by Pbo Toki
My first scar was born in the sixth hour of my fifth year.
My mother lay face down on the kitchen floor. A bloody halo taking shape around her lifeless head, flecked with small bits of brain and bone. A fallen angel plucked midflight by the hand of a demon, then hurled violently to the ground. The demon bore the name of my father. Her wounds would never form scars, as a beating heart is needed to begin the process of healing. Her shattered bones would never knit together, her torn flesh would never be joined, she would leave this earth in her present state of disarray, and if healing were to occur it was now in the hands of her maker.
Mommy, can I open my presents now?
Mommy, please sing me Happy Birthday.
I’ve been a good boy, I promise Mommy.
Happy birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Pbo,
Happy Birthday to you.
Mommy please get up, I’m hungry and I’m scared.
Daddy’s gone, you can get up now. I won’t tell anyone what happened. I promise to be good and not make you take your happy pills. You fall down when you take your happy pills.
Remember the time we went shopping downtown for my first school clothes Mommy. I had to help you when you fell.
Was it my fault Mommy? Was it because I wet my bed again Mommy? Remember how you banged your head when you fell, and the happy pills spilled all over the ground. You got down on your hands and knees and crawled around, mumbling bad words as you tried to pick them up. Remember how I helped you put the top back on the small bottle after we put all the pills back. I never told anyone Mommy, I swear.
My mother was dead. No desperate pleas were going to bring her back. This is where her story ended, in ruins on the kitchen floor, and I was unable to connect the reality of the situation with the story that was playing in my head. In that story my mother sang Happy Birthday to me, and there was ice cream, birthday cake and presents all wrapped up in shiny paper, waiting to be opened.
That’s how my first scar was born, as my innocence was ripped from me, leaving bloody gashes where it had clung to my skin, as the wiring inside my head caught fire, and the toxic fumes engulfed me.
I was dragged out of that kitchen three days later by the police and EMT’s, lifted from the putrid, stagnant pool of me and my mother’s bodily fluids. My blue eyes had turned a steel gray and from that day forward I would welcome each new scar and the wounds from which they came.
I never slept soundly again, I would lie in my bed at night and try to escape to a place far from here, a place where demons were only figments of a child’s imagination and hugs were the only currency needed, and I prayed:
“Dear god, please don’t let me get cancer, especially not tonight, and please don’t let me die, especially not tonight, and if anything bad is going to happen to me, please don’t let it happen, especially not tonight. Thank you lord god, amen”
My mother was gone, my father, the demon who slayed her, slept just a few feet away in the next room, unrepentant for his sins. My hopes and dreams buried under the pillow that he snored into at night.
My mother’s death was ruled an accident, even though the medical examiner remarked that her wounds resembled those of a car crash victim.
My father tried to explain away what I had witnessed on the day of my mother’s death by telling me that I had a bad dream, that my poor mother, god rest her soul, had taken one too many of her happy pills, then fell face first onto the floor. The glass of wine she drank from to wash her medicine down, had dropped from her hand and shattered on the floor. Her head came crashing down, landing on a jagged piece of the broken wine glass that managed to slit her throat so violently, it was only a small piece of skin that still connected her head to her shoulders. My father said it was all a very tragic accident that was no one’s fault, but I could smell the demon inside him, and he was unaware that his tongue flicked out and licked his lips as he wove his fantastical tale of lies and deceit.
I met the demon who dwelled within my father face to face in the final hours of my fifth year. I had gotten home from school as usual and there on the kitchen floor was a book of matches. I didn’t realize my father was home when I picked them up, removed a match and was about to light it when the demon appeared.
The demon looked mostly like my father at first and then he began his transformation. His chest grew so large it could no longer be confined by his shirt and all the buttons shot like projectiles across the room. He began to get taller, crackling sounds emanating from inside him. His pants ripped along the seams and he had to lower his head to fit inside the room. His eyes glowed red and as I wet my pants he reached out one of his smoking red hands and with his long pointed fingers he grabbed me by the wrist. He pulled me towards him and I tried to scream, but my throat had glued itself shut so tightly, that only a slight gurgling sound was able to make it past my lips.
My demon father held his free hand palm up beneath mine and twisted my hand so that it was palm down. A pool of fire erupted from his pointy red fingers, rising up, licking the skin cleanly off my melting hand. My father’s demon tongue unfurled from his blackened lips and began licking the air with the same serpent like motions as the flames from his fingers had licked my skin.
My body and mind could take no more, so they retreated to the place that lies between the now and forever, I rose far above the earth, but not far enough to taste heaven.
Mommy, I miss you, do you miss me? Mommy, I forgive you, am I forgiven? Mommy, tomorrow is my birthday, would it be possible for you to sing me Happy Birthday one more time? Please Mommy.
My first scar was born in the sixth hour of my fifth year. This is where it’s story ended.
I lay face down on the kitchen floor. A bloody halo taking shape around my lifeless head, flecked with small bits of brain and bone. A fallen angel…
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Pbo,
Happy Birthday to you.
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