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Description
“David.”

“David?”

David wasn’t listening; he was busy staring out into the flooded windows, the rain-soaked windows of his fourth-grade classroom. Perhaps he was just staring out.

But he wasn’t listening.

“David!” Ms. Wilcox shouts as she slams her plastic ruler onto the dirty surface of his fourth-grade classroom desk. She never cared much for the quiet child, just as she has never cared much for the Dijon mustard-yellow surface she just scratched with her ruler. It’s just that, people who ignore her presence annoy her, and that, colours that clash with her winter tablecloth dress annoy her.

“Please pay attention to me when I’m taking attendance,” Ms. Wilcox says as she walks back to the front of the classroom, “And put away the toy in your hands.”

She was referring to the rusty tin can in David’s hands. Not exactly a toy, not to him anyways. It is a bit too old, too habitual. The same tin, the same brown stains, the same fingerprints in his hands for the past few days.

And the same toy remark from the teacher.

Lunch time comes around, and recess releases the inhibited laughter of primary school students onto the frozen mid-December playground. Everything melts in these thirty minutes of ball playing and rope jumping, almost. In a corner of the playground stands a barren tree that casts shadows onto those who dislike sunlight, and oh… David.

David is not weird. David is not trying to be an outcast. In fact, his staring eyes are just as brilliant as any of the screaming kids out there in the sunlit field. There’s just a bit less reflected in his dark eyes, instead of excited faces and kinesis, it’s just his strained pale fingers gripping the grey of his tin can. His lips are moving, too. He is whispering Christmas carols underneath his white breath.

It is only three more days until Christmas.

“Three more days til I can open…”

“Hey!” A high-pitched but gentle voice interrupts the gleam in David’s eyes. Lizzy Mc… doesn’t matter too much what her last name is, David barely knows her name. Lizzy is in David’s class; long dirty blonde hair and bright sky blue eyes, to him. She is a nice girl; she’s even given a few unreturned smiles to David a few times throughout the school year.

“You sure like to sit at this spot, don’t you?” Lizzy asks and innocently sits down next to the unmoving boy with his eyes glued to his hands. She lets out a small sigh in response to David’s unresponsiveness and starts playing with the white fur on her jacket. “My mommy bought me this jacket last week; I think it’s really pretty.”

Children’s voices, and silence from David.

“I like Christmas a lot, because I get so many presents from everyone. Don’t you?” Lizzy continues to talk, though she’s no longer looking at the quiet boy.

Then music comes, again, from David’s mouth. Verses of Silent Night come out from the boy’s crooked smile and falls, with each evaporated breath. His gaze unmoved, still, from the tin can he is holding.

David’s voice caught Lizzy’s attention and brought her closer.

“What is that box you are holding? Is there something pretty inside? Did your mom and dad give it to you?”

And she moved closer. Close enough for her to smell the sour in his white breath. Close enough to see the wrinkles in his clothes, to see the dirt embedded in white fingernails. But those things didn’t matter, the box mattered. And she reaches, with her small hands and small fingers.

She snatches the tin can from David’s hands, with a smile.

He snatches her hair. Her long blonde locks in his fingers, taut and resisting. The dark roots blending into her reddening scalp, slowly but reluctantly ripping away from the budding follicles.

And she cries—shrieks. Blood-curdling and not innocent, her scream rips through the shadowy white grounds she stands on and out, through the laughter and warmth of her fellow classmates. And the playground froze; everything froze with hundreds of staring eyes focused on Lizzy and her parting hair.

“Give it back.” David hisses into the right ear of the screaming girl who is too stunned to react to his words.

“Give it back.” David shouts and he violently jerks Lizzy’s head even further back by grabbing another clump of her hair with his other hand. Whether it is David’s newfound baritone voice or the new pain in her neck that awakened the girl’s reflexes, the tin can is nevertheless released from Lizzy’s fingers and falls onto the echoing pavement.

And so did Lizzy, landing on the ground with a thud, while David scrambles to pick up his box.

Lizzy lies on the floor sobbing while holding onto her crumbled hair; David pays no attention to her and sits back down at his previous spot under the tree. The screaming has stopped, and so the cue for life and laughter to resume on the playground. That, and a set of hurried footsteps walking toward the twitching girl on the floor—Ms. Wilcox’s.

“Lizzy! Are you okay? What happened?” Ms. Wilcox asks as she tries to pick the girl up from the ground. “David, why did you pick on her? You get a time out for the rest of the day.” She said that barely looking at the quiet boy as she slowly walks Lizzy away with her.

But he wasn’t listening.

David sits alone in the corner of his classroom, holding tightly to his tin can. Time out or not, it makes no difference to him. No colours of crayons or lego blocks would catch the boy’s attention; his eyes are locked to only the grey in his hands. His ears are also deaf to the whispers around him, the whispers about him.

Christopher Stanton, four foot eight and towering in his fourth grade class. He has bullied David before, among many others, with his posse of cowardly boys half his size. He has had his eyes on David’s box for a couple of days now, perhaps today his hands will be on it too.

“What do you think is in there?” A nameless boy with thick-rimmed glasses asks.

“Whatever it is, it will be mine.” Christopher answers, grinning; his double chin pulls tighter to his face with his thick cheekbones.

“How are you going to get it?” Another boy in his shadow asks.

“With this,” Christopher makes a fist and punches the questioning boy in the stomach. The boy groans and falls onto the floor and laughter bursts out from the group.

But David is still not listening. Is he even looking in his stare, so still?

The school bell finally rings at three o’clock and the hallways flood with liberated children. David follows the same current out of his school and quickly deviates from all the body heat as soon as he steps out of the building. Unnoticed by teachers, the boy quietly slips into the wintry streets of a late afternoon. His small body barely casting a shadow on the empty streets as he slowly walks home.

Suddenly, he flies.

Five feet forward before he lands, face down on the ground. Then laughter.

“Hey David.” It’s Christopher and his group of five snickering boys.

David disregards Christopher and pushes himself off the ground; his tin can is still firmly grasped within his now bleeding hands. The boy remains quiet and tries to walk away from his classmates, but is soon stopped and surrounded.

“I want what’s in your hands.” Christopher demands, wasting no time.

David keeps his forward gaze fixed as he attempts to push through the barricade of boys in front of him. He didn’t get far before he gets pulled backwards by Christopher.

“I say, I want that.” Christopher says as he grabs the warm metal cover of David’s box.

A crunching sound, and red blossoms over the unprotected wrist of the tall boy under David’s gnawing teeth. Christopher yells and attempts to jerk his hand away, which only results in more of his pink skin ripping off.

“Get him off me!” Christopher screams at his stunned companions. He then sends a punch with his left hand which connects with the soft cartilage of David’s tiny nose and unlocks his biting jaw as he falls backwards onto the floor.

“You piece of crap!” The angry bully with the bloody hand begins to kick David, who has rolled into a fetal position to protect what’s in his hands. The rest of the boys follow suit and attacks the curled up boy on the floor.

“He’s not giving in, Chris.” One of the kicking boys point out.

“Stop, stop.” Christopher says calmly, “Pick him up.”

Two of the boys goes and lifts David’s tiny body up, they manage get him into some sort of a standing position.

“Just give me the box, kid.” Christopher orders, he brings his face a couple inches to David’s. His warm breath saturates the tiny boy’s stern expressions but still fails to move the static black of his eyes.

What is the sound of knuckles against face?

“You’re going to pay for this.” Christopher says as he retrieves his bloody fist from the bruise of David’s cheekbone. “Give it up, now.”

Another blow to David face, causing his teeth to bite into the insides of his mouth. A slow trickle of red begins to run down the side of those pale maroon lips. David’s fingers seem to be loosening.

Several more hits and hundreds more snickers from the crowd of boys surrounding the hanging David.

One more, to the nose. Something breaks.

And so does David.

The dark orbs in his eyes begin to quiver and flood. David’s body collapses onto the floor as the two supporting boys ran out of strength. The tin can in his hands slip from his fingers and falls to Christopher’s feet.

“Finally, geez.” Christopher says as he picks up the box from the ground, “What the heck is in this box anyways?” The chubby boy puts his bruised fingers around the lid of the can to open it.

David cries, choking on the thick blood in his mouth, but he cries. His fills the darkening winter sky with his voice, just like he did a few days ago at home when for the first time he saw his dad hitting his mom during dinner.

Just like he did, when the drinking glasses shatter and tears into his mom’s dress, adding on to the numerous scars she had been hiding.

Just like he did, when his mom and dad shouted bad words at each other, ones that he does not yet know the meaning to.

Like he did, when mom got so angry that she charged at dad with the large kitchen knife and stabbed him in the neck, and then herself at the wrist.

Oh the blood, the blood. Why are mom and dad making such awful noises, so different from the ones he used to hear next to his bedroom, David thought. How can I bring mom and dad to hold hands again, David thought, looking at the sharp knife on the floor next to his mom’s unmoving body.

And finally screams, from Christopher and his boys. They shriek, one boy even vomits from looking at the contents of the opened tin can. Before the stench can reach Christopher’s nose, he has already tossed the can away and has begun running with the others.

The opened tin can falls onto the ground, and next to it, the spilled contents. A pair of hands, clasped and severed. Blue, black, green, and rotting. No longer twitching or reluctant, with the wedding bands and all.

Description
“David.”

“David?”

David wasn’t listening; he was busy staring out into the flooded windows, the rain-soaked windows of his fourth-grade classroom. Perhaps he was just staring out.

But he wasn’t listening.

“David!” Ms. Wilcox shouts as she slams her plastic ruler onto the dirty surface of his fourth-grade classroom desk. She never cared much for the quiet child, just as she has never cared much for the Dijon mustard-yellow surface she just scratched with her ruler. It’s just that, people who ignore her presence annoy her, and that, colours that clash with her winter tablecloth dress annoy her.

“Please pay attention to me when I’m taking attendance,” Ms. Wilcox says as she walks back to the front of the classroom, “And put away the toy in your hands.”

She was referring to the rusty tin can in David’s hands. Not exactly a toy, not to him anyways. It is a bit too old, too habitual. The same tin, the same brown stains, the same fingerprints in his hands for the past few days.

And the same toy remark from the teacher.

Lunch time comes around, and recess releases the inhibited laughter of primary school students onto the frozen mid-December playground. Everything melts in these thirty minutes of ball playing and rope jumping, almost. In a corner of the playground stands a barren tree that casts shadows onto those who dislike sunlight, and oh… David.

David is not weird. David is not trying to be an outcast. In fact, his staring eyes are just as brilliant as any of the screaming kids out there in the sunlit field. There’s just a bit less reflected in his dark eyes, instead of excited faces and kinesis, it’s just his strained pale fingers gripping the grey of his tin can. His lips are moving, too. He is whispering Christmas carols underneath his white breath.

It is only three more days until Christmas.

“Three more days til I can open…”

“Hey!” A high-pitched but gentle voice interrupts the gleam in David’s eyes. Lizzy Mc… doesn’t matter too much what her last name is, David barely knows her name. Lizzy is in David’s class; long dirty blonde hair and bright sky blue eyes, to him. She is a nice girl; she’s even given a few unreturned smiles to David a few times throughout the school year.

“You sure like to sit at this spot, don’t you?” Lizzy asks and innocently sits down next to the unmoving boy with his eyes glued to his hands. She lets out a small sigh in response to David’s unresponsiveness and starts playing with the white fur on her jacket. “My mommy bought me this jacket last week; I think it’s really pretty.”

Children’s voices, and silence from David.

“I like Christmas a lot, because I get so many presents from everyone. Don’t you?” Lizzy continues to talk, though she’s no longer looking at the quiet boy.

Then music comes, again, from David’s mouth. Verses of Silent Night come out from the boy’s crooked smile and falls, with each evaporated breath. His gaze unmoved, still, from the tin can he is holding.

David’s voice caught Lizzy’s attention and brought her closer.

“What is that box you are holding? Is there something pretty inside? Did your mom and dad give it to you?”

And she moved closer. Close enough for her to smell the sour in his white breath. Close enough to see the wrinkles in his clothes, to see the dirt embedded in white fingernails. But those things didn’t matter, the box mattered. And she reaches, with her small hands and small fingers.

She snatches the tin can from David’s hands, with a smile.

He snatches her hair. Her long blonde locks in his fingers, taut and resisting. The dark roots blending into her reddening scalp, slowly but reluctantly ripping away from the budding follicles.

And she cries—shrieks. Blood-curdling and not innocent, her scream rips through the shadowy white grounds she stands on and out, through the laughter and warmth of her fellow classmates. And the playground froze; everything froze with hundreds of staring eyes focused on Lizzy and her parting hair.

“Give it back.” David hisses into the right ear of the screaming girl who is too stunned to react to his words.

“Give it back.” David shouts and he violently jerks Lizzy’s head even further back by grabbing another clump of her hair with his other hand. Whether it is David’s newfound baritone voice or the new pain in her neck that awakened the girl’s reflexes, the tin can is nevertheless released from Lizzy’s fingers and falls onto the echoing pavement.

And so did Lizzy, landing on the ground with a thud, while David scrambles to pick up his box.

Lizzy lies on the floor sobbing while holding onto her crumbled hair; David pays no attention to her and sits back down at his previous spot under the tree. The screaming has stopped, and so the cue for life and laughter to resume on the playground. That, and a set of hurried footsteps walking toward the twitching girl on the floor—Ms. Wilcox’s.

“Lizzy! Are you okay? What happened?” Ms. Wilcox asks as she tries to pick the girl up from the ground. “David, why did you pick on her? You get a time out for the rest of the day.” She said that barely looking at the quiet boy as she slowly walks Lizzy away with her.

But he wasn’t listening.

David sits alone in the corner of his classroom, holding tightly to his tin can. Time out or not, it makes no difference to him. No colours of crayons or lego blocks would catch the boy’s attention; his eyes are locked to only the grey in his hands. His ears are also deaf to the whispers around him, the whispers about him.

Christopher Stanton, four foot eight and towering in his fourth grade class. He has bullied David before, among many others, with his posse of cowardly boys half his size. He has had his eyes on David’s box for a couple of days now, perhaps today his hands will be on it too.

“What do you think is in there?” A nameless boy with thick-rimmed glasses asks.

“Whatever it is, it will be mine.” Christopher answers, grinning; his double chin pulls tighter to his face with his thick cheekbones.

“How are you going to get it?” Another boy in his shadow asks.

“With this,” Christopher makes a fist and punches the questioning boy in the stomach. The boy groans and falls onto the floor and laughter bursts out from the group.

But David is still not listening. Is he even looking in his stare, so still?

The school bell finally rings at three o’clock and the hallways flood with liberated children. David follows the same current out of his school and quickly deviates from all the body heat as soon as he steps out of the building. Unnoticed by teachers, the boy quietly slips into the wintry streets of a late afternoon. His small body barely casting a shadow on the empty streets as he slowly walks home.

Suddenly, he flies.

Five feet forward before he lands, face down on the ground. Then laughter.

“Hey David.” It’s Christopher and his group of five snickering boys.

David disregards Christopher and pushes himself off the ground; his tin can is still firmly grasped within his now bleeding hands. The boy remains quiet and tries to walk away from his classmates, but is soon stopped and surrounded.

“I want what’s in your hands.” Christopher demands, wasting no time.

David keeps his forward gaze fixed as he attempts to push through the barricade of boys in front of him. He didn’t get far before he gets pulled backwards by Christopher.

“I say, I want that.” Christopher says as he grabs the warm metal cover of David’s box.

A crunching sound, and red blossoms over the unprotected wrist of the tall boy under David’s gnawing teeth. Christopher yells and attempts to jerk his hand away, which only results in more of his pink skin ripping off.

“Get him off me!” Christopher screams at his stunned companions. He then sends a punch with his left hand which connects with the soft cartilage of David’s tiny nose and unlocks his biting jaw as he falls backwards onto the floor.

“You piece of crap!” The angry bully with the bloody hand begins to kick David, who has rolled into a fetal position to protect what’s in his hands. The rest of the boys follow suit and attacks the curled up boy on the floor.

“He’s not giving in, Chris.” One of the kicking boys point out.

“Stop, stop.” Christopher says calmly, “Pick him up.”

Two of the boys goes and lifts David’s tiny body up, they manage get him into some sort of a standing position.

“Just give me the box, kid.” Christopher orders, he brings his face a couple inches to David’s. His warm breath saturates the tiny boy’s stern expressions but still fails to move the static black of his eyes.

What is the sound of knuckles against face?

“You’re going to pay for this.” Christopher says as he retrieves his bloody fist from the bruise of David’s cheekbone. “Give it up, now.”

Another blow to David face, causing his teeth to bite into the insides of his mouth. A slow trickle of red begins to run down the side of those pale maroon lips. David’s fingers seem to be loosening.

Several more hits and hundreds more snickers from the crowd of boys surrounding the hanging David.

One more, to the nose. Something breaks.

And so does David.

The dark orbs in his eyes begin to quiver and flood. David’s body collapses onto the floor as the two supporting boys ran out of strength. The tin can in his hands slip from his fingers and falls to Christopher’s feet.

“Finally, geez.” Christopher says as he picks up the box from the ground, “What the heck is in this box anyways?” The chubby boy puts his bruised fingers around the lid of the can to open it.

David cries, choking on the thick blood in his mouth, but he cries. His fills the darkening winter sky with his voice, just like he did a few days ago at home when for the first time he saw his dad hitting his mom during dinner.

Just like he did, when the drinking glasses shatter and tears into his mom’s dress, adding on to the numerous scars she had been hiding.

Just like he did, when his mom and dad shouted bad words at each other, ones that he does not yet know the meaning to.

Like he did, when mom got so angry that she charged at dad with the large kitchen knife and stabbed him in the neck, and then herself at the wrist.

Oh the blood, the blood. Why are mom and dad making such awful noises, so different from the ones he used to hear next to his bedroom, David thought. How can I bring mom and dad to hold hands again, David thought, looking at the sharp knife on the floor next to his mom’s unmoving body.

And finally screams, from Christopher and his boys. They shriek, one boy even vomits from looking at the contents of the opened tin can. Before the stench can reach Christopher’s nose, he has already tossed the can away and has begun running with the others.

The opened tin can falls onto the ground, and next to it, the spilled contents. A pair of hands, clasped and severed. Blue, black, green, and rotting. No longer twitching or reluctant, with the wedding bands and all.