Mixed Signals

He was a young boy, but too old. He knew a lot, but he didn’t understand it all. He only knew that his friends shunned him, because he acted too old for his age. He only knew that when adults looked at him, they had strange looks of pity in their faces; and that their voices were sorrowful through the disguised tones of kindness. There was sadness staring through their smiles. He knew that sadness and smiling didn’t go together. So he didn’t trust him.

Sometimes he behaved in ways that he didn’t understand.  Like the time he was helping move a small table with his grandma. “I need a strong young man to help me move this table here!” his grandmother had wailed, eyes twinkling down at him.

“I can do it!” he had cried eagerly, jumping to the side of the table, small hands seeking a firm hold on the edge.

He loved his grandma. Because he trusted her. When she was sad, she was sad. When she was happy, she was happy. She never acted like anything that she wasn’t. There were no mixed signals.

That is why he didn’t understand his actions when they had moved the table over to the corner of the room. He had had to back into the corner while carrying the table. His back was against the wall, with the table pressing into his stomach. He knew that he wasn’t trapped, that he was safe. But there was no rationalizing the acidy taste of fear in his mouth.

His grandmother had set her side of the table down, and was moving into the corner to help him get out of the corner.

He knew that it was his grandma approaching him, that the form invading his space was the frail old body of his beloved grandma.  But these rationalizations did nothing to qualm the panic that was gripping him. ‘Stop,’ he wanted to say. ‘Stay back. I can move the table by myself.’ But he couldn’t say anything, because his throat was dry, and the words stopped from coming out.  And his grandma came closer, because she didn’t notice the souring panic in his eyes, or his reddening face.

A sudden burst of strength came with the panic. He pushed the table away, shoving it so hard that it slid across the floor a good six inches. Before it had stopped, he had ducked under the table. Under the table, he crouched on the ground, his intestine tying into knots in his stomach and nausea causing him to lean forward.

When his grandma had seen his actions, she hadn’t come closer. She stood still, arms hanging limp at her side. “I’m sorry,” she said, and though he couldn’t see her face from under the table, he knew by her voice that she was sorry and nothing but sorry. No mixed signals.

He didn’t like the man that worked at the grocery store. The man never stopped smiling. He always had a smile on his thin lips. His face was creased with the permanent signs of it. But the smile never traveled up to his eyes.  His eyes were blue, and cold, and they never blinked. They were eyes filled with cruelty with no conscious.  They were abuser’s eyes. Psychopathic eyes. But the scary thing was that they were also the eyes of a small boy victim, abused and shattered�"lost, alone, and bewildered. The kind of eyes that belonged to a person that didn’t know what happened, so he kept reacting.

He didn’t like mixed signals.

 

Reviews

[Norma M Sutton]

This is interesting. I noticed a couple of spots you might like to double check.

So he didn’t trust him. --- Did you mean he didn't trust THEM?

When his grandma had seen his actions, --- I think you mean grandma saw his actions :)

[Michael Brown]

I think this is a really cool story. One which has such interesting character dynamics i think it would be cool if you expanded it to possibly a novella, or at least added a plot. The part with the table i thought was particularly interesting and i didn't fully understand but it was written in a mysterious sort of way that was very much like real life, if that makes any sense. But i think its a very cool little writing with good ideas. Muy bien.
And one little editing thing, "eyes filled with cruelty with no conscious" i think you meant "conscience." But that's only a little thing. ;)
Awesome that you made an account, though.