Chapter 11

"You look…" Then Roger shot an icy look at his mother. "…different." She finished her sentence cautiously. All her life, she had to adjusted, just to understand his strangeness.

"I… don't know what to feel." He truthfully said, but his response was greeted with a snort.

"Of course you don't. You always shun your feelings." His mother retorted in a matter-of-fact voice that Roger, did not just hate, but purely loathed. "But, just to help you out, son…" She laid a platter of stacked pancake right in front of him, then laid the bottle of maple syrup and the tall can of whipped cream right next to his plate. "I'd find out the root of what's troubling me."

He suddenly felt so small in his chair. Being treated like this by his mum greatly annoyed him because she always knew what to say. He wished he could have a great mind like hers, a mind that worked independent of other's help and advises.

"That's great," he muttered, grabbing the maple syrup, pouring a generous amount on the top.

"You ungrateful little shit, you," his mother said with a small smile. "Just like your father." Her grin grew wider, and Roger, though she deliberately insulted his father, found himself returning a smile. "He didn't like to be bossed around, to be told what to do, or what not to do. Liked to work alone, your dad. That's obvious, right? He ain't here right now. He liked doing things alone, like you do, son. And he despises me whenever what I say to him is right. I bet you feel annoyed I'm right again. Right?"

Roger playfully stuck out his tongue at her, and allowed his mother to flip the bad finger at him. Then he ate in silence as his mother washed the dishes. Damn it, that woman's right, he deeply though, chewing and swallowing the hot treat down his throat. Damn it, that amazing woman is my mother.

"You're as lonely as your father," she suddenly piped in, after turning down the spigot and the water's rushing noise halted. "But sooner or later, you'll realise, you want a friend. Or that you need someone." She looked straight into Roger's soul, staring deep into his dark eyes. Roger had no choice but to stare back at the same pool of depth, but he couldn't puncture down his mother's soul as she did to him. "It's okay to be alone sometimes. But when you get too lonely, you'll want someone to trust all your feelings to." She turned away and left the kitchen.

"Mum!" he found his voice and muffled the word though his mouth was still stuffed. The young lady reappeared at the doorway, parting the beaded curtain away.

"Yes?"

He gulped down his food before professing, "Mum, you are right. I am alone. I am lonely."

She took this as a cue to sit down at the chair across her son.

"I've been having a weird dream, Mum," he progressed on. "There's this island. Oh, it's beautiful. Green trees, a vast clear ocean, hot sand, and the feeling was… liberating. No adults around, I was on my own! But there were others, too. I saw Jack in there, Mum! And, and, there's this boy… called Simon… and many more boys I don't know who, but they were mean, and I just don't understand… and that's the problem."

"Does this keep on happening?" she inquired quietly after he spoke in one rushed explanation.

"Yes, and it's nightmarish, Mum. The liberation felt good, honestly, but… someone, or something, bah, it feels evil as well. Jack… did awful things. He stole something! And I don't understand what's happening but," he shuddered, "…horrible things happened."

"You don't know what this means?" her voice raised with a curious eyebrow, but Roger shook his head.

"Honey, you're starting to remember!" Her voice wasn't alarmed, but a bit hopeful, as if anticipating a new discovery. "Rog, you're finally remember what happened when you were gone!"

"Wha—"

"Oh, god, you can finally tell me what's wrong! You've never been so moody after that incident!"

"What incident, mother?"

"The island incident!"

There was a long pause. A staring contest began. His mother's face was twisted with worry; she looked imploring. Bur Roger couldn't understand, and it was evident with the face of frozen confusion upon his dark face.

A scary thought dawned upon him before he quietly asked, "That… was… real?"

His mother, looking a bit crestfallen, nodded ominously. She tore away her gaze from his son and put her hands up to her face. Her bony shoulders slowly heaved up and down, as if she was wheezing silently. A sniffle escaped her fingers. Roger couldn't understand why she was crying.

"Oh, it's been years…" she moaned softly against her palms. "Just before the war. And I had to take caution. Your father even agreed with me. So we send you off to… a better place, at least that's what they said. But, god, of all the airplanes in the world that could've crashed on some uncharted island, it had to be the one where you were boarded on. Many months of hell came my way, and nothing your father said could cheer me up. I wanted you safe. I'm glad they still found you after all those years. You were just a boy, just a boy, not a soldier, not a knight, just a boy..."

Silence swept the kitchen and although the sun and the sky promised a beautiful Sunday, this morning was already heavy as if yesterday's thunderstorms were still lingering around the walls.

"Some kids died. I thought it must've traumatized you… You never talked about it. Ever. I gave up opening the topic to you. I think it's hard to keep such memories. Your best friend die—"

"Jack's not dead." His voice sliced through her sentence before she finished it.

"Oh, I wasn't talking about Jack!" she snapped. "It's Simon!"

"What?!"

"Simon!" Then she slowly pulled away her hands and took the edge of her blouse and wiped up the tears that streaked down her cheeks. "Don't tell me you don't remember Simon! You've been in Elementary and High School together! Jack should know him, too. You lot were used to be a part of the school choir. You've invited him in this house before. That short boy with green eyes who laughed a lot and-"

"Jack knew?"

She nodded.

As if that was the sign of approval, something rose in his heart. A strong feeling of anger, maybe rage, rose up to his head and soon, he exploded with the words, "HE KNEW? HE FUCKING KNEW? SIMON'S DEAD AND HE KNEW THAT?"

She gravely nodded, then watch her son storm out of the house, leaving his plate only half a pancake eaten and a deafening slam of his bedroom door.

Walter: Sorry for the long chapter. Well, well, well... this is getting longer than I expected. But anyways, my fingers are just typing out whatever they feel like, sometimes I wonder if it's even my brain whose thinking these kinds of stories. Oh well... tragedies are to be expected in the end, as always.