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(Page 3 of 9) Crickets by V Reynolds
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It stunk mentally. Making your mind convulse at the sight, thought, or hence the term; smell of it. The fort had now turned into something so bad it offended your brain.
"That's how you knew it was still there, by the smell, by the little jump your brain did when you walked past or looked in the direction of it, and, I think, it was lonely. That's why I went back inside of it. Even though my brain screamed no and my nose crinkled. Because it was sad, and the sadder it got the more afraid of it I got. So I nipped it in the bud, so to speak, and went inside. Every thing was the same, of course it would be, it only stood empty for a few months. The same dirt floor, the same cinder block walls, table and chair. The same fire pit by the door. And once I was inside I wasn't' offended any more. I was actually comfortable in the tiny brick structure."
" You started to play in it again?"
"Yes, " she said her mouth twisting. A fresh cigarette had been brought up to her lips by tapered fingers. The smoke watered her eyes.
A waitress came over and asked if we needed more coffee. I put my cup out for her to fill. Becky covered her cup lightly with her hand and blew gray smoke at the ceiling.
I thanked the waitress and told her we'd get out of her hair as soon as we could. She smiled. It was a stunning smile coming from that lined tired face. Unlike Becky's smiles tonight, which could have shrieked the devil. I wanted to change the subject. I'd rather be talking about anything besides the thing that was making her look so far away. So lost. Like she'd been dropped, sleeping, from an airplane and now didn't know which way was up.
"It was eating me." She continued.
"What?"
"Eating me. Draining me. Feeding. I don't know. I started to sleep in there, did I tell you that? I'd sneak out of the house after my parents were sure I was in bed and sleep in that damned fort. I'd wake up more tired than when I went in, so of course I'd go back to sleep. Then I stopped eating, and drinking, and bathing, and even using the toilet. I was a tiny girl but after that I was literally nothing. My parents were too busy to notice and my sisters and brothers all had neighbor kids their age, so they were never home. Being that I was not exactly the most well tempered family member, and people often left me alone because of it, I was easily forgotten."
I shook my head. How could someone's family not notice an eleven year old girl sleeping inside a brick shack that could easily have fallen in and crushed her, not bathing and losing, "How much weight did you lose?"
"Fifteen pounds, it doesn't sound like much but when you only weigh seventy five pounds its a little hard not to notice."
"That sucks."
"But you know what was worse than it just eating me? It saved me, as I saved it, because we were both lonely. I had created this shelter from a dream and it had protected me from rain and shine. Then I just left it. And it hated that. It grew sad and then angry. And the pictures started to come back."
*
The night was cold for August.
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