by Kevin Jones
Mia always thought that maybe, just maybe, if she held her breath long enough the world would fade away just for a second. She thought that the quiet wouldn’t feel so quiet anymore as if it followed her and the ringing in her ears would subside to the low drum of her pulse and the cold wouldn’t wrap around her bones with its cruel hands …
But she realized, as her head rested against the grainy wall, as her nails scraped against the nearly frozen hardwood, that the world had faded away long ago. There was no world. Only knocking.
“Who is it?”
“You know who it is, Mia.” Her dad rummaged in the dark. “Where’s your mother?”
“I’m right here, Jim. Are they here already?”
“Yes, they’re here, honey. Can you get it?”
“Yes, I’ll get it.”
They moved quickly in the pitch black as they always did, and Mia tried to hide her now labored breathing, wondering if she should feel guilty for wanting to crawl in a hole and become nothing but the dirt and maggots that filled the dead earth.
The knocking grew louder.
Dad took a breath then yelled, “Coming,” after whispering something to Mother around the lines of make sure Mia is okay but all Mia did was sit there, frozen, when Mother kissed her forehead before rejoining Dad.
A cold wind pushed its way in when Dad cracked the door. Mia pulled her thin, worn-out jacket tighter.
“House number 41123. Family of three,” came an unemotional, cut throat voice that made Mia want to ram her head through the wall.
Everyone except the Disciplinarian jumped when light from a fluorescent bulb stabbed its way in as Dad fully opened the door. Mia’s eyes scrunched up like raisins when she dared a peek, feeling her heart sag even lower in the already cruel depths it stayed in.
The Disciplinarian stepped past Dad, heavy boots thudding on the wooden floor as it held the bulb higher like the conductor from the Polar Express movie (Mother told Mia about it because it was Mother’s favorite movie growing up). This was the only time Mia could see the tiny place they stayed in. Books were on old shelves. Antiques (one was an Elvis bobble-head; another one was a Red Sox jersey) from Mother’s grandma, when the world was full of television and restaurants and sidewalks in huge cities that had stars with thousands of names, rested in glass cabinets full of dusts.
Mia, however, hated the pictures the most. One was of Mother when she was an infant. Another was of father, tall and handsome with green eyes and wide shoulders, standing beside a large horse in a green field in a place called Missouri.
There were many pictures with eyes that saw nothing but darkness just like them. Memories held close. A life of once golden possibility, now turned into an apple growing on a rotten tree along the lip of an endless, black abyss.
She never looked on the wall next to the kitchen where the wooden table sat, though. She never looked around more than a second because the light hurt too much and she hurt too much seeing the things she could never see unless given permission by people who weren’t people.
“Proof of Residence?”
Dad handed the Disciplinarian a piece of paper that had their entire lives on it. They kept it under the sink so it never got lost in the dark.
Mia could feel the light burning her eye lids. She could hear Mother’s breathing. It was rapid. Uneven. Dad’s was calmer but she felt how tense the air was along with the cold that had her shivering. Disciplinarians were known to act unpredictable. Mia wished she could spit on them.
The Disciplinarian walked around the house, slowly, with its boots thumping. More light came from the doorway from other Disciplinarians in case Mia and her family decided to act out of line, as the ones who ruled over everything put it (pissed over everything was more accurate).
“Any batteries?”
Dad cleared his throat. “No.”
“Any electronic devices or medications that the Saviors should know about?”
Mia scoffed at the mention of the Saviors.
“No.”
There were more questions. More attempts to rattle them so the Disciplinarians had an excuse to beat them until their bones were flat and caked in blood, but Dad was Dad—always putting a strong face on; always rubbing tiny circles on Mother’s wrist—and eventually, after looking at everything again, after Mia wanted to scream and cry because of what was in their house, the Disciplinarians left and, once again, the world was nothing but silence and darkness.
Mia went back to holding her breath, feeling and hearing her heart beat loud against her chest.
“We need to go outside, honey.”
Mother scratched her neck. “We’re okay for a little bit longer.”
“You know that’s bullshit, honey. We barely have anything left. A few days from now we’ll—”
“Starve?” Mia finished for him while breathing deeply. She knew that if there was light both of her parents would be looking at her with concern—whatever that looked like—and maybe pity.
Dad’s voice took on an unsure edge. “Yes … we would starve, Mia. I know it’s—”
“Would that be such a bad thing? To just starve. To just leave all of this behind.” She pushed her back even harder against the wall. Her skin burned from it. The cold made it worse. “All we do is sit in here and go outside. There’s nothing else.” Her eyes became heavy. “I hate all of this.”
No one spoke. There was even a moment when Mia thought she heard something moving outside. Maybe the Disciplinarians walking around their house with their loud boots—Mia wanted to spit on those boots—before leaving in their electric vehicles that only the Disciplinarians had the privilege of driving. Maybe it was the world finally returning to its beauty of green trees, blue, cloudless skies, the Fox theater going back to its former glory of showing Song of the South by Walt Disney, and people were now saying everything was a joke, everything would be okay … Mia could go to school; Mia could ride a bus and meet people her age; Mia could grow up with ex-boyfriends she kissed behind the football bleachers during homecomings.
But, when she listened even harder, smelling and tasting the faint scent of ash and rotting paper, Mia fell back in to reality’s arms that squeezed her chest until her eyes nearly popped out like those Popper Peepers Mother always mentioned.
Her Mother was the first to speak. “We hate all of this, too, Mia,” she said quietly. “Our lives changed in the blink of an eye. We no longer have—”
“Anything, right? You don’t have your fancy jobs anymore or your house or your … your—”
“Mia …”
“Happy lives. You don’t have any of that so why keep—”
“Mia!” Dad screamed, making Mia cover her ears and cry—really, really cry like she used to when she was just a few years old.
Dad exhaled and said something to Mother, but all Mia could think of and hear was the heavy thud of the Disciplinarian’s boots pounding on the hardwood. Whether her parents realized it or not, Mia—however old she was—still remembered when Dad was nearly beat to death for misplacing the Proof of Residence. Mother sobbed. Death had loomed in the house that day like a shark sniffing blood, but he woke up, and the Disciplinarians kept coming like they always did as if nothing had happened.
“Did I tell you the story of The Waiting Woman?”
Mother laughed softly. “I like that one.”
Mia looked up, still sniffing, to the spot where her parents sat even though she couldn’t see them. “No,” she whispered.
“Mm, shame on me. Would you like to hear it?”
“I do,” Mother said, laughing again even though Mia could tell it was fake, but Mia said she did because why not? and scooted closer until they were all in a small circle next to the fireplace that was only filled with ash.
“There was a woman,” Dad began after a while, sounding shy as he always did to get a laugh out of Mia and Mother—which worked. He continued, “And this woman sat on a bench. In fact, there were many people standing around her who were all told, including her, of course, that they were going to receive a great prize. The bus was going to take them to it.”
Mother kissed Mia’s forehead. That made Mia’s body relax.
“Who was this woman?” Mother asked.
“No questions,” Dad snapped, making Mia and Mother laugh again.
It felt good to laugh.
“The woman sat there on the bench, smiling the entire time. Everyone else around her watched for the bus impatiently. Many paced. Others even stood on the bench to see if they could spot the bus coming down the street. But the woman … the woman …” Dad paused. “The woman continued to sit and smile.”
Mia was smiling. When was the last time she smiled?
She didn’t know.
“People began calling taxis with no clear destination because they were so impatient. Some who couldn’t afford one walked, trusting their feet more than the bus. But the woman …”
“Kept sitting there,” Mia said.
“And smiling.” Dad thrummed a finger over Mia’s lips, making her laugh and push him away.
“Everyone was gone.” Dad’s voice became serious, and the world became quiet again as if it too were leaning in like Mia was to hear what happened next.
“Everyone was gone except the woman who continued sitting on that bench, and, eventually, however much time passed, the bus came.”
“And the woman got on it,” Mother added while gently running her fingers through Mia’s hair.
“Hope, Mia. Hope …” Dad scooted closer until she could almost hear his heart. “Hope is what kept that woman on the bench while everyone else left to find the prize on their own.” He grabbed her hand and kissed it, spreading a warm feeling across Mia’s entire body that made her not feel the numbing cold anymore. “Hope is the only thing we have now.”
Mia rubbed her eyes. “And each other?”
Dad kissed her forehead, whispering, “And each other.”
In that moment, Mia looked around the small, black world that she lived in. She looked where the door was, where the Disciplinarians could knock anytime they wanted, where a cold earth with nothing but other families like them and rotting grass sat in silence and ash. She leaned in to the touch of mother, feeling the dark abyss she loomed over become less and less daunting the more Mother touched her.
“We need to go outside,” Dad said.
Mia could feel Mother’s fingers slightly stiffen, but Mia did something different for the first time.
“I’ll go with you.”
Mother froze. “Mia, you don’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I do.” Mia stood and found both of her parents’ hands then pulled them close. “Hope,” she told them.
Hope would kill the darkness.
Hope, she realized, was all they had, but, to her, there was something more important than that even if she didn’t always see it clearly.
Mia had her parents.
“Remember how to do the mask?”
“Yes,” Mia told Dad.
“Stay close.”
Mia promised herself that she always would.
Category: Featured, Short Story