Life is a Funny Thing

1

A l e j a n d r o O c a m p o

"Alejandro!"

My dad calls me from a whole nother room. I'm laying on my bed, stomach pressed against the mattress, feet hitting against the headboard. I'm reversed the direction I'm supposed to be in, with my elbows holding me up while I play a video game and talk to my friend on the phone.

I groan. "Yes?" I yell back, knowing he probably won't respond because he wants me to actually go to him. I don't want to get up. I try again after a few seconds and still get no response.

I roll my eyes and exit the game, we had just lost anyway. "I'll be right back." I tell Diana, she mutters a quick 'okay'. I roll out of bed and land on my feet, I open my door and walk out to the living room. My dad is laying on the recliner with a beer bottle in his hand. "Yes?" I ask him for the third time.

"Could you pass me the remote?" He asks and I almost fly to the recliner he's laying on to slap him in the damn face. But I hold back, because he's my dad. "I know that's not the whole reason you called me here." I tell him praying that he didn't make me get up just for this. But he doesn't even look at me he just keeps his eyes glued to the tv.

I look over at the couch closest to me, and directly to the side of him, the remote is sitting on it. I look back at him then he finally looks at me. "You would get the remote for your wife if she asked, no?" He asks but I'm sure it's a rhetorical question. He knows I'm gay and he takes every chance he gets to talk about women with me. It's so fucking annoying.

I can't wait till I move out. But as a jobless 19 year old, that probably won't be anywhere close to soon.

I grab the remote and hand it to him. "Gracias" He says and takes it out of my hand. I clench my jaw and walk back to my room. I open my closet door and grab the first hoodie I see, a light brown almost beige one that has a dark brown teddy bear in the front. I throw it on over my shirt. "Diana are you busy right now?" I ask her.

"Hm? No, I mean we're playing Fort." She replies as I slip on my black and white vans. "I wanna go on a walk, wanna come?" I asked, this was typical for Diana and I, short walks were our thing.

"Ugh, I don't feel like it tonight, work wore my legs out." I laugh at that. "You enjoy it though." She adds as I pick up my phone, I nod. "Yeah, I'll talk to you after." I tell her and she bids me farewell as I grab my keys, phone, and earbuds off my nightstand.

I walked for a while, just thinking about nothing and everything really, I hated getting deep in thought, I didn't like the way my brain worked.

It thought about a bunch of things I didn't want to be reminded of, why couldn't this thing just shut off sometimes?

I stopped at a small playground and played for a minute, Diana and I come here a lot. We may be 19 and 20 but we'll always be little kids that wanna be pushed on swings.