Apparitions ( Graser10 & Stacyplays )

02

Z a c h a r y

     The chair is cold even though the legs are made of metal and the only part I'm touching is the plastic seat. Beige in color, making everything boring to the eye. The walls are a light olive color, the tile a creme color.

     The person sitting in front of me with sunken eyes, her lids like leather. I could tell she was tired, I could tell she wanted a conversation, but my mind was somewhere else. Her hands sat on the table, and even though it's only been three weeks, she's aged ten years.

     "How's school?" She smiled, making me uncomfortable, her bouncy legs hitting the table.

     Dully, I focused on her brown roots in her blonde hair, "I punched Parker in the face. And I got an A on my biology test. I'd  say it's pretty fantastic."

     "Honey-"

     "Please don't mention Josh. I know I need to be exactly like him for you to love me." I thought again about what the nucleus of a prokraot cell looks like.

     Her nametag made a different person to me, "You aren't Josh, you're you, and that's good."

     "I wish I was Josh." I looked at my design on my sweater.

     Placing a hand on her forehead, my mother sighed and looked at me with her bright eyes, "Zachary, please, has therapy not been helping? I told your father-"

     "He has a girlfriend and could care less about my well being. Besides working and visting her in Detroit, I don't see him but a day a week. When he gives me money and brings me groceries, he sorts through mail and leaves. I go to school, therapy, and here on Saturdays." I snapped.

      A guard eyed our conversation as my mom looked down at her hands, "Oh my god."

     "Yeah." I shot.

     An old woman in a nice dress glared at me as she talked to a tooth pick built girl, her hands and sunken cheeks made me shiver, "Josh hasn't visited? He hasn't answered any of my calls either. Any luck?"

     "No he hasn't talked to me in weeks." I said.

     Shaking her head, she buried her face in her arms, "I'm a terrible mother. My babies hate me."

     You aren't you made a mistake. I stared at her greasy hair and said nothing. My mind didn't want to make her happy because I wasn't happy and it was ripping me apart. She needed me, and all I could do was be sour.

     "I love you mom." I sighed, nudging her lazily.

     She didn't say anything. But I knew she was crying in her arms and I didn't want to see. Her pity was too much for me.

     I scanned 'Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility' for the millionth time in the last half hour. Ignoring my criminal mother's sadness to fill the hallowness. She was still sweet somehow, in a prison. I could picture her being alone, hugging whatever she had in her hands as she walked through the bricked corridors.

     Grey made her look older than 41. Sweat suit and slip on shoes to throw her into the whole look. She was disappointed in me, and I was disappointed in her.

     The day she got convicted I got loads of looks and sorry's from people I didn't even know. My mom got around our little community and apparently put a huge 'Tainted' stamp on the last name Graser. Which in most parts is probably why Josh hasn't come back from college. Nobody knows about us out there. Nobody knows about the little brother with problems.

     Even Grandma had stopped talking to us. Not a single soul reconized me for me anymore. I was the criminals son. An output if failure and one lump some of depression.

     My best friends didn't support me. They just gave me hugs and promises of help in my time of need. Yet I sit on my couch with my family pictures facing the wall. Dad didn't bother to ask why, he just looked down at his shoes and gave me seventy bucks and a plastic bag full of bread, milk, ceral, and my anti depressents from the pharmacy.

     His girlfriend's name was Patricia and she refused to come in our house. Like it was the gateway to hell or something. Sitting in the car, staring at our sad home.

     Thoughts starting to boil I clenched my fists under the table and tried to breath. Picturing my dad's face and thinking of me hitting  him with a beer bottle that he stashed away in the tool box outside. My crying mom became blurry and my head hurt, anger was pent up and needed out. But I couldn't do that without getting kicked out of the correctional facility and put into another.

     Happy thoughts weren't present.

     "Remember when you took us up north. And Josh and I swam in the pool everyday the year before he graduated? Lake Huron was too rocky and cold, so we never went in." I said blandly.

     She looked up in confusion as I continued, "It was the last bit of fun before he left for college and became a different person. That year was great. That trip was my favorite."

     "You fed the bears apples, and fell on that rock. Yeah." Tears where already drying, and I felt better.

     Tapping my foot to the dirty tile, I looked straight at her, "Dr. Allyiah told me to think of happy moments when I'm upset mom. You should try it too."

     "So she is doing well with you?" Her face lit up.

      I nodded and gestured at the clock, "I gotta go mom. I'm sorry we didn't really talk."

      "You just need to have some emotions. Stop being empty. I know my own son. And he isn't heartless Zach." She wiped a stray tear before grabbing my hands.

     Why does her touch feel dirty? I thought as I stood up and hugged her. The guards guiding her back moments after. I stood still and watched as they patted her and took her through the metal detector. People stared at me as I did so.

Not once did she look back at me.