SUNSET773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlHM9UPSE9k
773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWK2pg9NPCZ
“See ya, Dammy.”773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuqT4AdT5zv
“Yeah… see you.” The boy looks up at the metal cage before him, his ride to hell. The schoolbus is filled with blank faces, meaningless features drawn upon canvases of skin. He climbs on and takes an empty double-seat.773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDwOOpPmXAv
White noise and chatter fills the bus as it starts to move, but the boy doesn’t take part in the banter, anxious about what awaits at the end of the trip: not school, which has just finished, but home.773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZM1om7v7Yn
His messy but somehow sophisticated hair hangs down his forehead, obscuring just the very top of his vision as he looks out the window.773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡet8NZYzCmt
His mother called him Adam: ‘After the good man your father used to be’, his mother told him. His friends call him Dammy. His father calls him a mistake.773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTGZFca4OO7
The bus engine drones on.
Adam doesn’t announce his arrival to the apartment, but much to his relief his father isn’t home. His mother is lying on the sofa, asleep, and the silver streaks down her cheeks indicate that she has been crying. Empty bottles are strewn across the floor, some broken. He carefully avoids the shards of glass as he crosses the room, recoiling in disgust at the repugnant smell of strong alcohol; a scent he is all too familiar with, any appearance of his father always accompanied by the stench. As he reaches his room, he falls onto the small bed with a sigh. His bedroom is small and bleak, dank with the smell of mould. There’s only two things Adam likes about it: the fact that it is his, and the view out the window.773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7I1FOATbhV
Just visible through the grime clutching desperately at the glass panes, the Icarus Point. As he looks at the scenic cliff, he subconsciously scratches the back of his hand. There are scars there; he does it too much. Today is no different, and he scratches it until it bleeds, and keeps going for a few minutes more, entranced by the cliff: at once a symbol of both destruction and beauty, the rock face suddenly breaking into blue sky; unreachable, high on a pedestal, but blue sky nonetheless.773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYgD0Gw3dnH
“S***.” His attention is finally drawn to the few beads of red liquid forming on his skin, and he grabs a tissue with a sigh, holding it against the back of his hand, watching the tiny droplets spread across the tissue: those small things creating huge stains.773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1Dhu3FFiye
“Adam?” He jumps at the sound of his mother’s voice. He turns around. “Oh, Adam…” She says sullenly, noticing the thin, scarlet paper he is clutching. “Why do you do this?”773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDBkk41QXsU
He just shrugs in reply. He doesn’t want to tell her it’s because he can’t stand the way she gives up, the way she never does anything, the way she lets his father – lets his father do this to them. He doesn’t want to tell her it’s because he feels like his life is strung together by only the most brittle threads of ice, melting away day by day, threatening to let everything fall to the ground and shatter.773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn7i8M7hLf7
No, he doesn’t do that – just an almost imperceptible raise of the shoulders and a turn of the head.773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw7uaRWjPn9
His mother looks at him for a long time, unmoving, until finally she heads out. One last glance back at her son: “You should get to sleep before your father comes home.” The door closes.773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMx3iA0jQz2
Adam’s thoughts fade along with his mother’s footsteps.773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtfRoGetIVW
He can’t remember the last time she smiled.773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHAtAeiTZ5Q
773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS3nzGiDyfb
diende…
