tenth-grader.
He hit his mark. A deep grunt sounded behind him, and his arms were freed to catch his fall. He sped forward and looked up just in time to block a slow kick by Buele. It did half his work for him, robbing the other boy of his balance. Yuri reached into his hair, grabbed his head as tightly as he could, and slammed it down onto his right knee.
Yuri was yanked back and thrown to the ground just as a fountain of blood gushed out Buele’s nose. A heavy body sat on top of him and started raining down blows his arms couldn’t fend off. These weren’t a boy’s hands, but a man’s. His head hit the tiles below. Everything became a blur. There was shouting around him, Buele, Ogi, but their words were impossible to make out.
Then, the blows suddenly stopped. Yuri took a breath before daring to peek up between his forearms, only to see Gum’s eyes going back and forth between him and the door.
“What is this?” a girl’s voice exclaimed. He knew that voice. Anyone but her.
“This doesn’t concern you,” Buele said. He sounded unsure. Awkward.
All of a sudden, Simoe was standing above Yuri, looking down at him with a mix of pity and disdain. She then turned to Gum. “Get out.”
“Says who?” Gum asked.
“My brother’s friends,” Simoe said. “And I don’t mean Ogi.”
Like that, Gum’s weight was lifted off Yuri’s body. He breathed in deeply as the giant boy’s steps faded through the door accompanied by a gasp. There was someone else. As he sat up, he peered toward the door and found a disturbingly beautiful face peering back in shock.
Simoe turned to Lilyan. “You, too.”
And like that, only Buele was left of the three. He straightened his back. “You won’t call anyone.”
“No, I won’t,” Simoe said. “But I’ll go to the principal’s office. I run three learning groups; who do you think he’ll believe between the two of us?”
“Believe what?”
She pointed at Yuri. “That it’s his blood on your knuckles. That you insulted my family.” An expression Yuri hadn’t seen before appeared on Simoe’s face. “That you touched me.”
“Houndshit.”
Simoe waved a curl out of her face and took a step toward him. “Try me.”
Neither of them moved, but Buele’s face said it all. He was beaten. Just as he turned to walk out of the room, he made a most unseemly noise, and hurled a glob of phlegm right at Yuri’s face. It missed.
“Say hi to your dad,” Yuri said.
Buele only picked up speed and stormed past Piore, who entered with hesitant steps. Yuri suddenly found himself at the center of the others’ attention. Their eyes were full of pity. A great unease came over him.
“Quit staring,” he said.
“I…” Piore averted her eyes. “I told Simoe you were worried about Ogi. I thought he maybe had trouble with Lilyan, but—“
“Why did you do it?” Simoe asked.
Yuri stood up. “Do what?”
“We all saw Buele after you beat him up. It was… bad. Just like you are now.”
“It wasn’t his fault,” Ogi said. “He only—“
Yuri cut him off. “Buele got what was coming to him. He’s an ass. Always has been.” Simoe shook her head and turned to Ogi. There were a couple bruises on the fatboy’s face, but nothing that would last more than a few days. When Yuri stood up glanced into the door leading to the showers and sinks, a terrifying grimace startled him for a breath. He realized it was his own.
“Guess this isn’t a face you’d like asking you stuff,” he said to Piore.
She tried to smile, but it died, just as it had before. She struggled to look him in the eyes. “I don’t…”
“No problem.” He took a step, a wobbly one, but his legs were fine apart from a lingering cramp near his groin. Two steps later, he was already at the door. “Catch you when I catch you.”
“Yo, stop!” Ogi yelled after him. He tried to get up, but was held back by Simoe. For all the things she hated Yuri for, he couldn’t but feel for her when she wrapped her arms around Ogi’s fat neck and started sobbing.
Yuri left more than a few drops of blood on his way down the stairs. A few students were filing out of the hall, drama kids, flaunting the seven moods of haigo at each other until all moods converged to dread as he went by. Miss Nour was among them, but she did not reproach him this time, even after he spat redly onto the lacquered floor panels.
Outside, he headed straight for the exit. School had kept going without him these last days, it would do so a couple more. With Simoe looking over Ogi, no one would touch him. Yuri felt stupid for having felt the need to protect him. Ogi was fine. He had a family, two families that looked after him.
Yuri shuffled down the sidewalk without haste, catching glances of his reflection in the windows of parked cars. His face was a bleeding mess. He’d been beaten before, but never this bad. The pain would soon be back with a vengeance, but for the moment, his hands traced his swollen skin like a foreign object, part of a mask, not him. The mask looked like shit. It didn’t look like him.
It also didn’t look his age. Behind the blue and red and black, he may have been sixteen, twenty-six, thirty-six. How about that. Shocked people went out of his way even when he entered the inner city and its crammed sidewalks. A sage lost her voice in the middle of a sermon as he went by. And for some reason, he felt no shame.
When he entered the store, the owner did not question his age once. Yuri didn’t know good spirit from bad, so he took the second-cheapest bottle and paid with what remained of his month’s allowance. The owner did more than oblige—he returned the money, and wished him a nice day.
As he walked home, Yuri took swigs from the bottle whenever he felt like it. The spirit burned in his mouth and throat, mixing with the taste of blood, tasting all kinds of gross. But it numbed him, and numbness was his goal.
His feet had become heavy and his gait less than straight when he arrived on Syam street. He unlocked the door and sat down in his dad’s armchair, taking more swigs, feeling at his face, counting his mistakes. Looking out the window at the house next door, the drawn curtains, the dried-up lawns and hedges.
There was no one home. And, as he’d noticed walking past it, the guards watching it had been withdrawn three days past. A bad sign, most likely. He wondered if anyone else had noticed. He wondered if they cared, really, if there was anyone left in that house. If it was safe in her absence. Like this, anyone could just walk up and break into the place.
Well, not exactly, he thought. They would have to wait until nighttime. Yuri took another swig and put down the bottle, and stared as the old clock mounted on the wall took away frag after frag of this wretched day.
Martin Surga 