His world ended on a Sunday, but he still had to go to school the next day. Beatty's mother had been stolen from him and his father made him go to his private hell the next day. Her name had been Jocelyn and she was the opposite of his fathering both character and temperament. Jocelyn had always been pale with light brown hair, mismatched green and blue eyes, and a gentle nature.
Beatty's father, Nathaniel, was dark skinned, dark eyed and could be incredibly nasty when things went wrong for him. Nathaniel was known to have a drinking problem but Jocelyn loved him anyway.
When cancer took her from them Beatty wished school would last forever so he would never return home to his empty home and empty father.
Beatty was short but built like his father. Everyone who knew them commented on their likeness to each other. Beatty hated every minute of it.
Beatty paused, closing his journal. His mother had encouraged him to write out his emotions; his father called him weak for keeping a diary. He closed his eyes, hoping for a temporary reprieve from the memories flashing across his mind. Abruptly, the image of his mom seared his thoughts. Her body on a funeral pyre, flames licking and snaking about her restful face. No, not restful. Dead. But she couldn't be dead; he had seen her three days previously laughing, joking, smiling. Not dead. Alive! No! The flames were killing her with their fiery grace.
Another flash: His father whipping him across the face as he struggled to save her. She couldn't be dead but his father just wasn't listening.
Beatty remembered collapsing, weeping openly. Nathaniel kicked him roughly in the gut, ordering him to get up. Beatty's sole remaining creator turned away from his pleading son. Beatty thought he saw glistening drops of salty water on his father's cheek, reflected in the light of the brightly burning fire that engulfed his on true love.
The motherless son's eyes snapped open, crusted with dried tears. Monday morning. He worked on automatic, getting ready for school. Brush teeth, comb hair, retrieve books. He saw his father passed out on the dilapidated couch; surrounding him were numerous empty bottles of bourbon and whisky. Sighing, Beatty covered his father in a worn blanket sown by his mother. She was gone. Beatty shut down the thought. He took the sadness, and emptiness, and anger, and locked them away deep inside of himself. No emotions, nothing could show, no one could know. He neither wanted no needed their pity. He chose to take life one day at a time. Breathe in, breathe out, one, two, feet in the shoes, three, four, walk out the door, five, six, get on the bus, seven, ei- he was startled from his reverie by a ninth grader and his posse surrounding him and snatching his books. No one noticed. No one cared. The leader of the group, a kid going by the name Johnny D, pushed Beatty back into the puke colored seats when he tried to escape. Johnny D proceeded to punch him in the same spot where his father had kicked him the night before. The already tender spot flared with pain. As this was a regular occurrence the other occupants ignored the pained youth's plight as he was assaulted and his lunch money stolen.
Eventually, Johnny D grew tired of Beatty and, delivering one last bone crushing punch, left him cowering on his seat. Beatty, bruised and bleeding, picked up his books and disembarked from the newly arrived bus. His shoulder length dark brown hair was ideal for covering his black and blue eye and torn lip. He had learned to hide such shows of weakness quickly as his school was a public one. That first day back he spent in his refuge: The library.
Once he arrived he took out several of the largest tomes and sat in the quietest corner, hiding from himself. He cracked open one of the books and began a journey away from his own life but his eyes couldn't focus on the words and no matter how many pages his hands turned the dark markings on the thin paper meant nothing to him. Soon, he grew tired of his non-life and slipped into a fitful sleep. Empty books chased him and fire terrorized him and the darkness threatened to consume him. He snapped awake with a yelp as the final bell tolled. Gathering his things, he left the school.
The bus ride home was uneventful but his arrival home was not. The main problem was that his father was awake, and, having no one else to blame, he took out his anger on Beatty. Beatty knew that at this point that it was useless to fight. It had started when mom got sick and it would grow worse from then onwards. Beatty forced himself not to whimper or plead; that would only make Nathaniel angrier and draw out the beating.
He curled into a tight ball and forced his mind to drift to a happier time. The last picnic they shared, Mom and Dad pushing him on the swing, all of them running from the ants, Mom and Dad holding hands and talking. After an interminable amount of time the attack from belt and fist and foot stopped and Nathaniel drifted over to his seriously lacking wet bar. Beatty found himself unable to stand and so crawled toward his cheerily blue room with his book bag which had fallen at the entrance of said room at the beginning of said onslaught.
Gradually, over the following week things started to normalize and a routine emerged from the chaos. Nathaniel's condition started to degenerate and Beatty's bottled fury continued to pressurize. It was Beatty who snapped first.
On the Sunday, a week after his mother's death, Beatty still found no comfort in his books. Sunday night he snuck out and grabbed his father's lighter from where it was hidden on the gun rack. In his room he retrieved his favorite trilogy and darted outside with the lighter and a candle. His original plan had been to read by candlelight as he had when he was younger.
As he cracked open the aged foundation book the words blurred before his eyes and the book dipped forward. It's pages had barely graced the flames before they leapt with newfound light. Beatty was unable to put out the fire as he watched in joyful horror as his hands refused to extinguish the dancing evil that was destroying something he loved. Something he used to love. It was the first time in a long time he had felt some stirring of emotion. The emotion was joy.