Entry - 2 - Short Story - Counting
I wrote this a year ago as an assignment for creative writing. It started off as a scene description and we were just suppose to launch a story from it. I choose a window scene from my room on Easton Ave in New Brunswick - which overlooked the park. The story's central themes are knowing/not knowing and questioning. Though there is a heavy religious theme that follows throughout, I was not as much concerned with breaking down religious views as much as what the character comes to believe - and how - and why it changes, and how he handles it. There are many places were I noticed I can add to the psychological aspect of the characters growth or fleshing out certain details more. I guess part of what I like to do with stories is leave a layer of ambiguity to give the readers more agency in determining their own meaning. But I know that at some points it is my job as the author to finalize certain detail. So please let me know what you think and give me any edits or critiques. :D
Counting
I remember when I first wished I could count all the fingers on my hand. I was sitting in a pale beige room, empty save the dingy lime chair I sat on and the plump manila folders stacked high against the wall. The adults who wouldn’t stop holding my hand finally let go as they told me to sit in the room, that they would be back in twenty minutes. Twenty? I dangled my fingers in front of my lap, wondering how many twenty was. Mother only taught me the numbers I needed to know. There is 1 God. He is split into 3 people. Jesus had 12 apostles. And when Jesus returns everything will return to 0. But I never heard twenty before.
The adults returned, again grabbing my hand relentlessly, this time pulling me into a room occupied by more adults sitting behind a long plastic table. The room was painted in Easter colors: pale white skins, blue and purple veins, yellow teeth and fingertips. The over-red lips opened -
Were you born on December 31 1999? Did your mother ever speak of her rape? Did she ever seem delusional? Did she sometimes hallucinate? Did she ever hit you? Did she ever touch you?
- Though I wanted to nod, I stayed silent. It was none of their business.
I was born on what my mother called the end of days. Pregnant and awaiting the rapture, she fell into labor while praying to Jesus to hold her unborn baby in his arms. The neighbors heard her screams and called for medical help - the same neighbors who only recently noticed how I never left the house and eventually called child services. They told her I was a healthy baby boy and asked who the father was. She told them no one in the hospital but on some nights among her tearful confessions to God she recounts the man who pinned her on her bed at home and “blessed” her with fathering the second coming of her lord. It was then that she decided to await her sign from God. On September 11, 2001, she realized that the world was tainted and they should shield me from the war of the demons. Though we had a television, only she was allowed to watch it. For 1 hour a night she would watch to see if it was safe, but was left mumbling louder and louder about death coming for us at any moment. I stayed under my sheets tearfully bartering with God to keep me alive, and every morning wept when I opened my eyes and saw my moldy ceiling.
The adults stared at me as they leaned into each other’s ears and whispered. Whispering, my mother told me, was rude because it was thought to exclude God. Doesn’t matter what she or God thinks anymore. They are the ones that left me here. They could have held me tighter as the strangers pulled me out the door that day as the adults shouted “Ms. Suarez, child protection agency!” Instead my mother continued her drink, spilled to her knees atop an altar constructed of broken pews and torn bible covers. God slept heavily through the rings of her tearful calls.
I’ve been at Easton for 1 week and the windowsill remains dusty from the last tenant. Ms. Williams, who I was told to listen to during my stay, said he was not nearly as nice a kid as me. I thanked her with a pursed smile. Though I was taught to respect adults, I can’t value anything she says. She’s not married and wears skirts that fall above her round knees, revealing her rich chocolate calves that keep the eye stretching down to her hot pink pumps.
Whore.
But she might have a point about his behavior. The torn wallpaper printed with flowers that are wilting with each peeled strip still holds memories of his affair with tobacco. The burnt bullet holes arranged as a large penis in the curtains shoot the morning light into my eyes.
And I don’t ask the story of the bed sheets. When I first saw their colorful array of stains and questionable spots, I decided crumbling them underneath the rusting bed frame was wiser than using them. Ms. Williams says they’re clean, but clean doesn’t feel like moist strings of fabric.
If I were staying here permanently I would have thought to invest some elbow grease. I am only a guest though. They said this would unfortunately be temporary. The unfortunate part is that I would have to leave home for so long.
I did choose to move one piece. Rather than hugging a lone corner, my full size bed is pushed against the wall, falling just below the browning windowsill. Each morning the sun can arise and the warmth can fill my room. Only in picture books, before mother burned them for firewood, did I see such waves of green leaves flow with the cold morning breeze and the constant morning traffic.
Buccleuch Park and its morning tenants are just across the street from my dirty sill. With a bedside view, I can enjoy watching the dedicated exercise early in the morning. Foustan Avenue cuts the sill from the park. Vans, motorcycles, and ambulances roll through with constant interference to the park’s and my tranquility. The roars from the cars give the carved lions perched around park entrance a voice - during the early morning and late night.
“Juan, you are twenty years old” (there goes that number again) “ officially we can not keep you here much longer. Easton is technically only for minors, but I understand that you do not have any other skills or ways of taking care of yourself, so I begged child services if we could postpone you leaving”. Ms. Williams sat across her wooden table taking long sips out of her Federal Bank mug, letting the tea bag occasionally slap her full lips. “ They are only giving you till Monday, and since it’s already Wednesday, I insist you start looking for a job or a nice shelter tomorrow morning. You’re such a sweet boy, I wish you could just stay here with me”. She reached over and covered my hand with hers, the warmth from the mug made her touch send shocks up my arms. My whole body turned warm. I smiled. She returned it.
Last time I felt like this, I was still home sometime after 12 years old. Mother was watching the devil newscast and I stared outside my window trying to spot any preemptive attack. When I saw anyone passing by, I ducked below the window, hoping they didn’t see me first. Mother said the reason we don’t communicate with others is because they will drag us into sin. She has already been exposed so she is keeping me pure. But that exceptionally hot day, I lingered longer by the window panel trying to feel any small gust of wind. I spotted a young female, wearing nothing but small strips of cloth covering her full chest and lower region. The warmth covered me and my face began to flush. “What’s wrong? See anyone?” “ No” But I did, again later that night. She twirled, still wearing the small black cloth around her chest, this time exploring her body with her fingers. Plummeting them from her lips down to between her legs. My pants stiffened. I panicked and showed my mother. She screamed and slapped me to the floor. That’s God punishing you. What immoral things have you done? Have you been playing with yourself? I told her there is no one else around and you made me leave my imaginary friend. She slapped me again and told me I should pray and hopefully God will take this suffering from me. As it rubbed against my underwear, I quietly winced and rolled back to my side of the bed. As I held my eyes shut, mouthing my usual round of Our Fathers, I secretly wished the exquisite pain would not go away.
As Ms. Williams stood up to place her mug in the crowded sink, the stiffening returned. My first thought was to rush to my room and begin my prayer before temptation became too strong. But why? To please God? Mother? I know it wouldn’t please me. As she scrubbed, and shook with every violent twirl of her arm, my pants tightened along the side of my leg. I put my hand over it.
She didn’t notice amongst the crashing of the sink water that I began to unbuckle my pants.
She did notice when I gripped her waist and began pressing my penis along her leg.
Buccleuch Park appears more inviting from the window, especially at night. The roars I heard from the window are now crashing waves sweeping me out further and further into the thicket of trees. Under only my wet underwear and spotted blanket tossed at me by Ms. Williams, I see the stars stagnant across the dark sky. So many, I imagine, than you can count. So what’s the purpose in even counting them? I heard when stars shoot across the sky it means they’re going to die soon.
“God?”
Counting
I remember when I first wished I could count all the fingers on my hand. I was sitting in a pale beige room, empty save the dingy lime chair I sat on and the plump manila folders stacked high against the wall. The adults who wouldn’t stop holding my hand finally let go as they told me to sit in the room, that they would be back in twenty minutes. Twenty? I dangled my fingers in front of my lap, wondering how many twenty was. Mother only taught me the numbers I needed to know. There is 1 God. He is split into 3 people. Jesus had 12 apostles. And when Jesus returns everything will return to 0. But I never heard twenty before.
The adults returned, again grabbing my hand relentlessly, this time pulling me into a room occupied by more adults sitting behind a long plastic table. The room was painted in Easter colors: pale white skins, blue and purple veins, yellow teeth and fingertips. The over-red lips opened -
Were you born on December 31 1999? Did your mother ever speak of her rape? Did she ever seem delusional? Did she sometimes hallucinate? Did she ever hit you? Did she ever touch you?
- Though I wanted to nod, I stayed silent. It was none of their business.
I was born on what my mother called the end of days. Pregnant and awaiting the rapture, she fell into labor while praying to Jesus to hold her unborn baby in his arms. The neighbors heard her screams and called for medical help - the same neighbors who only recently noticed how I never left the house and eventually called child services. They told her I was a healthy baby boy and asked who the father was. She told them no one in the hospital but on some nights among her tearful confessions to God she recounts the man who pinned her on her bed at home and “blessed” her with fathering the second coming of her lord. It was then that she decided to await her sign from God. On September 11, 2001, she realized that the world was tainted and they should shield me from the war of the demons. Though we had a television, only she was allowed to watch it. For 1 hour a night she would watch to see if it was safe, but was left mumbling louder and louder about death coming for us at any moment. I stayed under my sheets tearfully bartering with God to keep me alive, and every morning wept when I opened my eyes and saw my moldy ceiling.
The adults stared at me as they leaned into each other’s ears and whispered. Whispering, my mother told me, was rude because it was thought to exclude God. Doesn’t matter what she or God thinks anymore. They are the ones that left me here. They could have held me tighter as the strangers pulled me out the door that day as the adults shouted “Ms. Suarez, child protection agency!” Instead my mother continued her drink, spilled to her knees atop an altar constructed of broken pews and torn bible covers. God slept heavily through the rings of her tearful calls.
I’ve been at Easton for 1 week and the windowsill remains dusty from the last tenant. Ms. Williams, who I was told to listen to during my stay, said he was not nearly as nice a kid as me. I thanked her with a pursed smile. Though I was taught to respect adults, I can’t value anything she says. She’s not married and wears skirts that fall above her round knees, revealing her rich chocolate calves that keep the eye stretching down to her hot pink pumps.
Whore.
But she might have a point about his behavior. The torn wallpaper printed with flowers that are wilting with each peeled strip still holds memories of his affair with tobacco. The burnt bullet holes arranged as a large penis in the curtains shoot the morning light into my eyes.
And I don’t ask the story of the bed sheets. When I first saw their colorful array of stains and questionable spots, I decided crumbling them underneath the rusting bed frame was wiser than using them. Ms. Williams says they’re clean, but clean doesn’t feel like moist strings of fabric.
If I were staying here permanently I would have thought to invest some elbow grease. I am only a guest though. They said this would unfortunately be temporary. The unfortunate part is that I would have to leave home for so long.
I did choose to move one piece. Rather than hugging a lone corner, my full size bed is pushed against the wall, falling just below the browning windowsill. Each morning the sun can arise and the warmth can fill my room. Only in picture books, before mother burned them for firewood, did I see such waves of green leaves flow with the cold morning breeze and the constant morning traffic.
Buccleuch Park and its morning tenants are just across the street from my dirty sill. With a bedside view, I can enjoy watching the dedicated exercise early in the morning. Foustan Avenue cuts the sill from the park. Vans, motorcycles, and ambulances roll through with constant interference to the park’s and my tranquility. The roars from the cars give the carved lions perched around park entrance a voice - during the early morning and late night.
“Juan, you are twenty years old” (there goes that number again) “ officially we can not keep you here much longer. Easton is technically only for minors, but I understand that you do not have any other skills or ways of taking care of yourself, so I begged child services if we could postpone you leaving”. Ms. Williams sat across her wooden table taking long sips out of her Federal Bank mug, letting the tea bag occasionally slap her full lips. “ They are only giving you till Monday, and since it’s already Wednesday, I insist you start looking for a job or a nice shelter tomorrow morning. You’re such a sweet boy, I wish you could just stay here with me”. She reached over and covered my hand with hers, the warmth from the mug made her touch send shocks up my arms. My whole body turned warm. I smiled. She returned it.
Last time I felt like this, I was still home sometime after 12 years old. Mother was watching the devil newscast and I stared outside my window trying to spot any preemptive attack. When I saw anyone passing by, I ducked below the window, hoping they didn’t see me first. Mother said the reason we don’t communicate with others is because they will drag us into sin. She has already been exposed so she is keeping me pure. But that exceptionally hot day, I lingered longer by the window panel trying to feel any small gust of wind. I spotted a young female, wearing nothing but small strips of cloth covering her full chest and lower region. The warmth covered me and my face began to flush. “What’s wrong? See anyone?” “ No” But I did, again later that night. She twirled, still wearing the small black cloth around her chest, this time exploring her body with her fingers. Plummeting them from her lips down to between her legs. My pants stiffened. I panicked and showed my mother. She screamed and slapped me to the floor. That’s God punishing you. What immoral things have you done? Have you been playing with yourself? I told her there is no one else around and you made me leave my imaginary friend. She slapped me again and told me I should pray and hopefully God will take this suffering from me. As it rubbed against my underwear, I quietly winced and rolled back to my side of the bed. As I held my eyes shut, mouthing my usual round of Our Fathers, I secretly wished the exquisite pain would not go away.
As Ms. Williams stood up to place her mug in the crowded sink, the stiffening returned. My first thought was to rush to my room and begin my prayer before temptation became too strong. But why? To please God? Mother? I know it wouldn’t please me. As she scrubbed, and shook with every violent twirl of her arm, my pants tightened along the side of my leg. I put my hand over it.
She didn’t notice amongst the crashing of the sink water that I began to unbuckle my pants.
She did notice when I gripped her waist and began pressing my penis along her leg.
Buccleuch Park appears more inviting from the window, especially at night. The roars I heard from the window are now crashing waves sweeping me out further and further into the thicket of trees. Under only my wet underwear and spotted blanket tossed at me by Ms. Williams, I see the stars stagnant across the dark sky. So many, I imagine, than you can count. So what’s the purpose in even counting them? I heard when stars shoot across the sky it means they’re going to die soon.
“God?”