Chapter 2 Robbed of Grief
When Spring gives way to summer’s leaf
And Sparrows sing their sweet relief
I’m robbed of grief
I’m robbed of grief
He might have been worried. His heart would have quickened its pace and his footsteps would have echoed hauntingly in the eerie greenish glow. Could he see the green skull and snake hanging in the sky above all these things would most probably have happened. But he couldn’t, because after all, you only see what you believe.
So he walked slowly down the quiet neighborhood smelling Mrs. Rook’s burning dinner as he passed under her window. His heartbeat was already that of a sleeping man, warmth diffusing through his chest. And the glow that emanated from the grass and the little house’s green paint and the green lights that danced in the sky were beautiful. Almost like laughter.
Knocking twice, as was his custom, Mat let himself into the quiet home, but not before glimpsing yellow by the fence and wondering what had possessed little Liam to leave his beloved toy outside. He would give it back, he thought, if he wasn’t too tired later on – after dinner.
It was quiet inside, and warm. A gentle wind flitted around the house making the curtains dance and the pages of books flutter. Mat kicked his shoes off and let his feet sink into the thick hallway’s rug. It was quiet in the house, almost like peace.
There was no one in the living room, but the television blared on just the same. A half-made puzzle lay on the coffee table, its remaining pieces strewn around all over the floor. The green cushion was lying right in the center of the room. It was nice, like familiarity.
But it was empty.
He walked up the stairs slowly, but his heart was already beating faster and faster against his lungs. No one was in the bedrooms or the guest room or the bathroom or even the attic. They hadn’t told him they were visiting grandmother in the hospital today. He walked to the window slowly, unknowingly stepping over a small, fresh bloodstain that his eyes were not opened wide enough to see yet, and he looked down at the white car sitting in the garage. And it told his heart what his mind refused to hear, it whispered fear, like a monster.
He thundered down the stairs, strange lights dancing before his eyes like angry lightning. He was blind, he thought, he would be as he stood in the kitchen doorway letting the sunset’s rays battle with the madness in his mind. It was calming, comforting, like sanity, so he welcomed sanity and he stood in the doorway and remembered (or reminded himself) that the shoulder straps were getting annoying, and forcing himself to forget that it really wasn’t his birthday. But it wasn’t, and no one magically appeared before him with colored whistles to silence the emptiness in the air. The emptiness that deafened.
(Because there was no one there to see but two large glassy eyes that were invisible, cracking silently and melting.)
But the silence was fine, because Mat wanted to be deafened. So he had to turn off that blasted television and sit and think. In his deafening silence.
He didn’t turn it off. He only reached the cushion and he stood above it and looked down, and this time he saw the dirty boot print on the green cloth.
He watched the entire story. The image of the dead man’s face would be forever engraved in his mind. The uniformed, firm-jawed, soldier that died in London 3. The hat they found at the neighboring Charing Cross road. The mother that bled sadness but couldn’t cry or wail.
And then the screen became a mirror. But no, he hadn’t worn that shirt in at least two years, and he knew it was not possible for his lips to be curved into a smile.
The Cameraman, he thought, was like Steven when he filmed his first masterpiece: “The Massacre of the Spiders”. But they weren’t spiders on that screen, they were angels stripped of their wings and their light, angels that should be singing him happy birthday. But he knew now that it wasn’t his birthday. So he made them sing(realistically off-key) in his mind and closed his eyes and his knuckles whitened as he gripped the things still held in his hands and tried to hold on to the last bits of sanity he had left.
Because, logically, this couldn’t be happening.
It cut through his fabricated chant and ripped its way through his ears to his mind and settled itself in there alone. Just the one phrase in the cheery voice of the reporter:
“…seventeen years old, suspected of joining the terrorist organization responsible for recent chaos all over the country.”
They came to the ground with a muffled roar; two books and a brown package that had so far been grasped protectively in his hands. Theory of Knowledge and Hamlet and a million colored shards that sprayed themselves over the floor and danced and glittered in the sunset light.
He stumbled blindly into the kitchen remembering that he could always steal sweetness (even if it was fake) for a few minutes before getting caught. His heart ran light-footed across the floor and climbed onto the kitchen counter and swung its legs back and forth, back and forth. But he remained by the door, staring at the upturned bowl beside the oven. And he knew then that the world could laugh and sing and be beautiful while he had been robbed.
He strode over to it quickly and turned it back and breathed the contents. Tired hands slipped over the soft surface and suddenly plunged themselves in and he molded loss in a bowl of rising dough with dirty hands. Because it tasted like love.
Even the eerie, shattering sirens were beautiful that night. He left it, mechanically, and fled, pausing only to pick up a small, yellow toy fire-truck.
