Fiction
Growing Pains
The boy wasn't close to his father. Their interactions were simple and never long-lasting. An occasional hug and a pat on the boy's back for his youthful achievements sufficed for his father. His father was a devoted worker and could always be found in his study with a mountain of paperwork and a glass of gin. The boy's mother was bothered by this and would often bicker with his father in a whispery manner after the boy had seemingly fallen asleep. The boy, however, would sit with his ear pressed up against the wall in the late hours of the night, listening to his parents' love for one another slowly perish. When he'd grown tired of listening, the boy used the light that crept from under his door to cast winged shadow creatures along his ceiling. He liked to imagine himself as one of the creatures flying far away. His parents' whispers eventually turned into screams. The glass of gin turned to two, then three. And there came a day when the stack of papers disappeared altogether, the glasses remained empty, and the house quieted. There was no longer a place for his father's clothes in his parent's dresser, a place for his father anywhere.
On the first anniversary of his father's leaving, the boy woke on the hot June morning, feeling as if his back were on fire. The boy showered in an attempt to get rid of the pain, assuming it was some allergic reaction. However, the shower only made the sensation worse. His back stung and ached, and the boy began to itch and itch until his skin turned raw. For some reason, the boy felt afraid to tell anyone of the mysterious pain, so he exclaimed to his grandmother, who watched him while his mother was at work, that he had come down with a cold and needed to rest for the day. The boy drew his curtains closed and cocooned himself in his bed. The burning continued to worsen throughout the day, and the boy convinced himself that he'd gone mad. The boy's mother arrived home from work around dinner time to find the boy curled up in bed. When she questioned the boy about feeling sick, he shrugged. But after some more talking, the boy's mother got him to confess what really had caused him to hide in his room all day. There was something about his mother that made it impossible for people to lie to her. She could always get the truth out of someone eventually, except for the boy's father. Perhaps that's why his parents' marriage crumbled because, unlike the boy's mother, the boy's father was an expert at swimming in his own lies.
The boy hesitated to reveal the horrors that lay underneath his shirt. He slowly lifted his shirt, tensing at the pain from the room's air hitting his exposed wounds. The boy waited for his mother to scream, but to his surprise, she sat quietly with a puzzled look painted on her face. After a few moments of silence, the boy's mother stated that she did not see what the boy had been fussing over. She only saw a few light scratches along his back. His mother told the boy to sleep it off and that he'd feel much better in the morning. When the boy woke the following day, the pain had gone.
On his 16th birthday, nearly six years after he last saw his father, the boy had gone swimming at one of the nearby lakes with a few of his friends. One of his friends had suggested racing, so the boy took a deep breath and set off into the water. The boy had almost won when he suddenly felt the familiar burning ache smother him. He felt a thousand needles dig into his skin. The boy surfaced from the water with a cry that left his friends horrified. When the friends questioned the boy about what the matter was, the boy just muttered that he needed to go and hurried home on his bike. Tracking wet footprints throughout the house, the boy ran to lock himself in the bathroom. His reflection in the mirror revealed that his backbones had swelled, and the skin covering them pulsated. The boy wept. He didn't understand what was happening to him and why no one else could see what was happening to him. He didn't understand why life moved in the way it did, why it burned and starved him from fullness. He forced himself to sleep, and when he woke, he returned to normal, just as he did five years before.
When his high school graduation day arrived, the boy felt a fluttering in his chest. His mother patted him on the back and congratulated him for his achievements. The ceremony was held on a dry-grass field on the outskirts of his school. While the boy sat, waiting for his name to be announced to receive his diploma, the boy looked out into the mob of families and happy mothers and fathers. The boy felt the fluttering he had been feeling intensify. When the boy was handed his diploma, he let out a chilling shriek and collapsed to his knees. The blades of his shoulders pierced through the skin on his back, leaving his graduation gown dripping crimson. The boy collected himself, and when he stood, two scaly, brown wings emerged from his body. He found his mother's eyes amidst the crowd; they were wide, with tears welling up inside them. The sky opened up, and the man flew far away.