All in a family

First Grade

Evenings were not a pleasant time. His father would work late. Was his father unhappy with the way things were at home he wondered? On most evenings his mother would take a TV dinner out of the freezer and warm it in the oven. He still remembers seeing the price tag on the box...35 cents. Often it was a Mexican-style meal, an overcooked taco-like thing with some refried beans and rice, each in their own aluminum compartment.  Other times it was a Salisbury steak with some powdery mashed potatoes and sodden peas. He can still taste the metal foil. He would often eat it alone. Sitting on a chair in front of a little tray table watching some silly thing on the television. But wasn’t this why TV dinners were invented he wondered? He also wondered whether other kids ate their dinners like this. Whether the images he saw of other families were real depictions of life, families sitting around a table with mother and father and some brothers and sisters talking or arguing. The atmosphere of his own household seemed like someone had died, he later realized. Why was everyone so unhappy. 

 

Second grade

Sometimes a month would go by and the heaviness in the house would seem to be lifting. The medicine that tasted like bits of metal and smelled like dirt still had to be taken nightly along with the inspections. But at least his father might be home a bit earlier from work and he would take him to the park to play ball. Then it would happen again. She would discover the evidence. The announcement often came in the evening in front of the family, a kind of shaming, and he would know that he had done something to bring this on them again. The clamp down and sorrow would descend once more, like martial law being declared he later realized. Strict measures were back in full force along with the sting of ammonia, now both morning and night. His father went back to late evenings at work and he would be alone again

 

Third grade

 

By now he had the sense that his kind of people were different from others in many ways--too many ways to count. Thinking about it made his head hurt and his thoughts would drift off to life after an atomic war. He sometimes wondered whether the people he came from were from some other place, maybe another country. He knew he wasn’t as good and pure as the kids he went to school with. In fact, if he were honest with himself, he could clearly see how much he lacked, especially in his abilities to be around others and not feel all his inadequacies closing in.

That year his mother was often in a sour mood about her arthritis and painful back spasms. Then there was all the scrubbing and cleaning it took these days just to keep the house from falling apart. That worried him because he knew that money was a problem and the family might not have enough to move if it became necessary. He felt guilty somehow about hastening her death.  

In the summer, ants invaded the house, and she laid poison traps for them in every corner. She would panic when he dropped a few crumbs onto the kitchen floor. His father tried to make light of the situation by inventing a name for him “Crumbler-Hackett”. He knew it was an attempt by him to soften her, though in some ways, it only drew attention to how messy he was when he ate. He was afraid that she might carry through with her threats to not let him eat.

 

Reviews

[Sakura]

What a beautiful story! Your writing style is truly captivating, and I think it would translate wonderfully into a comic. I have a few ideas that could make it even more engaging, and I’d love to discuss them with you either on Discord or via email at [e-mail] @sakura_vibes01.

I’m a paid artist. Please note that I only communicate with people who are 18 years or older.

[Eilis]

When I was studying teaching in my associates program, we had to read a book called “A Child Called It.” It made a huge impression on me, like stories of child abuse always did, but I have always had this problem of not connecting my experiences to ones I read about. Your vignettes here reminded me of that book. The boy in the book is starved by his mother and so many things that are meant to nurture or assist in survival are weaponized. This leads to such a confusing dynamic for children as they are learning “what’s right” in such perverted ways and so often other adults are reluctant to step in and take action. This is perhaps a lesson in courage and self-preservation. So many of us have been trained to respond in certain ways and often rebel against those inner voices that urge us to act.

Here the child grapples with questions surrounding this. Is this normal, am I normal, does anyone care what happens to me. When we are mistreated as children we learn to have a very different baseline for the behavior of others and also struggle to trust ourselves. The self-awareness of the child voice here is quite devastating. I didn’t understand how abnormal my life was until I was in my thirties and had become a parent so I sympathize with the child who feels this intense inner struggle from such a young age. My training included quite an intense shaping of my mind and perception so that I was unable to actually see it wasn’t me that was the problem. I feel that protected me somewhat, sad as it is to say.

This is quite a poignant and bare look at what’s it’s like to live among people who see you either with indifference or as prey—or perhaps they are also fearful and don’t know how to take action in a way that will not ultimately cause more harm. So many questions are asked here without direct asking and I think these are powerful tools we have to explore and shed light on what so many children experience in tyrannical environments.