#multi-perspective

[softakespics]

Old short story I found from my uni writing folder

Family Affairs or family life: a five minute clip

It started with a broken picture frame -Emily 

The frame fell from the wall, the glass shattering everywhere. 

“I didn’t mean to!” I shout, looking at my offending elbow. I’d knocked the picture off the wall in the hall as I shrugged my coat off. The shopping bag with the milk I’d just fetched dropped on the floor.  Splitting the carton.

Mum came out from the family room, where she and dad had been arguing. Her face wrapped around a furious glare.

“It was an accident!”

“You were an accident!” she spits out. 

I stare at mum in disbelief. I stammer apologies to her back, looking at the mess on the floor instead of her retreating back as she storms back to the argument. Slamming the door so hard the pieces of glass on the floor skitter backwards. 

I have to fix it, I set about finding the broom and mop. Stashed in the pantry, like it needed to be a secret. Heaven forbid someone knows we sweep or mop our floors.

The frame is split, cracked across the diagonal joins in each corner. A small scuff on the bottom of it where it hit the floor. Nothing too dire.

It’s a picture from a family trip a few years ago. Some family friendly resort in Spain, I have a vague recollection of some giant costumed animal mascot. My sister and I have matching pink bucket hats and bright sunburned cheeks, dad’s in the middle arms round us both. We’re grinning like maniacs with the beach behind us. Mum had taken the picture, then promptly thrown a tantrum about some non-existent problem in the hotel room.

I sit with the pieces on my lap, wondering if I can get it  back together without it looking too broken. I go to find a glue gun in the office, if I can find it under all of dad’s paperwork. I take the long way round, avoiding the family room where the yelling is.

I heat the glue gun, focussing on that rather than the stomps and shouts in the next room. Trying to not hear the words being spewed out. As I hear the words disappear into a low murmur. The silence might well be worse. 

I focus on lining up the frame perfectly. 

Sometimes to fix things you have to pull away any bits that are really damaged to get it to line up again. I pull at some shredded bits of wood, picking with my nails to even it out, sanding it as best I can with the rough edge of my woolly sleeve. 

If I can fix it, it will be better. I can go in, and show it to mum, and she’ll be so impressed. I turn my focus to fixing this thing.

I can make it okay.

I pick up the glue gun pressing the button. It hasn’t been on very long, the glue gun isn’t that warm. But sitting here, feels like an eternity.

“What are you doing?” 

I look up, Paige is there. Shuffling in, in her thick black slipper boots, ripped jeans, purple haired, ‘goth crap’ as mum calls it. She’s got the orange juice by the neck of the bottle. She looks like she’s about to drink it straight. I debate calling her out, but if mum hears it right now she’ll flip her attention to Paige. I make a mental note to not drink that one and open another later. 

She sighs, smacking her lips as she gulps it down. 

“Do you want help?” She asks, raising a darkly shaded, recently pierced eyebrow at me.

I nod, and she takes this as a cue to sit next to me, she quietly takes the frame, lining it up and holding it as I weave the glue into the cracks of the frame.  She shifts the headband of her blue headphones, opening up one ear.

“They’re pretty bad today aren’t they?”

I nod slightly, not meeting her eyes. 

She stares for a second, “Wanna come up to my room for a bit?”

It started with paperwork- Dad (Henry)

It always starts with the paperwork. There’s just so much of it, my desk is always covered. I can’t keep up with it. Every time I feel like I’ve hit the bottom of the pile on the desk my secretary has put more on it by the next morning. It’s in my work-bag, it’s in boxes, filing cabinets and well ordered piles that seem to sneak past the doorway of the office onto the dining room table. 

It never seems to end, I can work till 3 am and there’s still papers to get filled and only I can fill them. 

 I’m exhausted, I could do without having to deal with this today. 

I don’t know when I got to this point. Drowning in paperwork. I’m sure I used to enjoy my job. I’m sure I used to enjoy my weekend. I’m sure I used to enjoy lots of things. I used to have the energy to go camping, or kayaking, or paintballing, or something.

 I used to have fun.

 Now I feel like fun’s doormat. Stuck in a room full of people with muddy boots. 

Now, I come home from work where I’ve dealt with more paper and bullshit meetings, to do more prep for God only knows what, I haven’t even looked at my list for tomorrow. Without so much as a greeting Amelia nags saying we need to spend the weekend repainting the family room because of some reason. I make a non-committal noise. I’m sure if I just take my morning slowly it can wait for a weekend or two. That or it’ll take too long and she’ll either forget or find a decorator. It was the wrong move. I didn’t realise she was in one of those moods.

I zone out for a minute letting her get it out her system, she’s always a bit better after. She shouldn’t bottle things up like this. I don’t know why she’s like this, I could have sworn she never used to be this highly strung. Her brain sort of changed after the kids, she never really got past the pregnancy mood swings. It’s caused issues before. When she stops being my wife and becomes this caricature of herself, some sort of 1950’s-esque nightmare wife.

“Are you even listening to me? 

“Huh, yes?”

“Oh I can’t believe you! I’m trying to talk to you about something important? You can’t just tune out!”

We turn to a crash in the hall. Amelia pokes her head out the door. 

“It was an accident!” I hear muffled through the doorway. It’s one of the girls, I really don’t think they should see their mum like this.

“You were an accident!”

“Amelia,” I hate this, “I think you should go back on your meds.”

It started with yelling- Paige

I heard the voices through my headphones. I don’t know when the yelling started but it's become the usual accompaniment to my music, acting as a thrumming bass filled with fury and frustration. 

The rise and fall of mum and dads fight, an interesting composition. One that’s become so familiar I can almost predict each key of the fight. The pointiest key around, C#. 

The first note; nit-picking of dumb things runs as a long semibreve dominating the first two bars. This usually takes the form of weird fixations. There’s mud on that skirting board. Then it becomes we need to paint the skirting board. Then it's actually… hmmm….the whole wall needs painting. And she usually decides it has to be right then in that instant or the immediate Saturday one of the only days both she and dad have off. 

The next few bars of warbling quavers and semiquavers, usually clashing seconds. As she freewheels between emotions, fluctuating between introspection, sorrow, and fury. 

In between songs on shuffle I hear, “It was an accident!”

“You were an accident!”

Oh shit, looks like Em’s caught in the crossfire. Normally I’d ignore it, hoping it would help her figure out her own survival tactics. But I heard a crash and something’s probably broken which means Little Miss Perfect will be very upset.

She just hasn’t learned yet, gotta fly under the radar. It’s taking her a while.

Stupid kid.

I descend into the ‘heart of the home’, under the guise of orange juice retrieval. I’ll check out if she’s chill enough to come up to my room. If she calls me out for drinking from the bottle, she’s on her own. If she’s cool I’ll help her keep out of sight and mind for the rest of the day till everything settles down. 

She’s hunched over a picture frame. 

I can’t leave her like that, she looks so lost, desperately wiping at the edges of the wooden frame. Wide eyes shocked that I’m downstairs. I offer help. She doesn’t speak when I talk to her, her eyes shine with tears, and her cheeks are bright red. We sit fixing the frame in silence.

 “Wanna come up to my room for a bit?”

It started with the end- Amelia 

I’m done. There’s just so much crap everywhere. If it’s not paperwork it’s something else. Socks, shoes and coats strewn about the hall. Just for once I would like some peace and quiet and a tidy house. 

That’s all I ask. Pick up your crap. I’m exhausted from the monotony of my days. I say the same things every morning, I pick up the same stuff, I trip over the same shoes.

No one listens to me. 

How can they not see how cluttered and dirty everything looks? Piles of papers on the table, socks in the hall, shoes next to, not on the rack, coats everywhere, stray gloves. There’s a PE kit, there’s a phone charger trailing on the floor, a random book which should be on a shelf . So on and so forth, I walk through the room looking at all the things, just left out.

I don’t want to think about the milk that’s been left out curdling on the kitchen side.

I just don’t understand how they can’t see all of this? How everything seems to be falling in against me. I’m trying to do everything. I get finished with one task only to have three more a minute later. I’m constantly chasing my tail trying to balance sixty plates at once. It’s impossible. 

Some days I just want to leave it all, get away. Pretend I’m not me, pretend I’m living another life. There’s a crash in the hall. 

Great, more mess.

“It was an accident!”

“You were an accident!”

 It’s Emily, the shock in her eyes evident even through my cloud of rage. It slowly filters through as I slam the door. Shutting her out. Oh God wait, why did I say that?

“Amelia, I think you should go back on your meds.” He states in a low whisper. He looks serious, of course he’d take the kids side. He always takes the kids' side, it's them over me every time and I’m sick and tired of it. He never listens to me 

“Don't make out like I’m the crazy one here!”

“I’m not. I’m just suggesting you go back on to your meds for a month or two. It helps.”

“It helps what? Who does it help?” They help them sit around and pretend like I’m calm when all I feel is empty. “Who does it help, Henry?  I’m not crazy, I don’t need them.”

“There’s no shame in taking them.”

He doesn’t want to help. If he wanted to help, he’d see how messy this place is. If he wanted to help he would just listen to me for once. This crap comes from nowhere. It builds so quickly, it must be a conspiracy of some kind. 

I can’t do this. I can’t keep living like it’s groundhog day. Having the same chores, the same meals, the same fights over, and over again. All because no one listens to me. 

What can I say to make him listen to me?

“I want a divorce.”