Pizza Time

Then the beautiful, pristine beach dissolved into a colored smear as I tried, and failed, to leap to my feet, and slam a hand on my alarm clock. My legs failed to respond, but my hand struck the alarm like a viper, silencing its electronic howl mid-scream. Reacting slowly, I fuzzily realized that something was tangling my legs, but I tried to get up a few more times before finally staring uncomprehendingly my legs as I felt the wheels in my mind slowly spin up to speed with a brassy squeal.

My sister, in the search for more heat, had apparently slipped into my bed and wrapped herself around me like a limpet sometime during the night. "Mmm...don't turn off the space heater..." Liz said dreamily as I delicately pried myself loose of her grip. She made a sleepy grab for my shirt before burying herself deeper in the blankets with a soft, throaty grunt of disapproval before she started to snore like a banshee into the pillow. At least she only snored; I reflected thoughtfully, if she drooled, I would have kicked her out of the bed in a flash. The merest thought of sleeping a puddle of someone else's fluids is enough to make me violently ill. Blech. I think I'm getting sick just thinking about thinking about it.

Quietly padding into the living room, I glanced at my watch draped over the computer's keyboard. I blinked and rubbed my eyes sleepily; surely, I couldn't have awoken an hour earlier than I thought I set my alarm for? With an almost comic wail of understanding, I realized Liz must have rolled over on the clock and scrambled the settings in her search for heat. Grumbling, I flipped on the computer with a flourish and walked into the kitchen to stare emptily at the fridge, wondering blankly why I was in the kitchen. I woke up an hour early, and I hardly knew what to do with myself. For the past year I always hit the alarm and ran directly to work, fully waking up about halfway there, faster if it was cold out. Looking around the kitchen blankly as my computer whirred and beeped in the living room behind me, I struggled to think of what I should do before I had to leave.

Well, shit. I might as well feed myself, and see what was happening with the world. Seemed like a good idea at the time, I thought as I bellied up to the sink and drank roughly about half a gallon of water. Ahh, food. I shall have you sometime today, just not now -- and my mewling stomach be damned.

The beanbag squeaked as I flounced to a stop in front of my computer. A few messages popped up from friends on IRC, surprised I was online so early in the morning. Wiping my mouth with a free hand, I brandished the light pen like a rapier as I opened up my e-mail account with a practiced twitch of the 'pen. Flipping out the junk mail that squeezed past my scratch-built filter with an irritated flick of the light pen, I stared, dumbfounded by the last message in the queue. I almost deleted it, thinking it was junk mail, or a prank letter. I mean, why in the hell would my illustrious father could possibly want to send me an e-mail? Moreover, what could he say to me? Several half hoped for possibilities careened around in my head; short tantalizing often hoped for messages, apologizes, explanations, something, anything. A cynical part of me snorted scathingly and wondered if, perhaps, within the same fantasyland you might be wealthy, and have a girlfriend. I flicked it open and started to read carefully, balanced precariously emotionally, half hoping, half dreading.

After reading a few paragraphs, the balance tipped, and then slid into a gaping maw of growing anger. I read the rest of the message with increasingly brittle patience. When I reached the end, I read it again, just to see if I had missed anything. It was the longest message my father had ever sent to me, and from a man not known for his prose, or his verbosity. Disgusted, I wanted to wash my hands with lye and steel wool after reading it; it was the longest piece of unmatched drivel I'd ever read.

In an almost Zen-like state of near perfect serenity, I carefully saved the drivel in a file server in Sweden, then closed and erased all evidence of the message having soiled my hard drive with its merest presence on my computer. After I was finished, I stood slowly, calmly, turned, and walked slowly into the bathroom and washed my hands--twice. After I had carefully dried my hands, I gripped the counter lightly as I stared at my reflection in the mirror. I looked calm outwardly, but inwardly, I was so... beyond any feeling that a deep endless silence resonated from within. No feelings, no emotions, no quiet inner voice mocking me from a safe distance. The stillness within terrified me.

The rattling sound grew louder. Gratefully distracted from my fearful introspection, I looked at my suddenly aching hands with surprise; they were gripping the memory-plastic counter hard enough to shudder violently, shaking the counter on its flimsy moorings in the plastic wall hard enough for it to be in danger of coming free of the wall. Slowly unclasping my hands from the counter took a few minutes, and massaging them took a few more minutes. A few handfuls of minutes I used to collect myself.

Be a family again? Together? I'd rather die! I thought furiously as a burning ember of anger flared for a moment before it pulsed, glowing malevolently as it hissed and spat sparks. Wow, I hadn't been this angry since... since the day I left, actually, I thought as I carefully massaged my thin hands. Without a second thought, I decided it suddenly seemed like a good idea to take a brisk walk outside to clear my head. Indeed, since I was up and walking around aimlessly, I might as well walk to work, and get some soda to assuage this embryonic caffeine headache. That sounded like a justification, and a weak one at that, but I wanted to get out of the house, now, before I broke something irreplaceable.

I pulled the last sweater over the handful of other sweaters already hanging from my thin shoulders, pulled the keys from my pocket, and pressed them reassuringly against my palm. The teeth of the keys bit into my palm, giving me some small bit of encouragement before I opened the door and walked outside.

Walking slowly into the parking lot, squinting at the dazzling brightness, awestruck by the beauty of the snow and the gaunt skeletons of a few short trees placed haphazardly around the few green areas scattered around the apartment building. It was beautiful to look at. Unfortunately, I had to walk through it, which marred the delicate beauty with cool pragmatism. Forty-five minutes later, I stamped in through the front door of Papa Mezito's Pizza & Tacos, muttering dire curses under my breath. A sharp, dismal wind had appeared out of the north, easily cutting through my few layers of thin sweaters like a power-saw through warm butter as virtually every part of my skin quickly succumbed to the cold, and grew numb, except my heart, which seemed to only pump molten iron though my veins.

Tran, one of the evening shift drivers, looked up from his barstool perch in front of the bank of computers, the archaic game boy loudly beeping in his hands temporarily forgotten as he stared at me in confusion. "Sean!? What are you doing here?"

I snorted and started shedding sweaters. "Coming in early. Nothing to do at home, so I came here." Almost true--is an almost truth a lie? I wondered suddenly.

"I thought you weren't supposed to work today." Tran said, turning back to his game boy.

"Eh?" I grunted querulously as I vaulted over the counter.

Not looking at me, Tran said suddenly, "Wait, that was John." He shook his head, and continued in a singsong voice, "Ne-ver-mi-nd."

"The night cook?"

Tran nodded slowly, his fingers working furiously over the buttons, "Uh-huh. Had a baby."

"Wow. Call the press."

He smiled sarcastically at me as shook his head, "No, his wife had the baby." His body tilted in the chair as the game boy emitted a series of chirps and squeaks. It was almost a minute before he continued, "...and they're taking a few days off."

"Congratulations?" I said dubiously, shedding my sweaters.

"Not the one to congratulate, man." Tran said distantly as his fingers blurred on the machine.

"And if you were?" I asked with a smile in my voice.

"I'd think I'd need some serious drugs to get it on with that hag." He said, shuddering dramatically.

"Oh, she can't be that bad." I said reasonably.

"Lister, look, I know you're a nice person deep down." Tran said, paused the game, and looked at me seriously, "But the woman looks like the Bride of Frankenstein after she was run over by a wheel cart. The woman is so far past 'fucking ugly' she's in the land of the 'dear-god-in-heaven-what-is-that-horrid-thing oo-gly'." He shuddered again, and went back to his game boy, muttering, "The thought of having sex with her brings on an itch to wash myself with acid and some sheets of steel wool, after scooping my eyes out with a broken light bulb"

"Ow." I said, vaguely repulsed.

"She's that fucking oo-gly." he paused, then smiled slightly, "Nice tits though."

The door flew open with a whoosh as a flood of cold air washed into the restaurant. Tran shivered and rubbed his arms, and I barely felt it through the lingering tingling numbness. With a grumble, a tightly bundled man carrying a drivers bag stomped through the door, threw the bag on the counter and started attacking the scarves wrapped around his head like a man possessed. Once the layers of fabric started to peel off like the bandages of the invisible man, Darren's chapped face popped out and shouted out "Sean, pappy! What are you doing so early?"

I shrugged easily, and said calmly, "Coming in, Darren. Need any help?"

His eyebrow rose fractionally, "You walk here?"

I smiled toothily, "Of course. Need help?"

"Uh, sure." He said and started unwrapping the rest of his jackets. "Log in and start cleaning the pans."

"Thanks!" I called back brightly.

"Good luck." Tran said, not looking up from his Game Boy, "You're gonna need it." He called out sweetly as I passed, his silver tattooing shifting as he gave me an almost-smile.

The pans were stacked in a pile head high and six feet wide. I looked at it, and took a careful count before shouting, "HEY! ARE THEREANY CLEAN PANS?!?!"

Then a response in stereo from both Darren and Tran, "NO!"

"...crap." I grumbled feelingly.

The next few hours were tedious and boring as I put my body on auto-pilot, and let my mind roam free over my memories of my sister over the past two days. Occasionally, and seemingly without rhyme or reason, Her face seemed to assume a neutral mask, stamped out of porcelain and molded to her features with flawless perfection. At the same time, the wary lilting light in her eyes just seemed to die, and they became cold, and lifeless. I almost thought I was talking to a soulless, cleverly designed doll that looked remarkably like my sister, instead of it being a real flesh and blood person. What happened to you in my absence, dearest little sister? I kept asking myself again and again as a sticky, slurry-like tsunami of guilt threatened to drown me in self-doubt, as I hammered myself with a seemingly unanswerable question: Should I have left, or should I have stayed and protected her? But if I stayed, how would I have protected her? And I can see what happened when I chose to leave.

Over and over, the questions mocked me, and over and over, I struggled to answer each of them, each question circling the other in a mind-boggling spiral, where I tried to answer the unanswerable. After a time I would shout into the vaults of my mind; 'Dear god, why does it have to be me?' The only answer that came back from the darkness was a curt and simple, 'because there's no one else.'

Cheerful thought.

After I had shelved the last pan, and well as my own questions and misgivings about Liz, I looked around the room with a kind of peculiar pride. Just about everything was washed within a millimeter of it life, virtually every horizontal surface shone with near-mirror brightness. Unfortunately, my arms from the elbow down resembled a particularly juicy prune, and I didn't think I'd ever stop smelling the tart smell of disinfectant for weeks, at least.

Well, that was 'fun'. And by 'fun', I meant long, tedious, and boring, I groused surly as I looked at my dish-pan hands with a certain measure of revulsion at the alien looking things.

"Sean! Someone to see you!" Darren called back.

Good, more 'fun'. I thought to myself as I dried my hands on a spare towel. Hey, it might be Ekataren wanting to talk to me, I thought happily. Oddly enough, that put a spring in my step, and a smile on my lips as I wandered front fully expecting to see Ekataren's beautifully smiling face. I hardly knew what was coming over me, and I'm not certain that I entirely disliked it, either.

I slid to a stop, my hip bouncing resting on the counter, as I eagerly scanned the few faces sprinkled around the handful of tables scattered around a cramp dining space. Ekataren was not in the room, but someone else I knew was. As my face shuttered close, my stomach flip-flopped, and my blood turned into a thick slurry that my heart struggled to move, my father walked to the counter and smiled at me, looking almost pleasant.

"Good evening, son." He whispered smarmily.

"Good evening, father." I said, nodding politely. Memories flashed behind my eyes, all of them not very pleasant, I secretly quaked with terror. I wanted to run, to hide, to get away from him; from what he could do to me. Even though I was a few inches taller, and a thick oaken counter was between us, I should have felt safe; I felt as vulnerable a newborn kitten.

"Oh, can't you show a little more respect for your father?" He said sardonically.

Respect? I thought hotly as a hot flash of anger created a frail bulwark against the acidic sea of fear that threatened to overwhelm and dissolve what little courage I had. Instead of cringing, like I wanted to, I heard myself say, "No."

Anger flashed across his smiling face for a moment, only to disappear as fast as it appeared, swallowed by an easy, oily smile. He was wearing a three piece suit, his nails showed signs of a manicure, his thinning black hair was greased into a badly done comb-over, and he reeked of cheap-ass cologne. Dear god, did he bathe in it? I thought sourly as my eyes started to water from the stench wafting in my direction. I was scared to death of him as staccato memories flashed in my mind, reminding me why. The only thing that kept me from running, or soiling myself, was a small store of courage, and phenomenal bladder control. Both of which were rapidly deteriorating under his gaze. I now knew, with absolute clarity, what a deer saw in the headlights of an oncoming car...

"Come on Sean, I'm your father, and I traveled so far out of my way to see you." he wheedled almost sullenly.

I had heard that tone before, usually during the apologies. "What do you want." I spat, a little irritated. My courage seemed to bolster a little when I said that.

With only the tiniest flashes of irritation, he continued smoothly, in the most honeyed of tones, "What I want is to make it up to you."

Internally, I quailed at the tone. His voice seemed as bright and pure as a rainbow. I knew from experience that rainbow was instead an iridescent smear of color seen floating in a puddle of oil, bright with promise, foul with purpose. Indeed, I knew that tone was a warning of an imminent explosion; I had heard it far more times than I wish to think about during my childhood. I gibbered internally as Father's smile brightened a little more, and I couldn't help but think of a pristine white beach, with a sea of foul black oil lapping greasily at the shoreline. Ultimately the beach would succumb to the oil, and be pristine no longer. I somehow managed a smile to direct at him, an imperfect, fixed affair that I didn't think would fool anyone. My father saw the smile and took it as sign of submission. With a slightly more powerful smarmy grin, his presence, along with the stomach-turning stench of his cologne, seemed to double in size. But while his presence doubled in size, it didn't seem to double in power. Dimly, I realized what would have easily cowed me six years ago, only seemed to bolster my courage a little more. Perhaps I have grown calloused to intimidation in those intervening years, father. While that worked with frightening effectiveness five years ago, five years have passed father, and I am not the scared, broken, near-feral child you knew how to manipulate at the merest of your whims.

As if by magic, I forgot about running, I forgot about hiding. I felt a scale shifting deep within, the memories flashed faster and faster, until they blurred behind my eyes for a sickening moment, before stopping abruptly, leaving only silence behind.

Father smile slipped a fraction, slightly puzzled at my lack of reaction. The stillness reached forward to claim me. Father said something, his mouth moving, his jaw working, expression changing. The stillness touched me, bringing a confusing welter of disjointed sounds. I wanted to scream, I wanted to die. I embraced the silence. Fear burned deep, but hardly noticed in the cacophony of noise.

"What would that be, father?" I heard myself say, feigning innocence, "What could you possibly want to make up to me?"

A flash of anger appeared again, but he had to almost visibly struggle with it, as his neckline took on the lightest dustings of a reddish hue. "Sean, you know that as well as I." He said, as his smile grew a little fixed, to me his face resembled an ill-fitting mask.

The masks we wear father. The masks we wear to hide the true person within. And with those masks, we dance an ancient, intricate dance with foul smelling, lung-searing smoke, and gaudy mirrors leprously spotted with age in our own chamber of horrors, built by hand over the years I danced with you, father. No. No longer. We dance to a new beat, or we dance not at all. I smiled vapidly, and asked, "No, I think I may have forgotten. Could you please refresh my memory, father? I have so much trouble remembering anything."

His neck now visibly became red, and his mask of smug civility hardened, but started to crack, the thing I could barely see behind the mask was something I was intimately familiar with. Old ground, new approach, but was I the cobra, or the mongoose? Or was I just the dinner for either of them? He shook his head slightly, not taking his eyes from mind. "That's not open for discussion."

"If I can't remember it, then why won't you remind me? In fact if you do not wish to remind me, you might as well leave, since I cannot remember what I was supposed to remember." I said making shooing motions with my hands.

This time the anger came, and stayed. "Listen I'm your father, and you have to listen to what I say!" he shot out.

I my anger blunted suddenly when the mask nearly tore, and I finally saw what was beneath the mask. I had seen it before, and I would rather die than see it again. The room crackled with an alien energy, and I felt at once excited, and scared beyond reason. Then the dim memory of the last time I saw that came flooding back unbidden; I was seven, and I remembered the mask cracking, I remember my vision blurring and spinning crazily, and I remembered being curled into a small ball on the floor, and I remembered being in the hospital for a month. Above all, I remembered the pain -- the soul-rending torment, the mind-shattering agony. The world seemed to wait for my reply with hushed anticipation. The din from within had paused, and it was deathly quiet from within, as well as from without. I had feebly submitted before, but the world seemed to wonder, would I submit again?