Chapter 3

Chapter 3

            Two negatives make a positive. That’s science. This is real life. I mean life in our domain. Those rules don’t apply here. Instead we get a random variations of those negatives and name them. These are what my parents call their “children”. Some of us a bit more off the wall then others, but all equally insane in our own ways. My oldest sister. The half. Much older than us all, comes in and out of reality. We don’t see her much. The oldest brother. Old enough to comprehend the change. Seen what was once his happy home is now this. Whatever this is. Anger runs through his veins. He has as many feelings as a boulder. At least that’s what he wants his world to believe. I learned that people tend to cry in more ways than just tears. The second daughter. She’s silent. You don’t know she is in the room unless she walks in front of you. Her cries are silent. Her eyes observant. She has no knowledge of how to be nurturing. She only knows the lessons of a woman who has given up. The babies. One boy one girl. The youngest boy managed to get out just in time to be accepted as a permanent. He runs around in his diaper. If he has any. Learning from us all. The youngest girl. Which we all know, was sent off. To where? We don’t know. At least not yet.

            That leaves me. The middle child. If you could gather all my parents worse qualities and put them into one human being. You get me. The other parts we don’t find out till later. Much later.

            Love is most definitely not a bond we share. Every man (or child) for himself. This is the arena. If you step onto someone else’s turf. Be prepared to fight. This may be a bit dramatic but not far from the truth. It was almost as if we were in survival mode. Befriend those when need be but be ready to attack when there guard is down. O the joys of my childhood. The hardest part of this for me was not knowing who was going to be my friend that day. Maybe my brother would show me how to play the newest game he got. Or maybe he would use me as his punching bag to get his aggression out. The worst days were the ones when good ol’ dad would leave. My sister didn’t offer much comfort. She barely spoke. She somewhat just existed. The youngest brother we were just trying to keep alive. He was safe. Thank God for my sister. She must have done it because I don’t ever remember us lending a hand.  

            All of us completely different. Such short lives yet full of experience. We fended for ourselves. The saying goes “God bless the child who can hold his own”. We were waiting for that blessing. Some of us feel we have been. Some of us still are. Some of us are just happy to be alive.