Teacup and Bullets

I wake up to the sound of birds. It is a nice sound to wake up to – pure and sweet– but as soon as I open my eyes the euphoria evaporates like a vampire in the sun.

 

Eyes open. Covers off. Feet on the floor.

 

It is early in the morning and the sun is weak, bathing the bare room in grey light. Strewn over the floorboards are various bits of clothing. My wardrobe doors are hanging open like a large gaping mouth.

Out of my room. Down the stairs, carefully dodging green beer bottles on the way.

Dad is sprawled on the couch. One arm hangs limply to the floor. He’s snores are like thunderclaps. Alcohol. He smells like bloody alcohol. Again.

 

It’s pathetic.

 

He’s huge, in a big boned kind of way, and hair covers his entire body. The hair on his head is greasy and long, nearly reaching his shoulders. There is vomit crusted near his mouth. He would do anything for another bottle of beer. His whole existence revolves around it, the attaining of booze. It’s the only thing that stops him from going the same way as mum.

 

To the kitchen. Open the fridge. Cold air tingling the hairs on my arms.

 

The white shelves do not hold much. A couple of apples on the top shelf, bruised and soft. A plastic container full of cold pasta. On the last shelf there is half a chocolate bar and I grab it, my stomach rumbling violently.

 

Out the kitchen. Empty pill bottles on the floor. Out the back door.

 

Our backyard is a tangle of weeds. There is crooked clothesline in the middle and an old swing set in the corner. Our brown fence slopes gently. I can see the edges of cigarette butts and packets peeking through the grass. I take a bite of chocolate, my teeth cracking against the frozen surface.

 

James is where he always is, doing what he always does. He sprawls himself on the swings, a cigarette in his hand and a can of Coke on the ground. He pushes himself slowly, a creaking skeleton in the wind.

 

My heart breaks. Before mum died, James was vivacious, full of untameable spirit and intense energy.  Blond haired, blue eyed, slender and confident, he was the holy grail of dating. James had to beat the girls off with a stick.

 

But after we found her in the bathroom, wrists open and the water red with blood, he became an empty shell. He ignored his friends. He dyed his hair black. He never smiled at my jokes like he used to.

 

I walk over to him, careful to avoid shards of glass glittering in the grass.

 

 “Hey.” I say.

He doesn’t look up from where he is looking.

 

“Do you want some breakfast?”

 

He doesn’t make any indication of hearing me, just takes a drag from his smoke. From up close I can see the wrongness of him, the purple beneath his eyes and the sharp points of his cheek bones. Seconds pass and still James does not answer. It’s aggravating. We’re drowning in this together; he doesn’t need to act as if it physically hurts him to act normal and actually, you know, acknowledge me.

 

I turn to leave, anger biting through the sleep.

 

“I want to kill Dad.”

 

I turn around, surprised at this casual suggestion of homicide. No one says ‘I want to kill dad’ like that. Not so clear and confident. Not without flinching.

 

“What?”

 

He is looking at me, his eyes intense in their hollowness.

 

“You heard me. I want to kill dad.”

 

Simplicity. Authenticity. Goosebumps lifting my skin.

 

“You’re drunk.”

 

 “I am not!” he yells, pushing up the swing so suddenly it groans in protest. Automatically, I take a step back. Dad’s drunken outbursts have made me fearful.

 

My reaction seems to calm James down. He loosens up and looks to the ground.

 

“Sorry,” James mumbles. “It’s just… I want to, like, show something more, you know?. Mum died three weeks ago and Dad hasn’t even had a funeral, he hasn’t even told us she’s dead! He let us walk in on her body bleeding in the bloody bath! ”

 

I am shocked. Not only is this the most James has said to me in three weeks but it is the first time he has mentioned Mum since that morning. His eyes are alive like they used to be, burning blue fire.

 

My mouth works hard to form words.

 

“You don’t have to kill dad.”

 

I say the words but not properly. It feels like my throat is filled with gravel.

 

“Yeah, I do. It’s, like, we need to show mum we care. And dad…dad…”

 

“Doesn’t?”

 

“Dad doesn’t, yeah. And, like, if we kill dad it would be like this whole thing, it would be showing mum that we love her, and miss her and-”

 

His voice breaks. Shatters. Falls.

 

James hasn’t talked to me in the three weeks since mum died and now here he is, pushing for patricide. And actually making sense in a way that is utterly terrifying.

 

Dad’s alcoholism has torn up our family, his drunken rages and spiteful hazes terrorising us all for years. It’s hard living with a monster. It’s even harder when that monster shares your blood. It was his fault that mum decided to bleed to death. It is his fault that James is smoking himself to an early grave. It is his fault that I can’t trust men.  He beat bruises into all of us, cut holes into our hearts. There was no blood pounding through his shrivelled heart, only beer thundering through his veins.

 

Monsters need to be killed. Monsters needed to die. For mum, right?

 

“How were you thinking of doing it?” I ask, my mind racing ahead of the question.

 

I imagine him falling, like everything just….stopped. There was blood on my hands. Blood on the table. Cyanide in his drink. White powder in his teeth. His heart cut out of his chest. James laughing. Screaming. Crying. A knife in my hands.

 

Glass smashing. The heart on the floor. The room throbbing. Dad coughing. James delicate hand stirring. Dead. Everything dead. Beer broken. Hearts stopped. Crying. Alone. Cold. Shivering. Smiling. Singing. Both of us together, hugging. Dad on the floor. Dead.

 

The monster is dead.

 

“That’s thing,” James says, he’s voice pulling me back to reality. “I have no idea. Dad’s built like a bloody bear. He fills up on two tonnes of alcohol every day and he can still walk to the pub afterwards.”

 

I smile and it makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. James is right. Mum never had a funeral. She hasn’t got an epitaph. Hell, I don’t think half our relatives know she’s even dead. This will be like our eulogy for mum. This is us putting flowers on her grave.

 

“I think I have a plan.”

 

James looking up surprised. My smile, wider. The grass wet against my ankles. These will be my last sensations before dad’s alcohol addiction turns me into a monster too.

 

“I know how to kill the monster.”