Your mum came in and she was wearing the tubes hooked up to the oxygen trolley that you still weren't used to and you averted your eyes and she couldn't help but notice. "Sweetheart, get what's left out there and let's get this shit over with." She gave you a wink as she caught your eyes again and you knew right then that she'd given up on everything just as much as you had.
* * *
Outside there were a few of those wooden director type chairs, with the material seats that were harboring puddles of yellow water. You tilted them forward allowing the rain to run off, and you saw hanging from the awning that crepe paper reindeer thing your sister had made getting all ruined with the red running from Rudolph's nose like some angry dad putting up Christmas lights just clocked him one for landing on his goddamn roof. You got up on the chair and you don't remember falling but the whole thing just kind of folded up around your leg, you went out cold and everyone inside thought you just weren't coming.
When you came to there was painful scratching. It was against your forehead and it felt like it was bleeding quite a bit. It ran straight into your eyes but your hands weren't there to wipe it away. You were tied up and you were wet and you recognised where you were. Just out on the front lawn.
You wiped your eyes against the grass and tried to get a clear look at who this was standing in front of you. It was a kid maybe eight or nine judging by the height. But his arms and legs were thick. He had a stocky round torso. Maybe a midget, you thought. He didn't have a face that you could see, because over it he wore the skin of a bulldog. You looked down; he also wore boots. The rest of him was naked.
He spoke through the mouth of the bulldog, framing his face which was tiny and squashed up and charred. The rest of his skin was pink like a new born baby. His voice did not form words, only high pitched squeals, and he scratched you across the face with a three-pronged claw that was normally used by your mother for digging around the garden.
As you sobbed you tried asking him if this was the end of the world. Or the beginning of it at least. That the millennium would come around and everyone would be laying dead on their front lawns. Being sprinkled by the sprinklers. Being pissed on by the neighbours' dog. He responded to you with a sharp hissing and threw the three-pronged claw into your stomach, pulling up.
He wasn't going to eat you, though he did have one end of your small intestine between his teeth. You cried out with pain, and the music from the house seemed to get louder. He was slowly moving away from you, with part of you still attached in his mouth. He took the rubbery tubing in both hands and began to run, pulling you behind with it.
You made it conscious all the way to the side of the road. He left you for a moment, and you thought maybe that was it, maybe that was all he needed. That you'd both go back to doing whatever you did, and maybe this time next year he'd find someone else to horribly maim in their parents' front yard. The rope around your hands was almost off, you could feel it loosening and you so badly just wanted them free so you could put all your guts back in, but then he was back and he was standing over you with his arms back over his head, but you couldn't quite see what he had and--
When you came to there was painful scratching. It was against your forehead and it felt like it was bleeding quite a bit. It ran straight into your eyes but your hands weren't there to wipe it away. You were tied up and you were wet and you recognised where you were. Just out on the front lawn.
You wiped your eyes against the grass and tried to get a clear look at who this was standing in front of you. It was a kid maybe eight or nine judging by the height. But his arms and legs were thick. He had a stocky round torso. Maybe a midget, you thought. He didn't have a face that you could see, because over it he wore the skin of a bulldog. You looked down; he also wore boots. The rest of him was naked.
He spoke through the mouth of the bulldog, framing his face which was tiny and squashed up and charred. The rest of his skin was pink like a new born baby. His voice did not form words, only high pitched squeals, and he scratched you across the face with a three-pronged claw that was normally used by your mother for digging around the garden.
As you sobbed you tried asking him if this was the end of the world. Or the beginning of it at least. That the millennium would come around and everyone would be laying dead on their front lawns. Being sprinkled by the sprinklers. Being pissed on by the neighbours' dog. He responded to you with a sharp hissing and threw the three-pronged claw into your stomach, pulling up.
He wasn't going to eat you, though he did have one end of your small intestine between his teeth. You cried out with pain, and the music from the house seemed to get louder. He was slowly moving away from you, with part of you still attached in his mouth. He took the rubbery tubing in both hands and began to run, pulling you behind with it.
You made it conscious all the way to the side of the road. He left you for a moment, and you thought maybe that was it, maybe that was all he needed. That you'd both go back to doing whatever you did, and maybe this time next year he'd find someone else to horribly maim in their parents' front yard. The rope around your hands was almost off, you could feel it loosening and you so badly just wanted them free so you could put all your guts back in, but then he was back and he was standing over you with his arms back over his head, but you couldn't quite see what he had and--
* * *
Your mother was in the kitchen cutting what was left from the turkey and the ham. Piling them together on some al-foil, scooping up some pasta salad to sit on top, she wrapped it all up and carried it out to the back step. She left it there and made sure the door was locked. Returning to her family she put a hand on your father's shoulder before taking a seat beside her oxygen trolley and leaning over to give a kiss to one of her many wonderful grandchildren.
