Not a Lullaby (spin off of Hollow)

 

Not a Lullaby 

Clara fidgeted with the hem of her sleeve as she sat on a bench in the unkempt park near her house. Her feet shifted and tucked at something, she looked down and saw some weeds growing out. Her hand gazed on her forearm where it stung. She had covered up the bruise pretty well with her gray clothes but that didn’t help cover up the pain at all. 

It’s just a bruise, it will go before you know it. She thought to herself. 

She closed her eyes and laid her head back and soon began to drift off when suddenly out of nowhere today’s memory seeped in.

Everything was a blur when a big hand came and slapped her across the cheek, the impact made her face the right corner of the room, where her mother lay unconscious and beaten up, she tried to reach for her but she was sharply pulled back by her forearm and then there was another slap and another and another.

By the time Clara snapped out she was gasping and fighting her tightening throat. After a few moments she calmed down and her breathing went back to normal. Death was so close and she had let the chance go. At that moment and almost every moment of her life, Clara had thought of death and to her, it was not an ending but a starting to freedom. 

She thought about being wrapped and being lowered down in a coffin and lying there in peace forever. Her tears slid down her cheeks and then dropped on her lap one by one. 

Words cannot explain how much she wanted someone to come and hold her tight and tell her that everything was fine. She didn’t mind being called weak because she was, indeed, weak. How much she wished that someone might see through her act of being happy, that someone would just know that she wasn’t fine when she said she was. 

She wished so much that she had a peaceful and happy family. They would live in a small house and every morning they’d eat hot breakfast over the table and chat and laugh and then they’d leave for work and school. 

But the reality was that her hope was now gone. She hadn’t accepted it but was made to accept it.

She wiped the tears and scooted left wishing someone was sitting next to her and comforting her. 

As if on cue her neighbor, Clove, walked by with a blank, fore lone, and brooding look in his eyes. Since his mother’s death a couple of months ago he had been like this. She thought about how much he would have thought about dying and guilt filled her. How could she sit and cry here like she was in pain when it’s clove who needs someone right now. 

She laid back afraid of closing her eyes again when the first drop of rain hit her below her eye and slid down like  a tear. And soon the rain got heavier and soaked her but she didn’t get up. Road lights lit up the poor street but she sat there. 

She would have sat there all night and waited patiently to die but she heard a cry, loud and clear, she looked back and sensed it coming from Clove’s apartment. She knew he needed her so much more than she needed someone so she got up and made her way to her house.

Once she entered, she heard the smashing of a bottle and her father’s door being shut with a thud. She checked if it was clear and headed to the kitchen. She then got a bag and put a few cans of food in it without making a noise. 

Just as quietly as she had come she left. 

By the time Clara had reached Clove’s house, he had stopped crying and sat there in the middle of the room thinning his way into a shadow.

Would she be happy to see me, if she somehow raised again?   She heard him say.

‘No, she won’t’ she said as happily as she could put it.

She walked towards him and sat down. 

 ‘Why would you cry like that? I was so worried when I heard you, I ran’ then with a naughty smile added ‘Don’t act all so innocent now, do you really think your mother will be pleased to see you giving this death of hunger to yourself?’

Clove innocently shook his head, which made Clara smile wider. She then started emptying the bag of food she had brought. 

With dominance, she added. ‘Now you eat or make your mother and me angry’

Though it was foolish Clove laughed after a long time and then she too laughed after a long time.