by David Estes
The memory flies away, just like the magic kites.
Dressed fully in black—other than his hidden red underwear—his father is ready to leave for the day, to go to a place called work. Sometimes he calls it Population Control or Pop Con, too. The boy knows his father must be an important man there, because they always need him. His father never seems happy to leave, however, so the boy wonders why he goes at all. But he doesn’t ask his father. He saves that question for Janice.
As usual, Janice is late, looking as if she just woke up, with wisps of static-charged hair shooting out of a messy bun; and, as always, Janice wraps him up in the biggest hug of his life, even bigger than the one she gave him the day before. Even as he squeezes back, he wonders if one day she’ll squeeze him so hard he’ll pop.
“I swear you’ve grown three centimeters taller since yesterday, child,” Janice says, standing up from the hug. The boy’s not sure if she’s right, but those piercing blue eyes of hers do look a little closer than before.
“Can we measure?” he asks, looking at his father for permission.
His father smiles, but it doesn’t look right. His eyes don’t crinkle at the corners like they usually do. They look wet and glossy. But then he blinks and they’re back to normal. He tousles the boy’s hair and says, “Ask Janice. I’ve got to go.”
His father reaches for Janice stiffly, almost like the robots on his second favorite holo-screen program, Bot Heroes, and touches her shoulder. His lips part like he wants to say something, but then they close and bulge outward. He turns away and strides for the door, which opens from bottom to top with a whoosh as he approaches. He stops briefly and looks back. “Listen to Janice, Son,” he says. “See you later.”
“See you later,” the boy says, copying his father’s words because they taste so good in his mouth.
The door whooshes closed and the boy looks at Janice, who’s wiping her eyes with the cuff of her white, silky shirt. He wonders if there’s something in the air today that causes wet eyes, but his feel so dry they’re burning a little.
“Janice?” he says.
She finishes dabbing her eyes, flashes a quick smile that fades as quickly as his father’s smiles do these days, and says, “Speak your mind, child.”
The question about why his father goes to work when he doesn’t like it rolls around on his tongue, but he swallows and it disappears, replaced by a different question. “What’s my name?” he asks.
Janice closes her eyes. Her face is as blank as one of the white sheets of paper the boy uses to draw on, but there’s no mistaking the quiver on her lips, the tiny drop of liquid that squeezes from the corner of one of her eyes, like juice from a lemon.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I just…don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” Janice says, opening her eyes and once more wiping away the moisture, this time with her knuckle. “All I know is that caged monkeys will rebel every single time.” The boy wonders what monkeys have to do with anything, but he doesn’t ask, because Janice’s eyes have that faraway look they sometimes get, like her mind has left the house while her body remains.
He sits on the couch and waits for it to pass.
After a few minutes she flinches, as if startling from a heavy sleep. “Let’s get you measured,” she says, forcing a smile.
She was right. He has grown three centimeters since the last time they marked his height on the wall by the incinerator.
But she never answers his question about his name.
SLIP by David Estes is available December 1, 2014!
