The Sober Games

One Strange Old Man

In the distance, lightning strikes down, its angry wrath heartlessly slapping the ground below. As always, thunder follows close behind, its anger just as powerful. I tremble in fear, looking into her familiar eyes. They are no longer warm and kind like I’ve always remembered them; they are cold and black. Filled with hatred and as bottomless as an abyss.

Kinley returns my horrified stare with a deadly glare. The dark, empty blackness in her eyes has washed away every precious memory of ours, leaving her irises empty. Anger is all they now contain. Rage. Leaving the pair as merciless as the storm brewing around us.

I reach across my body and rest a quivering hand on her shoulder.

“Kinley,” I sob, desperately searching for some kind of emotion, anything.

Any reaction, any recognition to my voice. At the sound of it, she flinches. Just once, her body jerks forward and then goes completely still. Her body becomes a statue, unmoving. And in that moment I know.

My sister’s soul has gone. Fled away to finally be free. This girl---this zombie--- beside me, is just a body. It no longer contains the lively child whose joy was so contagious. It is left empty and raw, lifeless.

 The girl I once called my sister is one I can now claim to be dead. Taken into the hands of death. With tears pricking my eyes, I come to this realization. This body beside me, staring straight ahead into nothingness, is simply a figment of my imagination. In my fragile state, my mind is conjuring up this image, this silly pleasure for my empty heart to feed on.

But my hunger is left untouched. Its growls roar like no other, famished and left to emaciate. To wear thin and snap. Its emptiness like a canyon: taking up so much space, yet filled with nothing.

I peel my hand off of the girls shoulder and watch her disappear. Just like that, and she’s gone. Just like my entire being. I’m left bare, left with nothing to live for. Each breath coming out wasted, pollution to the air surrounding me.

 I’ve accepted it now. I can go on with this life, a burden plucked from off my shoulders. But nobody, not even mother, can ever take away my remembrance of her. The memories, they will always be a part of me. Even if the last one she left is one that will eventually break me.

“Miss?” A deep, cutting voice calls out to me. “Miss?”

I turn my head in the man’s direction, snapping out of my reverie. My eyes meet his, lighting them up like lights on a Christmas tree. I just stare blankly back at him. I don’t move a single muscle; I don’t lift my lips to match his foolish smile. I just sit. Sit and watch.

From the sidelines, my eyes follow his moving body. His gait is wobbly like that of an old man’s, his body bent slightly at the waist. I continue observing him as he makes his way to my end of the street. I easily size him up, noting that as he walks--- if I can even call it that--- he puts each foot in front of the other with a slight limp, as if nurturing an old injury left unhealed. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, he stops in front of me.

“Where is your mother, dear?” The man asks, a look of concern plastered on his face.

I’m about to give him a piece of my mind when I realize that he’s just trying to help. No need to put up defenses just to keep out those helping you. I force a thin-lipped smile onto my face and then quickly replace it with a look of sorrow. Time to play the cards.

“Dead,” I reply, my voice monotone.

The look the stranger gives me in return is complete shock. Wide eyes, his jaw dangling at his feet, slightly shaking hands. I try my best not to slap the look off his face, and turn to leave when he grabs my arm. He pulls me back gently, but with just enough force for me to understand that he means business.

“And your father?” He arches an eyebrow at me. I stare down at my feet as I reply.

“He’s in jail.”

The answer I get from the man is one I never, in a million years, would have expected.

“That’s impossible,” he replies, his voice wandering a tad bit. “I’m standing right here, Kinley.”