Status: Coming along

Secret Hung the Gold

Before the Oasis

The blood curdling sound of glass shattering shocked Ernesto out of his sleep. One quick glance at the clock showed that it was 3 A.M. Ernesto glanced to his right to see his brother, who barely stirred. His two sisters were asleep on his floor. Ernesto grabbed a bat from his brothers side of the room and followed the noise.
As he opened the door to his room, a cold breeze greeted his face, waking him more. He walked into the living room to see the large pane window shattered and a brick at his feet. Ernesto surveyed the entire remains of the house before he bent to retreive the brick.
Ernesto’s heart fell when he saw the note…
“Roses are Red,
Violets are blue.
If you don’t get back here right now,
A lot worse will happen to you.”


Ernesto inhaled the fresh air that poured in through the window. Just by looking at it, he could see that the cost to fix it would be in the thousands. His mother couldn’t afford another heaping bill. Ernesto shook his head.
“What happened?”
Ernesto turned to see Alex, who was rubbing sleep out of his eyes. When he opened them to see the broken window, realization crossed his face. Ernesto saw his eyes begin to water, but before any tears fell, his resilience kicked in.
“Is that because of me?”
Yes. That is what Ernesto wanted to say. He wanted to scream it from the rooftops. Yes it is your fault. If you would have stayed in a child’s place, then none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have been shot, jumped, and been robbed, if you had just stayed out of it. Mom wouldn’t be thousands of dollars in debt plus bills, plus the cost of the window, had you just minded your own business. I wouldn’t be in half of what I am, if it weren’t for you, Alex.
“No, no it isn’t,” Ernesto said, wrapping an arm around Alex. “Just a couple of stupid people trying to get their point across.”
And they did.

⇐⇒

Sleep was not going to happen. Not with the shattered window, or with the throbbing in his shoulder. Not with his mother gone, still at work. Or with his mind racing over a billion things. His eyes darted over to the folder that Ariel left behind, which sat in the same spot since she gave it to him. He regretted looking at it, because now his mind drifted to her.
Ernesto got up slowly, rocking to get himself off the sunken couch. He walked over to the folder and picked it up, examining its contents. There was only three worksheets there, all about poetry. Ernesto sighed and closed the folder. Poetry? Did he look like the poetry type?
Ernesto put his head down after glancing at the clock. It was five fifteen now. He shivered, but not because of the cool early morning air that flooded in, but because of fear.
But Ernesto never feared.
He felt no fear as a child when his father would smack his mother around. Or when he himself was smacked by his angry father. He remembered those days, those agonizing days where his father would come home, high on crack, and beat his mother until her face was a mudded mess of blood and tears. Those days where his father would beat him for not being what he called “enough of a man.” Or when Ernesto would wake to his father beating him. Or fall asleep to his father yelling angry obscenities to him, screaming words that cut deep, down to the bone, to its marrow. Ernesto felt no fear when he walked into the bathroom to see his mother in the bathtub filled with red water. He felt no fear as he called 911, telling them of his mother’s attempted suicide. He felt no fear as he pointed his father out. He felt no fear as his father posted bail and came straight for him. He remembered the pain he felt as his father pelted him with blows, to his back, his stomach, his face. He felt no fear as he grabbed a lamp, and swung it- his eyes closed and voice screeching, as if every ounce of good and evil inside of him was pushed into the force. He remembered the sound of glass fragments shattering all over him. The “umph” his father made as he fell to the ground.
Ernesto never feared.
But there was something different in him this time, something beyond Statton or his mother, or his father. Something that made him fear. Was it the bullet wound that pulsed in his shoulder? Or the purple eye? Or was it the huge open window, that pushed in unforgiving night?
There was something there he could not touch. It lay just beyond his fingers, but held away like the desert journey before the oasis, like night’s daunting scene to the sun’s comfort.
Ernesto straightened himself, feeling as if days had passed since he closed his eyes. But it was only six thirty. The sun shined through the window, the birds chirped there happy singing songs, the unforgiving night dissipated into the beautiful morning. School was today, he could hear his siblings shuffling as they slowly began to wake.
Ernesto walked out of the house into the back yard and grabbed the flat sheets of wood that sat against the shed. He picked up the wood and a hammer and walked into the house. He stepped over glass shards and hung up the sheets of wood. He pulled out the vacuum and began the cleaning process.
By seven, both the house and his siblings were ready.
As they filed into the living room, Ernesto hurried them outside to the bus stop.
He sighed, and headed to the bathroom, where he took two of his pain killers.