2.30 am
Damian was wide awake, but it was only 2.30 am. He tossed, turned and rolled from one side of his king – sized bed to another. The air was cold and damp, and as he looked out of his frost – covered window, there was a thick fog covering the moonshine. He could remember how during the day, the weather was not better either. It was as if Mother Nature mimicked his feelings.
The icy grey sky had grumbled relentlessly. Soon after, the delicate clouds would get weighed down by the burden of the rain and give in. Lion – esque thunder roar would fill the whole sky and evict the sound of emptiness that once resided. Damian could remember himself sobbing loudly and walking through this same icy rain. The drops pierced his caramel wet skin. Walking down the muddy path that led home, he slipped and fell. He cared not for this, nor the entirety of himself for that matter. Nobody – not even his parents – cared about him anyway, so why would he even bother?
He got up from his bed and walked to his window. He sat at the windowsill trying to seek out the moon but to no avail – the night was just cold, dark and unwelcoming, just like his home.

6.00 am
“T- minus 10, 9, 8, 7…” sounded his alarm, like the Control Centre countdown during a rocket launch. He rolled over to turn it off as he sat up.
“Again?” he muttered. Yes. Again? He wondered why he had to do this all over again. He wondered why he had to continue sailing through this thing called life even though he was a shipwreck, struggling to stay afloat. It made no sense to him. Certain things for him were just not the same anymore. He tried to look for the fun in eating his favourite foods, but all he could remember was the taste of soggy unsalted mashed potatoes instead. His favourite songs now sounded like scratches from a broken vinyl. Fond memories of his favourite places, things and people in life now felt like static noise from a TV with poor signal reception. What once was screaming colour now turned black and white.
When he was done mulling over his disastrous life, he resolved to get ready for school.
Damian was about to turn 16, the peak of his teen years. In this nuclear family, he was the only child as his mother had birth complications. He loved his parents to bits. In fact they were his whole world. However, his mother and father were on terrible terms. Basically, Damian had a deadbeat dad. Ever since he got employed as a banker, it was as if his dad forgot that he ever had a son. He would come home late, leave early and at times, totally not show up at home. At all. During the weekends he was absent too, and in the ones he was at home, were spent arguing with his mother. Either that or he was out having fun with friends or one of the office girls. All in the name of corporate business trips. This all resulted in Damian being so heavily depressed. He longed to do the things other kids his age did with their dads, like playing soccer for instance. While that was one of the causes of his depression, the real main one was his parents arguing and fighting blatantly right in front of him.
During one argument, his dad expressed his distaste and disappointment in Damian.
“You know, the reason why he’s like this is all your fault! He can’t do math, can’t do soccer, can’t do ANYTHING right!” His ego bruised everybody.
“I’ll have you know that I did not bring him into this world alone, so if anything, you should be blaming yourself too. And besides, when did him not being able to do the things you mentioned make him less of a son, a human being? You never took the time to know him. Bloody hell, it’s like you don’t even live with is anymore. If you did, you would have never let these words escape your mouth!” his mother snapped back.
Hearing this, Damian retreated to his room to revel in a pool of his on tears that night. Then, he would proceed to carry himself as a liability, a ne’er – do – well, for practically the rest of his life. This greatly damaged his self – esteem and confidence. Consequently, he fell down a metaphorical rabbit hole and went into a downward spiral of anxiety and overthinking. Never would he dare to walk with his head held high ever again.

7.00 am
As Damian took the Metro to school, the thought long and hard about the things his dad had said about him. How he could not do math. It was true though, at least to him. The highest grade he had ever gotten was a D + and that was the easiest test that year. Neither was sports his strong suit. He could not, for the life of him, kick a ball straight, let alone catch or even dribble. Tripping seemed like the best thing he could do. Damian was very clumsy too. In the span of a week, he had broken his mom’s porcelain crockery collection. He felt like these words were written on his skin and defined him. Poor Damian was too blinded by that to realise the things he was actually good at. Like painting and writing. Poems specifically. He experimented writing poetry after one lesson in English class, and boy, did he have a knack for weaving words into each other like threads on a winter scarf. Despite all that, nobody ever noticed Damian’s talents except his teacher of English who never failed to applaud him. Bu even that was not enough to make Damian see that he was worth something. Looking at it now, he missed the old life where he used to live. His old school, neighbourhood and friends. They would never judge him for anything. With them, he could be anything he wanted to be. He could even be himself. But that was all long gone, as he and his mother had to move to a new state, as she had separated with his dad and she wanted to start over. She wanted nothing to do with him. Well, as much as she tried to erase him from her mind, Damian was enough evidence that he once existed.

8.00 am
Arriving at school, Damian wondered why everything was so lively and bustling. It was almost never like this unless there was going to be some sort of event; one that he had no idea about. And there was one. Damian was just out of the loop. He pulled out the school calendar on his phone.
‘PARENTS’ DAY’
“Oh.” Damian seemed completely aloof that it was today. However it did not matter to Damian. At least not in the state in which his family was in. Pieces. Torn apart, disoriented. Seeing the other kids holding their parents’ hands or walking alongside them on the paths made the contrast between their families and his family blare like an ambulance siren. His heart sank for a long while, as he sat on one of the benches at the soccer field. “Oh well… I guess that’s how it is sometimes,” he consoled himself, through a sigh.

3.00 pm
On the bus ride home, Damian looked out of the window. At the trees as they flew past. He could not help but wonder how everything in his life took up the same behaviour. Fast. Fading. Fleeting. He felt like everything, up to the point where he was, happened so quickly and suddenly without him actually enjoying any of it.
“I, wish I, was strong
Enough to lift, not one
But the both of us…”
These were the lyrics of the song Damian heard on radio. A female voice crooning over a light pop – country beat. Immediately, tears filled his eyes. Never had he related to a song this much in his life.
Damian wished that he could be there for himself and his mom, who had a hard time dealing with his dad’s situation. So did he. Both of them were shipwrecks floating through this sea called life. Rarely did Damian ever have lengthy conversations with his mother. Mostly because all she did was go on about how devastating it was that his father was treating them this way. Essentially, Damian did not have the ability to provide the tremendous emotional support that his mom so desperately needed, while he also dealt with issues of his own. It hurt to see his mom like this and he wished that he could fix her. Hell, he wished he could fix everything. But he could only do so much at 16.

4.12 pm
As Damian walked down the street he could see some cars parked near his house. He was a few blocks away, so he could not clearly identify them. He got closer and eventually arrived home. He was perplexed at the sight of his dad’s car. His father had not been there for quite a while, almost half a year and now showed up unannounced and uninvited. Behind his dad’s car there was a police car. Far behind, an ambulance and even farther behind, a van from the Child Protection Agency. This was definitely not a good sign and he did not second guess it. But why? What was so serious that summoned all these vehicles? Possible answers formed at the back of his mind, but he tried his best to take them with a grain of salt. At least until he got the real gist of what was actually happening. Police officers walked in and out of the house and three of them proceeded to cordon off the front lawn with yellow tape that said, ‘POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS’. Hardly had he started walking towards the front door when he saw two officers approaching him.
“Hey there young man, are you a member of this household, and are you related to Carole Porter and Alex Porter?”
“Yes sir. I’m their son,” he said in a shrill and shaky voice.
“Come with me son,” the officer said after a sigh and led him to the house.
His tummy rumbled. An overwhelming sense of fear gripped him. Knots formed in his throat. His head hurt. Just before he could get inside, he saw his neighbour, a very elderly lady. Her name was Mrs. Crenshaw. She was always nice to Damian and his mother, and loved baking treats for them. She was standing with an officer, talking through sobs.
“Well… they started out talking,” choke “then Mr. Alex started raising his voice…” choke “and all of a sudden screams,” choke “then all of a sudden, silence. I… couldn’t hear what they were saying because it was all so… muffled…” She finished, with a loud cry.
“Thank you ma’am. Please, take a break,” the officer said while beckoning her to the stairs on the porch.
Damian took a deep breath. His head hurt. His vision was all blurry and his fingertips, nose and toes frozen and numb. His blood ran cold.
The officer opened the door, and asked him to walk inside. Damian was always afraid to go inside his own home, but not under these circumstances. This was… intense. In the distance, he could hear someone struggling and grunting. He looked back. It was his dad, in a police car, trying as much as he could to set himself free but the officers watched him with contempt.
Inside, there were signs of a struggle, and this was clearly a fight’s aftermath he had never seen before. Furniture was overturned, vases, cups and plates shattered on the floor and blood stains in a trail. Blood stains. His legs felt wobbly for a second. The officer led him to the kitchen, where a stream of fresh blood flowed out and across the hallway. There, two paramedics in blue shirts and jet black trousers zipped up a body bag. They left it halfway open.
This was really not happening. Or maybe it was some sort of nightmare that he was unable to get out of. She lay there, cold, lifeless and blue in the white plastic bag, with a bruised face with little cuts of dried blood. Her white blouse – which she was wearing in the morning when Damian bade her goodbye, was stained in scarlet blood.
Had he known that was the last time he would see her alive, he would have cherished that moment. Damian did not know how to react. It seemed as though he was still processing those emotions in him. He just simply looked at the police officer that brought him there. The officer gave him a big bear hug. Weeping ensued.

^{© Brad Lawrence, 2020}