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a slip of a thing, a little more polished than what the world has to offer. he would look constantly like a rabbit if he was lively enough - sedate or frightened in turns. but he has no color of his own, outside the porcelain worldlessness that comes of too little time outdoors. his family adhered to their ancestral illegalities, and it shows. |
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a father who wore a suit to work
a mother who worked all day,
sewing verse after verse
of dead scripture in
dead languages into the linings.
it was what he had taught her, after all, as a girl - these dead things. her mother, his wife, had died. he found a surrogate in his progeny. and she found a scapegoat in her whelp. they found the dead words at father's desk one day. then the three found sanctuary in a train car filled with what beasts remained in the world - some had four legs, some had less. when the wheels stopped, there was no father left. the two remained, mother and sister and son. they walked for miles. she taught her child what their father had taught her - dead words, dead languages. he learned too quickly, he grew too slowly, he couldn't carry enough to be worth taking along. she sold him more than herself when they would settle, for a day or two or three. as a sister, she dressed him up for an extra dollar. as a mother, kissed his forehead and said it made him less likely to be killed. |
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"too small for a decent fire," he said, and sent them on their way. |
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she left him in his sleep, with his eight years knowledge of dead words, a bauble or two, and a pet name she called him from time to time. when he woke up alone, he stumbled to the tent once more. he only asked for a meal. |
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he lost his stutter, over the years. he found a certain eloquence, certain way of seeing a little bit past what was known. sometimes he knows when it will rain, and he says so. sometimes he knows more than that, and says nothing.
he likes to tell girls how ugly they are. he likes to spend time in small spaces. still, after eight years, he likes to write and speak in dead letters. |
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+ pretty + encyclopedic + somewhat clairvoyant. - petty - naive - cryptic - poorly adjusted - inbred. |
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