Oblivion
Episode 1 - "The New Kid"
Chapter 1
Blue sky. Green grass. White cinderblock walls. Impossibly tall black cypress trees.
Tim decided this was actually a great view, one he could easily get used to. He turned around and looked at the new house. Or, more accurately, new houses. It was a set of four row houses all facing onto Carver Boulevard, with his new school, Ojo de Cielo High, sitting pretty on the other side, behind the curtain of black cypress trees.
Of course, his family only had one townhouse in which to live. And yet, by a truly bizarre coincidence, all four had received new owners at the same exact time. It was vaguely unsettling to Tim. He had grown up with all manner of bizarre coincidences in his life. For example, the fact that they just all of a sudden had to move to that dull soulless suburb of Blancoville within days of Braig's arrival, his scarred face dripping sweat all over the immaculate tile floor of the old house in Sand City. Understandably, Mom had been pissed. But Dad, eternally calm as ever, simply ushered Braig into his office, and they spent a few hours speaking before Dad emerged and announced that they were moving north immediately.
While pulling his guitar case out of the trunk of the steel-gray five-year-old Sonata (a dull car for a dull suburb, Mom reasoned when she bought it just the day before), Tim looked at the row houses once again. His family was moving into the one on the far left. The second house, the one right next door, was also being moved into at that moment, by a couple who looked like what his parents might have been had they not adopted him and his brothers. A mid-height (shorter than Tim, who was himself short for his age at five-eight) man, with silvery hair just like Dad's, hefting a large crate of books up the box steps onto the little porch, through the sliding door to the left of the actual front door, and out of sight. The front door opened, revealing a tall but slightly plump blond woman, like Mom with a few added inches of height and width, who removed a box from the flat-green minivan (Tim wondered if this was even their minivan, especially since they seemed to have no kids of their own) and almost immediately dropped it as she could barely handle its weight. Glinting knives and other silverware spilled out all over the sidewalk.
"Hey, Enzo!" cried the woman. "Get out here and help me with the utensils!"
"Hang on a second, Lara!" Enzo responded, faintly, from the second-floor window. "Let me put down the books."
Tim turned away and proceeded to lower his guitar case onto the ground. He ruffled his overgrown blond hair, to see if it had gone back to pointing straight up even after being flattened against the inside of the trunk lid. It had. Of course.
"Tim, get in here!" yelled his younger brother, 14-year-old Rocky. "Or do you want me to call the bedrooms instead?"
Tim shook his head to clear his thoughts. Burying them all inside his mental vaults, he lifted the guitar case onto the sidewalk, up the box steps past the mailbox (under which Dad had already slapped the solar-powered night light reading "Nemo") and into the house. He then climbed the stairs up to the second floor, where there were two bedrooms to choose from. Tim chose the one with the street view. It would be noisy, but the view would more than compensate. Placing his guitar on the floor at the foot of one of the two twin beds, he looked out the window again, just in time to see a flashy pinkish-lavender Cadillac XLR convertible parallel-park behind Enzo and Lara's boxy Nissan minivan. The top was down, allowing Tim to see the car's two occupants, a tall thin man with long hair the exact shade of his car, and a tall beefy redheaded man. Gay couple, guessed Tim. Oh well. At least Braig will get to make some new friends.
"Dude, what are you doing?" Tim turned around to see his twin, wearing a faded red wife-beater that clashed spectacularly with his ruby-colored hair, which was otherwise just like Tim's – unable to lie flat, and unmanageably thick, so it seemed to float off his head in spikes. "I think you can enjoy the view later. Go down and get the posters. Most of them are yours anyway."
Tim sighed. "Okay, Axel."
Axel nodded, then crossed over to one of the beds. Predictably, it was the one closer to the window. Tim sighed again. Guess now we know why he went out for football back home. Competitive, and unable to give an inch for anything or anyone. He left the room and went downstairs to fetch his posters.