I - On the road again

44 0 0
                                    

Tristan stared out of the window with a blank, pale expression, his eyes gazing at the evergreen moving background in the moving vehicle he calls home. He watched cars and vans, and motorbikes and mopeds and sometimes bicycles’. His mind was young with a lot to discover, a lot of information to soak up inside of his spongy brain and fill it with blues and greens and reds and yellows. He liked watching through the window, it was never the same, always changing, always different. He liked that. This time it was big green-yellow hills and tiny trees and a big blue sky, patched up with little blotches of white clouds and grey clouds, both thick and thin in an array of sizes. He saw some animals too, cows and pigs idly strolling across the hillside and birds, flying low above the hills, swaying to the wind.

The RV rumbled quietly and gently vibrated as it was driven down the grey-black tarmac. The nterior was filled in white, with boards of brown that looked like small support beams, keeping the moving metal box's shape. The floor carpeted in a plain maroon colour and split to wood floor as it went into what would pass as a kitchen. Hanging pots on hooks clanged together, pushing quiet metallic noises through the RV. At both sides of the vehicle sat two small counters, they were a mahogany brown with metal handles that glimmered at the sun. And immaculate tops so reflective you could see your face in them down to the faintest of imperfections.

He was a thin child, his bones slightly peering through his fair skin. His clothes were too small for him, blue denim jeans that touched his ankles and a plain white shirt that exposed his stomach. His hair was scruffy, like a ball of black fluff attached to his head, he was like a paper-mache doll, almost cartoonish. He looked as if a 5 year old had made him in a half hour long session of arts and crafts.

He kicked his feet back and forth, knocking loudly against the wood underneath him. Sat next to him  was Bill; his dog, his ears twitching and tail wagging, his tongue sticking out and panting happily at the company of his owner, but Tristan’s expression was welded to the window, as it always was. The childs gaze was always fixed on the outside world. He always wanted to explore and discover the world, why did he have to be stuck in this moving metal prison?

 His mothers shouts pulled his brain back into focus. "Tristan, stop banging your feet." She demanded, awkwardly picking at the old varnish on her nails. She was sat towards the front of the RV, with his Step-Dad in the drivers side, one hand on the wheel, precariously flipping through different cassettes for the radio, eyes half on the road, glancing back at the road, then to the draw of cassettes again. "Keep your eyes on the road Joe!" Tristan's mother exclaimed, clipping the side of his face with the back of her hand. He sat back up and stared down the road. "You pick the damn music then Jen" He murmured. Tristans mother; Jennifer, was always loud. It often got on Tristan's nerves, along with very other family member they new. Her high pitched voice and sub-human squeals were almost unbearable. The RV stopped at a red light and Joe immediately started flicking through the cassettes in a frenzy, which caused Jen to give him a theatrical sigh, as she always tended to do. Joe stopped and looked at her. "Calm your horses love, I'm just looking for something to listen to." He said, then continued to flip through the cassettes. "You should have done that before we set off!" She retorted angrily. They always argued about meaningless things. Tristan huffed and looked back at his window. "Stupid, meaningless things" he whispered to himself. He shot up in a second, running towards his mother he shouted. "Mommy, Daddy!"

"Not now Tristan!" They shouted back.

They glanced over to the window and they're eyes widened; a half-tone truck skidded and veered towards the side of their RV. His mother let a whailing scream.

The truck smashed into RV at a ridiculous speed against the side the RV, ripping the back clean-off. It launched along the road and bounced across the tarmac, sparks flew as the metal of the RV scraped the floor at an alarming speed. Cassettes flew out and dispersed into the already rolling RV with Tristan bouncing off the walls, hitting the roof and hitting the floor, only to be raised up into the roof again, like a malicious god-like creature, throwing him around like a rag-doll.

Tristan awoke in a daze, legs torn to the muscle and bloody tears down his jeans. He painfully lifted scraps of metal off his chest, heaving in the smoke, now billowing into the air, He crawled across broken glass and yelped in pain, the shards of tiny daggers burrowing into the palms of his hands. He crept out of the crushed hole that was torn off of the back of his mobile home and stood up, tears rolled from his bleeding eyes, half closed with dried blood, crusting against his eyelashes. Blue and red lights flashed in the distance. He sobbed. "Mummy... Daddy?"

We three (Incomplete)Where stories live. Discover now