12 views
Always A Rainbow After The Rain
Within a heartbeat she lurched to her feet and threw the plate in the air. The girl ducked for cover as the plate came crushing down the wall; leaving a white and yellow smudge from the food. Her large blue eyes were livid; searching frantically for little Rainbow. She spotted her and grinned hellishly at her daughter. The girl stole a glance at her mother and curled up her body. She covered her head with both her hands and waited for the attack. She closed her eyes and started counting backwards from fifty; a habit she had developed to stop her from crying so that her schizophrenic mother wouldnt kill her for crying since it seemed to irritate her more when she cried.
"...forty-six, forty-five, forty-four...she was seized by the neck of her sweater and hurled upwards. She came crashing on the coffee table with her back and bruised her arm in the process. It was nothing; she was used to worse than that. Her mother was hurling insults at her in the process, "Always a rainbow after the rains my foot! What kind of rainbow is this huh? Useless bitch?! You killed my husband and took all my money! Where is my Michael huh?" she grabbed the girl by the hair and shook her vigorously, "The police favor you and say Im crazy! CRAZY?! See who's crazy now huh?" she released the girls face and slapped her hard across the face. Her lip tore and blood ran down her bony chin. It hurt, it was terrifying but she did not cry; she could not cry anymore. Momma was sick and it would all be over soon.
At the sight of the girls blood, the woman suddenly felt sick and ran to the bathroom. Without thinking, Rainbow followed her in and took the sedative granny Adams kept handy for such situations from the medicine cabinet. Her mother was wiping her mouth unsuspectingly after throwing up from the sight of blood when Rainbow shot her with the sedative from behind. It did not take much and her mother was fast asleep. She hated doing this but she knew she had to do it for both their sakes.
She was starting to doze off next to her mother when the doorbell rang. Like an automatic, Rainbow sprung to her feet and went to answer the door. It was the pizza kid from the local pizza outlet about thirty minutes from where they resided. Granny Adams always ordered a little pizza for Rainbow on days when she would not be home for the whole day or maybe running a little late. She felt guilty and scared leaving the little girl alone with her sick mother, but then, there was nothing she could do because poor Rainbow was socially withdrawn and had since developed a phobia towards people in general. As a result, the old woman had then resorted to leaving the girl behind when she ran some errands.
"Err, hi. I have a delivery for miss Rainbow Summers?" recited the boy as he usually did. He was a welcome sight. Rainbow did not smile but her eyes sparkled at the sight of him. She looked at him and the boy smiled warmly at her. She took the parcel and signed for it. The pizza kid had on the usual khaki pants he always wore, some black worn-out Converse sneakers and a black round necked T-shirt. There was nothing special about his outfit except when he turned to go, the writing on the back of his T-shirt struck a familiar cord in Rainbow's brain; it was the exact same thing she had seen on that concrete wall earlier that morning: red letters on a gold background; Rejoice!
There it was! No wonder it had seemed familiar when she saw it earlier. She placed the pizza box on the floor and ran outside with the intention of catching up to the boy and ask him what the word was about. She was curious as to why it had seemed to her like someone had died in that place and if so, why the boy was wearing clothing associated with death with so much ease and indifference.
As the boy closed the gate he saw the girl standing halfway between the front of the cottage and the gate. It looked like she had something to say to him. He paused and looked at her questioningly but she just stood there gawking at him. He always wondered what went on in that Adams household. The people in there seemed somewhat weird and scary too, especially the woman whom he would sometimes find wandering outside aimlessly.
He was staring at her with questioning eyes and she wanted to call out to him but her voice never came out. It had been almost six months since she had spoken to anyone other than her mother. She never even spoke to Mrs. Adams but that never bothered the old woman as she understood exactly why the girl behaved in that manner.
The pizza kid moved closer and Rainbow did not run and hide as she usually did. He spoke to her and her mind seemed to freeze;"Did you forget something?" Silence. He probed again, "Its okay; you can speak to me. What is it that you wanna tell me huh Musky, your name's Musky right?" he gently enquired. However, the girl just stood there, frozen. When he was just a step closer, he paused and stared at the poor girl with a mixture of sadness and frustration.
Life was cruel. Life was unfair, who had made the poor girl like that? He boy wondered to himself. Somehow she reminded him of poor Gram who had committed suicide right at the church premises. It made him uneasy. For some strange reason he felt guilty that poor Gram had to do that without anyone noticing. After a solid five minutes of waiting for her to speak, he turned to walk away; consoling himself with the fact that he would be back to deliver pizza at the Adams cottage again, and that hopefully, the girl would come around and finally speak to him then.
She saw him slowly turn and a voice in her head told her that maybe whatever was inscribed on the boy's clothing was her door to finding help for her mother. Somehow the words Rejoice read HOPE to her desperate tiny self. She surprised both herself and the boy when she suddenly lurched forward and grabbed him by the hem of his T-shirt. He was taken aback and it frightened him a little as to what she was going to do next. However, something told him not to turn around and face her as he had come to realize that it could frighten the girl further from his experience with the late Gram. They remained in that position for a while. The girl was breathing heavily and he could feel her hand shaking where she was holding him by the T-shirt. She released her hand and slowly moved her fingers across the words. It was then that the boy realized what had made the girl so curious; it were the words written on his clothing. It was very common around that part and maybe the girl could have known about it had she been from a normal household, "Oh youre curious about the words?" Silence. He turned ever so slowly and looked at her small curious face. She just stared back at him and said nothing.
"Oh, this is just a T-shirt for the choir I joined at church. Wanna come?" Much to his astonishment, she nodded to the affirmative and brushed past him straight to his bike where she stood; waiting for him to come join her. For a split second he was stunned and then he came around, "No dear girl. I kinda meant like as in you're welcome to come...say maybe on Sunday...not like right now, now." He said and gently removed her hand from his motorbike. She looked hurt but he couldn't afford to be arrested for kidnapping at only fifteen years! She touched the bike once more and made a beeline to the cottage where she disappeared and left the door open.
He shook his head and climbed on his bike, determined to leave the Adams cottage as fast as he could. He brought his hand to the ignition; the key was gone. Her Mighty Creepiness had stolen the keys to his bike and his boss was going to kill him! Either way, there was no way he was going to enter that house but then again, there was no way he was going to lose his job! He took one step towards the house and out came the strange girl with a large backpack on. "Woo! Wait, I can't take you with me. I don't wanna go to juvenile prison and I don't have a place for you to stay too. Besides, your grandma will look for you and I don't even know your name!" He was then shaking with agitation; anxious for her to leave. She turned a deaf ear to his pleas and stubbornly pulled at his clothes non-stop.
Little Rainbow stumbled to the road when the pizza kid gave her a shove and they both did not see the oncoming truck...There was a thud and tyres screeching. Within a split second, the girl was lying on a tiny pool of blood. The boy ran to the scene. It felt like he was living his worst nightmare when he saw the driver; it was his father. Father and son stared blankly at each other for a split second then, in unison they lifted the girl onto the pickup truck and drove away from the scene as fast as they could. They drove in silence towards the boy's place of abode.
When the ride ended, she was lifted again. The kid slid her body onto a soft pile of clothing among the boxes in the garage. He pulled an old coat over the top, creating a cave that emanated the sweetness of old ladies who frequently powdered themselves, a light rose motif that played ironically well in the deep recesses of Rainbow's ancestral brain. The pizza kid lifted her head to help her lap water from a hubcap. He broke bits of pepperoni and crust into bite-sized pieces and left them where her tongue could reach them. Much later, she heard him practicing his orations like songs. Like monks chanting in the distance, they were a comfort.
Her body was aching but she felt at peace; no one was shouting at her, no one was screaming and most importantly she was out of that hell-house. All other things didn't matter at that moment; she just had to take a sip and sleep. Yes; she would sleep to her heart's content and then when she woke up, that's when she would think about everything clearly.
Suddenly she felt cold; it was getting colder by the second. She tried shifting closer to the warmer clothes in the box but everything was so blurry and she just had to sleep and rest her eyes just a little bit...
Oh no! What had he done?! Most importantly, what would his wife think of what he's become? He had promised her on her deathbed that he would quit drinking and take care of their son as best as he could. Now the boy was a high school dropout delivering pizza for a living with barely enough to feed himself and his alcoholic father. As if the universe hadn't punished him enough; he had to be at that spot the very minute his kid shoved the little girl onto the road. Anyone else could have thought it was a planned accident. He decided to go check on the little girl at the garage where they had dumped her without saying anything about it.
She was cold, unusually cold and she was getting paler by the second. He touched her once more and lifted both his hands to his head. He stood up and kept pacing up and down the garage; contemplating on what to do next. He couldn't afford to go to prison, not right then. He took a closer look at the seemingly lifeless body of the little girl, she seemed to be moving. That was it! He was taking her to the hospital...wait! That would be like knocking at the prison gate impatient to be let in. He lifted her up and put her down again. The clothes she was sleeping on were soaked in blood. Quickly he covered them with the coat he had taken earlier from the pile and took the kid to his pickup truck.
"Seriously John, you are lucky me and you come a long way; I should have called the police the minute you walked through with that kid in your arms. What on earth were you looking at?" he enquired emotionally. John, the pizza kid's father just stared blankly at his childhood friend; Maxwell, a veterinary surgeon. Taking the kid there was his only option since he couldn't take her to a proper hospital in fear of being taken in by the law.
"I still dont get how she's still alive after such a hemorrhage! We need to do the transfusion right away before she goes into cardiac arrest because even the strongest metals melt at the right temperature, you know." John bared his arm which Max swapped with alcohol and started the process. There was no human blood at the animal clinic so they transferred the blood directly from his veins to the little girl's. The vet looked solemnly at his unusually sober friend with great empathy... "So what's the kid's name again?"...
© Elihle
"...forty-six, forty-five, forty-four...she was seized by the neck of her sweater and hurled upwards. She came crashing on the coffee table with her back and bruised her arm in the process. It was nothing; she was used to worse than that. Her mother was hurling insults at her in the process, "Always a rainbow after the rains my foot! What kind of rainbow is this huh? Useless bitch?! You killed my husband and took all my money! Where is my Michael huh?" she grabbed the girl by the hair and shook her vigorously, "The police favor you and say Im crazy! CRAZY?! See who's crazy now huh?" she released the girls face and slapped her hard across the face. Her lip tore and blood ran down her bony chin. It hurt, it was terrifying but she did not cry; she could not cry anymore. Momma was sick and it would all be over soon.
At the sight of the girls blood, the woman suddenly felt sick and ran to the bathroom. Without thinking, Rainbow followed her in and took the sedative granny Adams kept handy for such situations from the medicine cabinet. Her mother was wiping her mouth unsuspectingly after throwing up from the sight of blood when Rainbow shot her with the sedative from behind. It did not take much and her mother was fast asleep. She hated doing this but she knew she had to do it for both their sakes.
She was starting to doze off next to her mother when the doorbell rang. Like an automatic, Rainbow sprung to her feet and went to answer the door. It was the pizza kid from the local pizza outlet about thirty minutes from where they resided. Granny Adams always ordered a little pizza for Rainbow on days when she would not be home for the whole day or maybe running a little late. She felt guilty and scared leaving the little girl alone with her sick mother, but then, there was nothing she could do because poor Rainbow was socially withdrawn and had since developed a phobia towards people in general. As a result, the old woman had then resorted to leaving the girl behind when she ran some errands.
"Err, hi. I have a delivery for miss Rainbow Summers?" recited the boy as he usually did. He was a welcome sight. Rainbow did not smile but her eyes sparkled at the sight of him. She looked at him and the boy smiled warmly at her. She took the parcel and signed for it. The pizza kid had on the usual khaki pants he always wore, some black worn-out Converse sneakers and a black round necked T-shirt. There was nothing special about his outfit except when he turned to go, the writing on the back of his T-shirt struck a familiar cord in Rainbow's brain; it was the exact same thing she had seen on that concrete wall earlier that morning: red letters on a gold background; Rejoice!
There it was! No wonder it had seemed familiar when she saw it earlier. She placed the pizza box on the floor and ran outside with the intention of catching up to the boy and ask him what the word was about. She was curious as to why it had seemed to her like someone had died in that place and if so, why the boy was wearing clothing associated with death with so much ease and indifference.
As the boy closed the gate he saw the girl standing halfway between the front of the cottage and the gate. It looked like she had something to say to him. He paused and looked at her questioningly but she just stood there gawking at him. He always wondered what went on in that Adams household. The people in there seemed somewhat weird and scary too, especially the woman whom he would sometimes find wandering outside aimlessly.
He was staring at her with questioning eyes and she wanted to call out to him but her voice never came out. It had been almost six months since she had spoken to anyone other than her mother. She never even spoke to Mrs. Adams but that never bothered the old woman as she understood exactly why the girl behaved in that manner.
The pizza kid moved closer and Rainbow did not run and hide as she usually did. He spoke to her and her mind seemed to freeze;"Did you forget something?" Silence. He probed again, "Its okay; you can speak to me. What is it that you wanna tell me huh Musky, your name's Musky right?" he gently enquired. However, the girl just stood there, frozen. When he was just a step closer, he paused and stared at the poor girl with a mixture of sadness and frustration.
Life was cruel. Life was unfair, who had made the poor girl like that? He boy wondered to himself. Somehow she reminded him of poor Gram who had committed suicide right at the church premises. It made him uneasy. For some strange reason he felt guilty that poor Gram had to do that without anyone noticing. After a solid five minutes of waiting for her to speak, he turned to walk away; consoling himself with the fact that he would be back to deliver pizza at the Adams cottage again, and that hopefully, the girl would come around and finally speak to him then.
She saw him slowly turn and a voice in her head told her that maybe whatever was inscribed on the boy's clothing was her door to finding help for her mother. Somehow the words Rejoice read HOPE to her desperate tiny self. She surprised both herself and the boy when she suddenly lurched forward and grabbed him by the hem of his T-shirt. He was taken aback and it frightened him a little as to what she was going to do next. However, something told him not to turn around and face her as he had come to realize that it could frighten the girl further from his experience with the late Gram. They remained in that position for a while. The girl was breathing heavily and he could feel her hand shaking where she was holding him by the T-shirt. She released her hand and slowly moved her fingers across the words. It was then that the boy realized what had made the girl so curious; it were the words written on his clothing. It was very common around that part and maybe the girl could have known about it had she been from a normal household, "Oh youre curious about the words?" Silence. He turned ever so slowly and looked at her small curious face. She just stared back at him and said nothing.
"Oh, this is just a T-shirt for the choir I joined at church. Wanna come?" Much to his astonishment, she nodded to the affirmative and brushed past him straight to his bike where she stood; waiting for him to come join her. For a split second he was stunned and then he came around, "No dear girl. I kinda meant like as in you're welcome to come...say maybe on Sunday...not like right now, now." He said and gently removed her hand from his motorbike. She looked hurt but he couldn't afford to be arrested for kidnapping at only fifteen years! She touched the bike once more and made a beeline to the cottage where she disappeared and left the door open.
He shook his head and climbed on his bike, determined to leave the Adams cottage as fast as he could. He brought his hand to the ignition; the key was gone. Her Mighty Creepiness had stolen the keys to his bike and his boss was going to kill him! Either way, there was no way he was going to enter that house but then again, there was no way he was going to lose his job! He took one step towards the house and out came the strange girl with a large backpack on. "Woo! Wait, I can't take you with me. I don't wanna go to juvenile prison and I don't have a place for you to stay too. Besides, your grandma will look for you and I don't even know your name!" He was then shaking with agitation; anxious for her to leave. She turned a deaf ear to his pleas and stubbornly pulled at his clothes non-stop.
Little Rainbow stumbled to the road when the pizza kid gave her a shove and they both did not see the oncoming truck...There was a thud and tyres screeching. Within a split second, the girl was lying on a tiny pool of blood. The boy ran to the scene. It felt like he was living his worst nightmare when he saw the driver; it was his father. Father and son stared blankly at each other for a split second then, in unison they lifted the girl onto the pickup truck and drove away from the scene as fast as they could. They drove in silence towards the boy's place of abode.
When the ride ended, she was lifted again. The kid slid her body onto a soft pile of clothing among the boxes in the garage. He pulled an old coat over the top, creating a cave that emanated the sweetness of old ladies who frequently powdered themselves, a light rose motif that played ironically well in the deep recesses of Rainbow's ancestral brain. The pizza kid lifted her head to help her lap water from a hubcap. He broke bits of pepperoni and crust into bite-sized pieces and left them where her tongue could reach them. Much later, she heard him practicing his orations like songs. Like monks chanting in the distance, they were a comfort.
Her body was aching but she felt at peace; no one was shouting at her, no one was screaming and most importantly she was out of that hell-house. All other things didn't matter at that moment; she just had to take a sip and sleep. Yes; she would sleep to her heart's content and then when she woke up, that's when she would think about everything clearly.
Suddenly she felt cold; it was getting colder by the second. She tried shifting closer to the warmer clothes in the box but everything was so blurry and she just had to sleep and rest her eyes just a little bit...
Oh no! What had he done?! Most importantly, what would his wife think of what he's become? He had promised her on her deathbed that he would quit drinking and take care of their son as best as he could. Now the boy was a high school dropout delivering pizza for a living with barely enough to feed himself and his alcoholic father. As if the universe hadn't punished him enough; he had to be at that spot the very minute his kid shoved the little girl onto the road. Anyone else could have thought it was a planned accident. He decided to go check on the little girl at the garage where they had dumped her without saying anything about it.
She was cold, unusually cold and she was getting paler by the second. He touched her once more and lifted both his hands to his head. He stood up and kept pacing up and down the garage; contemplating on what to do next. He couldn't afford to go to prison, not right then. He took a closer look at the seemingly lifeless body of the little girl, she seemed to be moving. That was it! He was taking her to the hospital...wait! That would be like knocking at the prison gate impatient to be let in. He lifted her up and put her down again. The clothes she was sleeping on were soaked in blood. Quickly he covered them with the coat he had taken earlier from the pile and took the kid to his pickup truck.
"Seriously John, you are lucky me and you come a long way; I should have called the police the minute you walked through with that kid in your arms. What on earth were you looking at?" he enquired emotionally. John, the pizza kid's father just stared blankly at his childhood friend; Maxwell, a veterinary surgeon. Taking the kid there was his only option since he couldn't take her to a proper hospital in fear of being taken in by the law.
"I still dont get how she's still alive after such a hemorrhage! We need to do the transfusion right away before she goes into cardiac arrest because even the strongest metals melt at the right temperature, you know." John bared his arm which Max swapped with alcohol and started the process. There was no human blood at the animal clinic so they transferred the blood directly from his veins to the little girl's. The vet looked solemnly at his unusually sober friend with great empathy... "So what's the kid's name again?"...
© Elihle
Related Stories
