Count on it
Summary: Every day she counts them. The number never changes, not that she expects it to. Not anymore.
Written for Runaway Tales and Friday Flash Fiction
Rating: PG
Warnings: Childhood depression, symptoms of depression, and implied loss of parent.
Universe: Anterograde (post-apocalyptic psychological thriller) by/under Dr. Idèe Fixe Dithers
Prompts: RaTs; Silent night, Stand up and be counted
Notes: A glimpse into the mind/backstory of Taliyah, one of the characters of Anterograde. I intend to do a vignette like this for each of the characters to help illustrate the reasons they ended up there.
One, two, three, four.
Every day she counts them. Caresses each one with gentle fingers, carefully, carefully avoiding a miscount.
Five, six, seven, eight.
The number never changes, not that she expects it to.
Nine.
Not anymore.
"Taliyah! Hurry up! Your brother needs help tying his shoes." Even without two floors between them anymore, her mother's voice is still muffled. Distant.
She trudges from her room, footsteps thumping unnaturally on grungy carpet. Just like numbers that never grow, the carpet is insulting. A threat to her very existence. She misses sock slides on smooth hardwood hallways with a physical ache.
As if it makes a difference.
Her brother's shoes are tied with a brisk efficiency. If he complains they're laced too tight it's his own fault. Can't he understand what he's done? See all the damage left in his wake? Can't he see how he broke everything precious to her?
Mother bids them farewell over her shoulder, buried too deep in job #3 to even walk them to the door. Taliyah can feel the phantom impression of a kiss on her cheek all the way to the school bus. All the more painful because it's a fantasy.
She counts them the entire ride. Anything to keep her gaze from falling to the windows that reveals too much. Forwards, backwards, sometimes even out of order. Anything to make number ten appear. It never does.
Even with her world narrowed down to nine, she can hear the whispers. "I heard she transferred from some snooty private school. She's so prissy she won't talk to all us commoners even when she's as broke as the rest of us."
Why do they always assume money has anything to do with it? She itches to correct them, but the words stick in her throat. She won't talk about the real reason. Can't talk about it. Can't talk about anything anymore.
A teacher finally calls on her that day. Taliyah had managed to avoid all scrutiny so far, but she couldn't escape.
No matter how many times the teacher prompted, she remained silent. The principle told her there was no shame in not knowing the answer. But why was the answer to some stupid question about dead people so important? How could anything so far in the past matter at all when there were such horrible things happening every day?
She wasn't stupid, she knew how to talk. She just didn't know how to prevent the nightmare of her life from tumbling out the moment she opened her mouth.
So she counted.
One, two, three, four.
The charms tinkled like wind chimes when her mother shook her, a mocking echo of her childhood laughter.
She stumbled in her counting and started over.
One, two, three, four.
Her mother tried reasoning with her, pleaded for her to say something. Anything. But all Taliyah could hear was how her mother used to sing happy birthday to her.
Five, six, seven, eight.
All she could see was her father's smile as he presented her with a new charm for her beloved bracelet, their little tradition. Their little tradition so easily broken that no one tried to fix but her.
Nine.
And how the numbers would never go up again.
This story is copyright Saya Dix (me) and cannot be reposted/republished anywhere without my permission.