Chapter 2
He woke to the feeling of weightlessness, of a pressure on his chest. He gasped and found little air to replace that which he'd expended.
Frantically, he clawed out of his little space, and found a nearby hatchway marked something "crew" something. That was good enough. With strength born of desperation he cranked the handle and the sound of air leaking into the hold was welcome.
He put his face by the cracked seal and inhaled deeply, feeling tears sliding down his cheeks.
He closed his eyes, a part of him wishing this course of action hadn't been necessary.
I was just trying to be myself
Have it your way I'll meet you in hell
It's all these secrets that I shouldn't tell
I've got to run away
His father was the ideal citizen. Witty, charming, polite and respectful. In public. Once behind the closed doors of his home, he'd turned into a tyrannical monster.
Nothing was good enough. Wanting to learn languages hadn't been good enough. Wanting to learn an instrument had made him, the seven year old son, queer. Whatever that meant. It almost meant it was unforgivable.
His father ruled with a strap and a hand and fist of iron. The still healing welts on his back told of the sad state in which he'd found himself for trying to talk to his friend about what his father did.
Was it such a crime to want to be oneself?
It's hypocritical of you
Do as you say not as you do
I'll never be your perfect boy
I've got to run away
To make maters worse, his father had publicly humiliated him by shaming. His father hadn't approved of the method in which he'd gotten into a fight at school. A fight with an older boy who liked to pull his hair.
Hair that his father had cut off that same afternoon with a vibro knife in an unkind manner.
He couldn't understand why it was alright for his father to do something while he couldn't. Why the rules were different for his parent.
It had caused spite and ire to fester, driving him to the brink and finally, after one evening where his mother had been the target of the abuse, he slipped away.
And so he ran. He ran from the rules and regulations, he ran from the tyranny. He ran from the suppression and the lies. He ran from the fear. He ran because he wanted the freedom to express himself.
I'm too young to be
Taken seriously
But I'm too old to believe
All this hypocrisy
The freighter landed on another planet, a planet of which he didn't know the name, and he collected his gear, sneaking away when he heard the freighter's pilots talking about locating the air leak in the hold that was draining their resources.
He snuck into the new spaceport, shivering in the brisk wind that bit into the thin material of his coat.
He gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering.
He might only be seven, but he didn't believe that adults should be governed by a different code of conduct than children. He didn't believe his father had the right to hit him, and he wasn't allowed to fight back.
But no one took a seven year old seriously.
His only option had been to run. Run from the unfair treatment, to run from the nightmare that was his life. To run from the parent who suppressed all of his natural instincts with the intention of molding him into something he wasn't.
He ran because he had no choice.
And I wonder
How long it'll take them to see my bed is made
And I wonder
If I was a mistake
Now, alone on the new planet, the little boy seemed to suddenly comprehend what drastic step he'd taken. His mother was lightyears away with his father. Every person he'd ever known had been left behind when he'd boarded that freighter.
He huddled himself into a corner, pulling out the blanket and wrapping himself in it as he looked up into the starlit sky. He dreamed of being home, tucked in tightly into his bed, shabby though it was. He dreamed of a hot cup of milk, something to warm him as his teeth began to chatter.
He wondered as he sat huddling in the corner, trying to keep in his body heat, if they had yet noticed he was gone. Or if they had noticed, if his room had been clean enough to forgive the transgression.
Tears clouded his eyes and his head sank down. He blew into his hands, trying to keep them warm.
Did his parents even care that he was gone or were they finally happy to be rid of the burden that he was? If that was what they thought him to be. Had he been nothing more than a mistake?