Our havens grew less humane. It was the man inside of them that rooted their wildness, I recognized.
“Avi, what are you doing there, honey?” I strained my ears to hear Dad’s reticent voice slurring away in a ramble. The pasty walls that separated us in our condo muffled his already subtle words.
“Eating, why?” I mumbled after I gulped down my first bite out of a hard bagel. The musty crumbs disintegrated in my mouth, leaving a sour taste. I leaned over to the mini-fridge, my wild black locks veiling my eyes, and searched for the can of powder milk.
“Nothing,” a mutter echoed from Dad’s office.
My hands rummaged through the beer that Dad regularly bought but never drank, and the decaying whipped cream in the mini-fridge, but the usual half-opened, white can that froths melting powder at the top was missing. “Dad, where’s the milk?”
“Since when do we drink milk-”
“Since we came here and left everything behind, or so we were supposed to,” I murmured. I slammed the mini-fridge door, indenting on my fingers the unknown substance that was splattered on its door.
I rinsed my dirty hands in the sink. I rubbed them together under the faucet where the cleansing droplets were spilling out. If the water could have sunk inside my skin, cleansed the inside of me, I could have lived in a home, not an apartment with weekly rent.
The window was open; I usually leave it that way. The wooden outlining of its ridges is splintered, morphed from Dad’s and my society and the other one outside the window.
Through the window the spring air swept into our condo; I could sense the ripe, sweet scent of carefully-grown plums that must have dangled from pruned twigs so close. The delicious, fresh smell lured me into pressing my arms on the window’s ridges and sticking my head out. The clean scent of neatly-trimmed, lush grass that covered the other world enthralled my senses. And the Victorian-styled homes that flickered warm lights from their windows, that owned perfectly-cut green hedges that grew from inside their proper, white fences, was all outside my window.
I felt more comfortable, ensconced, in the cramped kitchen. I felt the familiarity of it rushed to me as I drew back the curtains and settled into my haven; the graying mini-fridge with its unknown substances splattered against its door, the sink that spills water wildly, the open-like, circle-shaped table. The kitchen was where Dad and I ate, together growing more plump, more happy.
I grabbed one of Dad’s frescos that were peeking from inside the rusty trash bin in the corner. The kitchen table was layered in welting newspapers and on top of them, vanilla envelopes, carefully sealed, were veiling the forgotten electricity bills and library fees. I heaved the stacks aside and propped his fresco on the kitchen table. It was Sunday; no tedious art history lessons, or, unfortunately, fascinating anthropology lectures to observe from Dad.
His warm colors had not yet dried and hardened with the plaster, I noticed quickly. The colors were still being absorbed by the wet surface, his newest image still being developed, but he had thrown it away. Dad must have felt it didn’t fit him well. And it didn’t, but I liked it. I liked the way the water pigments that created the rouges and oranges and brilliant yellows were shaped together, almost like a single flame that burns, that burns away the old and creates a cleansed, new life.
But the developing image didn’t fit Dad, it was simple. I wanted it to fit him… I wanted it to fit me, our world together.
I heaved the image, spiritless, into where it belonged. The trash bin clanged menacingly as the picture fell to the bottom.
“Avi,” Dad cleared his stiffly voice with a grumble, “Can you come here?”
“Alright,” I concealed in a nonchalant tone.
“What do you think?” his questioning voice lured me across our empty living room. When I crossed the doorway to his office, I saw two of him. Dad, the one I came to love, was stooping under the low ceiling, lumps I proposed to be his hands, curled into his pockets. His bald head shone with perspiration and his black, stubby eyes wandered anxiously outside the doorway, almost directly above my face. The other one was lying across a sturdy canvas.
“He-it’s horrible,” I replied. I let my black locks fall into my face, veiling the look of terror that I was sure was forming on it.
“He is,” Dad shook his head contently. “But do you like him?”
“I think I will come to love it, as I came to love you,” I lied. Refusing to glimpse the picture one more time, I lowered my gaze to the unkempt tiles that were in random order on the floor.
“That is good, that is very good.”
“You won’t be selling it, then.” My mumbled words were more of a statement than anything else.
Dad’s black holes went still, his lips parted in a sad matter. “You don’t love him at all?”
“I said I would come to love it,” I forced my lips to say. “But I don’t want to.”
Dad placed his arms on his waist, nodding idiotically, breathing faster. “You don’t want to love me, then?”
“You have a spirit, not that inhumane picture on the canvas. I could never come to love it. Why can’t you be more-”
“Like what? Human?”
