Fu Tu re

3: Second Mornings

Out of sight, out of mind, but then it brought back the severed ears to the forefront of her conscience like a dog bringing something it didn't know it shouldn't.

In mind, in sight.

When the train arrived at its passengers' stops, Forti wondered, did a dilemma await all of them too? Did they have to choose between a man's life and the chance to wake a comatose person? Maybe nothing as specific. For now, they were all someplace where a person could sleep among strangers, and she joined in.

After years of riding the city subway, training her subconscious to catch the names of stops, and jolting awake at the right one, she stepped back onto a fixed platform, and decided to be odd.

Instead of heading to the stairs to get out of the tunnels, she weaved around pedestrians to an empty area and stayed still. She waited. The subway doors slid shut, the ceiling-high glass doors to enter the train closed, and the train finally zipped with a whir down the maglev track, gone in two blinks. Nothing out of the ordinary. She wasn't expecting much, but she had no desire to face reality yet and gripped onto the lethargic haze from her nap, letting her feet lead the way back home.

On the eighteenth floor of her apartment, she knocked on one of four doors. Her brother opened it and let her in wordlessly.

"Mom, I'm home." She kicked off her shoes and set them aside in her part of the cubbies.

"Hi Fortien." Her mother was in the kitchen, preparing dinner. "Did you have fun?"

"Yeah. They talked a lot, though, so I'm a bit tired."

"Ahsta... Mom knows what you mean," Forti's mother said in their native language. "People talk so much. It's why Mom likes being at home."

Forti chuckled, or tried to, but it came out as breathy huffs. She could hear the melancholy in her mother's voice, and retreated to her room after giving her mother a hug from behind. Her brother was already back at his desk, working on homework. Forti collapsed on her chair.

"Where were you?" He asked without looking at her, occupied by his tablet and papers.

"With friends."

"You don't have friends."

"With secondary school friends, they reached out."

"Is that what you told mom?"

"Get off my back, would you?"

Her brother was quiet, and then mocked Forti's words in a nasally voice. Forti spun around and pressed her feet at the back of her brother's seat.

"Hey, get off my back."

It was Forti's turn to mock him, and then she began kicking.

Her brother yelled, "Mom! Forti's bothering me!"

"Mom, Wibby deserves it!"

"Fortien, Wyver, stop bothering each other," their mother ordered from the kitchen without any severity. Forti gave her brother a final kick with both feet like she was jumping off a launchpad, using the pushback to rotate back towards her desk.

About a little less than an hour later, the siblings heard the front door of their home unlock. Forti had changed into her homewear a while ago, but did nothing else except sit and brood. At some point, Wyver started scrolling on social media as a break. Their father's voice mingled with their mother's. He was back home from work. They simultaneously sensed him standing at the doorway to their shared room.

"Hi dad," they both said.

"Hi Fortien, hi Wyver. Mom finished making dinner," their father replied. The naming conventions of their culture meant their mom was also called "mom" by their father, and their dad was called "dad" by their mother. Those were their parents' titles in the household, and they were to be addressed as such.