NOVEL NEXT Chapter 2: Seeing Red
Chapter 2: Seeing Red
Leaving school today was perhaps the best feeling I had. I didn't even want to remember catching Mr. Velos's expression when I walked in his class. He knew what had happened. What he’d started and probably advised to enable Mrs. Pureview.
Three blocks away and I could tell Dad.
Except, for the past several days he’d been locked in his room. I could speak with him through the door, but it was disheartening when he wouldn't open up for me. Maybe I could surprise him through the window? That might shock him back into being healthy!
"Okay, that brought me back into a good mood." As I walked on the sidewalk pavement, I noted how much more often I’d been speaking to myself. Who else was there that would be willing to hang out with me? Bully for years and now I'm treated like a leper at this school. "Of course no one would go near me with pissed tyrants hounding my ass."
Crossing the street from the school's yard to the corner restaurant was a nice pick-me-up. It always had a delicious Italian aroma that could at least find appreciation in this one individual. Peeking through the window -- I saw the cash register unoccupied -- past the counter was the open kitchen. A loving family worked together to make the incredible meals. Funny thing about their food -- out of all the appetizing dishes -- was that they were known for their baked bread.
This place reminded me how I got into the cleaning habit. Went back to when I took Erin out and ate at Red Lobster. That was pitifully supposed to be the classiest restaurant in town. We ate there twice -- which racked up quite a bill -- and I had two issues: Money and salty breath.
My dad found the solution to the money problem. Before, I wasn’t into doing chores. After Dad’s plan, I did them for the accumulated tips he gave me. Now, I made it a habit.
Another habit was my hygiene. So when I woke up next to Erin -- giving her a good morning kiss -- and got a wrinkled nose in response, I was clearly doing something wrong here. Diet became more of a concern for how I smelled than my weight, but the two balanced. Good healthy foods kept me lean and free of being smelly.
Taking my focus from looking through the window, I saw my lone reflection.
Short and wild hair -- the color of sun bleached straw -- went everywhere with the breeze. It was like I had just woken up. I didn't have any reason to straighten it out. No one bothered me in class and the teachers couldn't care less about me as it stood. My dad never really complained about my hair. Quite possibly -- in an ironic twist -- I might be my greatest critic of my hair and it wasn't because of how it looked.
These bangs tended to drive me nuts! They would get in my eyes and turn the whites irritably red each time I'd rub or brush them out. I'd try to pull them back behind my ears, but they’d slip off and curl or whip with the wind in my eyes. Bugged me to death.. Haircuts. Never could get enough of them. For some reason my hair wanted to keep on growing and there was nothing I could do to stop it. That was all the effort I went into my hair... Besides the regular shampoo/conditioner in a daily shower.
Smooth clean skin. Maybe that was a portion of why the teachers jumped on the bandwagon too. Among all those who go to school, teenagers are supposedly the most pimple-prickled bunch of them all. Here I am without a single cringe-worthy blemish on these cheeks. Some freckles here and there, but nothing that stands out. Keeping clean, lotioned, adding moisturizer, and the properly sanitized home does help. I don't mean bleaching everything! Just clean the place. Once done, wash these hands and hop into a shower to get off whatever was scrubbed from the oven, removed out of the neglected attic, or plucked out of the garden. Easy-peasy.
To restate one or two things, I am not a athletic person, not really into sports or going to the gym. That doesn't mean I'm in any way out of shape. Let's include the fact that my youth helps me with my physique. Without a second thought, if I had to remove my shirt right then and there it wouldn't bring me any shame. No abs, but I had the nice lean tummy that most guys want. I was right where I wanted to be: Balanced, like Goldilocks. Nothing painstakingly extreme. Oddly enough, much might have to do with what I had chosen to eat.
Thinking about that and looking in the window of my favourite place to eat wasn't a good idea. Turning away, I walked on home...
Laughter was ringing inside of the shower as I left it. "Yeah." I shook my head as I agreed with my thoughts.
Still shaking my head, I couldn't believe that the encounter today had made me feel dirty. Like what the teachers had done --or maybe it was the gross janitor-- had me running for the shower. Upon coming home, I had dropped my bag and gone to the bathroom for a quick rinse. The more I thought about today, the greater I wanted to feel some comfort. Getting cleaned up was the solution.
So when I finished up in the bathroom -- all squeaky clean -- I left and closed the door behind me to keep the steamy moisture from leaving. With a flick on the controler, the AC kicked on and began cooling the house down by a notch.
I hovered my hand over the AC's control unit. "What the Hell? Why is it so hot in here?" It was strange. Just out of the shower, a towel around my hips, I should be feeling chilled out here. "Like a sauna... Dad! You okay!?"
He was upstairs.
In taking those steps I nearly slipped in my hurried run. I didn't know why I thought this heat was related to my dad, but I felt it. A radiating source that grew stronger the closer I approached. Whatever the origin, this unusual temperature was coming from his room.
Before I started to knock, I saw an unnatural light coming from the outline of his closed bedroom door. Dark shades of red glowed out from beneath the door across the hall's floor. Drawing my bare toes close to the crack under his door told me this was a radiant luminescence. No heat, yet I feel his room was what was causing the inside of our home to burn hotly.
And there was a voice on the other side. Dad? Was that him talking? If it was him, he did not at all sounded like he was alone in there. Behind the voice, I could hear movements that couldn't be caused by just one person.
"Dad?" The moment my knuckles brushed against the wood of his door, I flinched. Pinkened knuckles and sorely forming blisters were rising on my hand. In the moment, with rational intent, I was going to run back downstairs to run my hand under the faucet or grab ice cubes from the freezer.
Instead I stood there and listened. What I believed to be my dad's voice had muffled sharply into gargled noises. At first, the image of my dad choking was brought to my mind. But that wasn’t what I thought after listening more intently. Those sounds of movements, the noises he made, and the nearly muted voice were all excitedly ecstatic!
Then silence...
Like before, in school, I just stood there and watched the door while holding my burnt hand. I should have done something! Unlike at school, dealing with those teachers, I had a reason to be acting before and now. Not knowing what was going on -- in this house and behind that door -- was terrible, but I feared regretting that I did nothing more.
Speaking softly to myself to assure I completely understood what I was going to do, I said: "Door is hot. Wood burns, so the knob will be worse. Towel." Removing the towel around me, I tightened it in a long twist and quickly wrapped the knob up into a knot. Smoke and then a low-burning blaze lit up the material around the doorknob. Without any more hesitation, I twisted the knob and threw the door open.
Red.
Everywhere I looked was painted in any and all ways to make my Dad's room red as possible. Down on the bottom of his bookshelves were standing or scattered piles of books. It looked like he had thrown paint everywhere. As my bedroom was on the same hall as his, I was amazed that I hadn’t ever sniffed a single trace of his decor. Then I realized it wasn’t paint. Paper. Taped paper that was painstakingly flattened out onto every surface until skintight.
“Where the Hell did he get all of this--” Closing my eyes and shaking my head, I remembered. He had asked me a few days ago for my ink cartridge. “You were printing out red paper.” Opening my peeps back up to this room made me feel foolish. I had thought he was trying to work from home on his computer while under the weather.
Dad being sick and laboring to lay all of this up, down, and out across the entire room would entirely make sense of why he was always making those grunts and groans. I could only imagine him stretching up and out in every direction to ensure each piece was flattened while tapping it. Especially the ceiling with gravity working against him. That certainly explained the frustration in his high pitched voice. Not one spot was other than red.
Except the open window.
Dad had had his bed sheets soaked in red and covered the window with it. Those sheets were now hung off the bottom frame of the window or pooled beneath onto the floor. It was an educated guess, but I could see that he had been recently on those sheets by the impressions skidded away from the only open portal in this room.
Fear gripped me as I shifted my gaze from the red sheets to the darkness outside. I asked myself, "What would I see?" Fever could cause anyone to go crazy. "Is that what happened?" Soothing myself with my own voice, I braced myself to see what was outside and on our front lawn.
Not what I saw at all.
Up close, the darkness appeared endless at first -- going on and on -- until my eyes adjusted. There were twisted and turning shapes within that void. I should be seeing the lawn and our street within the small view. "What is this?"
My immediate reaction was strangely relieving. Dad wasn't where I feared he'd be discovered, or in a crippled condition as I had imagined. I was thankful for that.
...But this!? I still didn't know what to make of what I saw. Or rather, what I had yet to see.
Standing on itching bare feet as I was looking over the despairing scene, I suddenly didn’t know if I should go out there or run for a phone. Here I stood in absolutely nothing within a room of pure red harboring an obscured portal. It would be better for only myself to call for help, but Dad might be in desperate distress. Despite being caught with my pants down, I was more available than anyone else right now.
I'd faced daunting obstacles before, mostly grown men and women who believed their higher authority made them superior than me, but this was a foreign encounter. Of all the trouble I'd caused and gone through, this had taken the cake.
Having no idea what or where this window led to didn't prevent me from knowing what I must do. My dad had gone out there! A landscape that was nothing like I’d ever seen before -- I know it would not exist on our world -- was right outside the window.
Quickly rushing to my dad’s dresser -- we were close in dress sizes -- I ripped away at the paper to free a drawer. I had thrown on some pants when I heard something from the window. It blinked. “Oh fuck!” Now I realized that these red papers may have held some significance to the window. “After I’d disturbed it.” Nodding in understanding, I gave the dresser drawer an angry shove to close it. I took a peek at the window to ascertain what I had done.
And it was closing! Not the window itself, but the abominable darkness beyond it was shutting itself in a shrinking vortex.
Taking great gulps of breath until dizzy, I steeled myself. One step up and another through the closing window was all it took for me to go after Dad. He was all I had left. In only a pair of pants, I recklessly ran in and vowed to bring him back with a curse, "To fucking Hell with this. I’m coming..."