Bradbury's Jar Week #103

amethyst Wanted: $1000 Reward posted 15 Dec 2013 07:49

This week our anonymous prompt is: Fears

Redbird Gatchamaniac posted 16 Dec 2013 16:45

Not exactly what I thought would come out, but here it is. I might expand on it more at a later time. Oh and I think I used "fear" instead of fears. ******************************* He couldn't breathe. The sound of a muffled voice, of deep laughter came from far away. A burning band began to tighten around his chest and a leaden weight pinned him in place as he struggled to suck air into his lungs. Instead of filling with air, they filled with water.... Laughter still ringing in his ears, he woke suddenly, gasping. Eyes wide, he bolted upright, clutching the rumpled sheets in his fists, heart racing in his chest. Drawing his legs up, Ken let out a shaky breath. Closing his eyes, he rested his head upon his knees, his arms locked tightly around his legs. He felt a cold trickle of sweat trace its way down his back, between his shoulder blades. Slowly he felt the dream-fear dissipating. It had been so real. Something he thought he had forgotten. Apparently, that was not the case. He shivered, remembering his father's large, strong hands holding his head firmly beneath the ocean waves. He had been barely four years old at the time it had happened. Ken recalled his father in shadowy images, his face obscured by his foggy child's memory. He did know he hero worshipped his father, looked up to him as many other little boys often did. Ken loved him with all the force of a child's heart--even after the incident at the beach. Heart rate finally beginning to slow, Ken shifted to lay on his side, arm sliding under his pillow for support. His throat worked. He remembered swallowing salty water and screaming his head off when Kentaro let him surface. Compared to murky blue, the sun had shone full in his face, almost blinding him. His father had pulled him up by the hair, fingers twisting in the brown strands; yelling at him, telling him to stop crying; to stop being such a baby. His mother, Saryui, had been screaming too. Yelling for Kentaro to stop, that he was just a child, not a soldier. In the midst of his sputtering water, he remembered her running down the beach in her modest swimsuit and almost tripping in the sand. Half-sobbing and calling his name, she waded into the water. Ken recalled the smell of the ocean air in her hair, and the warm scent of her skin as she grabbed him away from his father, lifting him from the water and holding him fast against her, his face buried in her neck, sniffling back tears. Ignoring Kentaro's rebukes about coddling him, Saryui kissed his wet head, and brought him back to their blanket where she dried him off and wrapped him in a clean soft towel. She dried his baby's tears, and turned his face to hers, her blue eyes boring into his. "Mommy will never hurt you." she told him. While Kentaro stayed in the water, swimming out to a buoy and back repeatedly, the two of them had a peaceful lunch in the warm bright sun. And when they were finished, they went for a walk along the far end of the beach where Ken exclaimed over the pretty shells and starfish that washed in with the tide, and kicked at the slimy green seaweed that wrapped about his ankles. He watched the sea foam as it washed over his toes and Saryui told him about the moon and the tides. She helped him collect some shells, which they later put in a jar in his bedroom--a jar that he still had to that day. Ken didn't realize he was crying again until he felt the salt tears, so much like the ocean, trickle over his nose so he tasted them on his lips. Why did his father treat him such? Abandon his family? His wife? It had been for duty, it was said. But he didn't understand why. How could you throw away a child's love? Did Kentaro hate him that much? Ken supposed it didn't matter for the man was dead...but.. Did the man ever really love him? His mother? Anyone? As a child, while he had dreamed of a father he never knew, it had been his mother whom he received love from. Her gentle, kind ways had taught him much and had helped shape the man he became. A small smile curled his lips, as he wiped away a tear with a finger. Not that she didn't punish him when he deserved it--she did. And he knew she shielded him from most of his father's rages, before he "disappeared". The day after the beach incident, he vaguely remembered seeing a bruise in the shape of a handprint, on the pale skin of her upper arm and asking his mother where it came from, in a little questioning voice. She only smiled at him, and smoothed his hair out of his eyes, telling him that she tripped on the stairs, and his father grabbed her arm, catching her before she fell. There was so much he would never know. So much he still didn't understand. He both loved and loathed his father. And he hated himself for it. His mother fell ill a short while after Kentaro disappeared. It was a terminal illness, long and drawn out over many years. There was nothing he could do, as he watched his mother waste away to nothing. Saryui tried to be cheerful for his sake, but he could see how much pain she was in towards the end. A lump formed in his throat at the memory, eyes welling with tears once more. She died after waiting years for her husband to come home, never knowing he was alive. And there in the dark, he cried for the father he wanted, but never had; and for his mother, who deserved better.

Transmute Jun Queen of the Bird Missiles posted 16 Dec 2013 18:00 (edited 16 Dec 2013 18:00)

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