"Just watch!"
"Abi, I really don't have time for this-"
"Just watch! It'll take ten seconds!"
"I don't have ten thousandth of a second!"
Mother and Father were being loud again.
Touichirou watched them being loud towards one another. Mother was always telling him not to be loud and then there she went and started being loud with father. He didn't understand her, but then again he didn't understand a lot of things, like why she wouldn't just give him back his ball. She had it in her hands. She had his other things, too, things that she knew were his. They were his because he had decided that they were his.
Like his ball.
Or his rocket ship.
Or his hairbrush.
Or his keys.
Or his television remote.
Or his chopsticks.
Or his carrot.
Those were all his things but she had taken them from him. She was sitting close to him, close enough that he could walk to her, not so far that he would fall…he couldn't walk very far at all yet. It wasn't fair. She could walk wherever she wanted and for as long as she wanted but he couldn't! It wasn't fair at all and he was letting her know that it wasn't fair in the only way he knew how!
By crying.
Because that usually got her to either do whatever it was that he wanted or to let him watch television. He wouldn't have minded some television, maybe the gum song would come on again, or the thing with the things…or even just one of her things that didn't have music or bright colors at all. He didn't care! This wasn't fair! This was the most unfair thing that he could remember happening to him ever!
Even worse than that bath Mother had put him in last night!
"Abi, if I wanted to hear the baby cry I'd wake him in the night. I have to leave, I'm late enough as it is." Said Father
"Aren't you in charge? Can't you just waltz in whenever you want to?" asked Mother
"Waltz…oh, right, that's an English expression. I can enter and leave at will but I cannot set a bad example for the men. If they see me taking my time then they will and our entire company will fall to ruin and then we'll have to move into some decrepit old house in the countryside. Do you want that?" asked Father. Mother made a funny face by rolling her eyes and putting her hands on her hips. He stopped crying for a moment. That was very amusing. Maybe she would do it again. She could be amusing when she wasn't being loud, or being missing, like Father was missing for most of the day…like he should have been missing right now.
The sun was there, the moon was missing, but why was Father there?
"As horrifying as the idea of moving in with your father is I just need you to stay and watch this, just for five seconds, just to see…just watch, it's amazing." Said Mother as she held out-his ball! He reached out and cried. He cried and he yelled and yet, still, she didn't do as she was told!
What was WRONG with Mother!
"Again, he'd just crying. I've heard it before. I'll tell you what, when I get to the office I'll call you and then you can put the baby on and then I'll have one of the men listen to him cry until…until it's over, I suppose. I apologize, I'm still not entirely familiar with the ways of your people." Said Father
"The ways of my…just watch. Just keep on watching. He's just…he's not doing the thing." Said Mother
"He's sobbing, that's a thing." Said Father. Mother let out a huffy breath and threw his ball across the room. It hit the wall and knocked over that thing he wasn't supposed to touch but touched anyway because he'd decided that it was his and he could touch whatever of his things that he felt like.
"No, just…look! Look Touichirou, your rocket ship! Don't you want your rocket ship?" asked Mother as she waved his rocket ship, and yes it was his she didn't have to go and say it so many times if she knew it as well as he did, back and forth. He tried to stand up to get it but she reached out with her foot and pushed him right back down.
"Should you really be kicking him like that? I know that I don't know as much about childrearing as you do but that didn't look safe." Said Father
"He's fine." Said Mother
"Are you sure? Because he's sobbing even more than before and the sound is really starting to aggravate me." said Father
"Oh, you think it's aggravating? You try listening to this day in and day out for a year! You try…you know what? Just watch. Here, he's been obsessed with my hairbrush lately. If this doesn't get him to do the thing then I don't know what will." Said Mother as she picked up his hairbrush, and it was his he had decided that, and waved it around. He tried to stand up but she simply pushed him down again. That was the most confusing part of all. She had spent all that time, he wasn't sure how much but enough that a lot of shows had passed, trying to make him stand up and now she was pushing him down….
It just wasn't fair!
"I don't know what I'm supposed to be watching right now but I need to go. If he does it again just tell me or-hey, better yet, I heard about this amazing new machine that lets you make movies right in your own home!" said Father
"Yes Yoshio, I'm aware of the sixteen millimeter camera. We actually have one…and I'm not messing around with the camera! I'm not recording him and then getting the projector all set up just because you'd rather be at work than with your family." Said Mother
"It's not a question of where I'd rather be, it's a question of where I need to be. Besides, it's not as though he's going to do something amazing while I'm away. He's a baby. He's only just now learned how to walk and, really, it's not that amazing." Said Father. Mother didn't say anything, she just made a mean noise, the sort of noise he made when things weren't fair. Like now. This wasn't fair! How could Mother and Father just stand there talking about…he wasn't sure what they were talking about, he had heard them say 'baby' a few times and that was his other name, but it wasn't fair!
And he wanted his things back!
"There. Amazing enough for you?" asked Mother as Touichirou took his things back. He pulled as hard as he could, hard enough that he could see his colors, hard enough that she had to let go! And she did…but that wasn't very fair either! After she let go he wound up hitting himself right over the head…and it hurt!
Rocket ships were hard! And heads were soft!
He cried and he cried and he cried but nobody did anything! Mother looked at Father, Father looked at him, and he looked at both of them! They were just standing there like he wasn't even there and they couldn't hear them but he knew that they could! If he could hear himself then they could hear him, that was how hearing worked! They could hear him but they were looking at him like he wasn't even there! And that wasn't fair at all!
What was wrong with Mother and Father!?
"I…I…." said Father. He didn't do anything other than say the same word over and over again. He could have at least said 'baby' or 'Touichirou' since those were his names. His name was not 'I'. That wasn't it and…well Father may have forgotten. Sometimes when Father was away Touichirou forgot his name…it was a little scary, another person being in the house with him and Mother, but he always remembered Father very soon after he came back from that mysterious place called 'work'.
It must have been a very good place if he would rather have gone there than done something about the bump on Touichirou's head…and how his rocket had been bad and hurt him.
"I have no idea what just happened." Said Father
"Yes! And neither do I! I thought, at first, that I was going crazy but then he just kept on doing it. Now, I don't think that he's possessed, I've read Rosemary's Baby and I have no recollection of anything demonic being done to me-" said Mother
"And you know I would never do anything to drive you away." Said Father
"That too, and I don't think that there's anything demonic about the baby. It might be more like the Midwich Cuckoos, if you've read that one-" said Mother as she finally picked him up. She shook her necklace…it was so funny! It was so funny how it moved and sparkled and…and what had he been upset about just now?
"You mentioned it before. I have a copy, I just haven't had much time for…for any reading." Said Father. Touichirou looked up. Reading? He liked reading. Father was going to read to him? That was always nice, though Mother was the better reader, Father went too fast. Touichirou could hardly follow the story before it was over…and the ones in the big white book he always read at the table weren't as interesting as the ones Mother read to him either.
"You read the paper every single day at the goddamned table when all I need…but that is neither here nor there. The point is that I think there might be something otherworldly about the baby. I mean, alright, there wasn't a mass fainting spell or anything but I did pass out after that party-" said Mother
"We'd both had a lot to drink." Said Father
"Yeah, we did, but I've never been accused of being a lightweight and I went to Berkley so, yeah." Said Mother
"You'd never had sake before." Said Father
"And you'd never…alright, we can argue about who's the bigger lightweight like a couple of college kids later. Right now we have to figure out what's happening to the baby? I don't think he can read my mind like in the Midwich Cuckoos, otherwise things would run a lot more smoothly around here, but I do know that he can move things without touching them. So we just…I have no idea, really, where we go from here." Said Mother as she put him down. He grabbed her leg and pulled himself up. Father had said that he was going to read so why wasn't he reading!? Touichirou looked around. Maybe he needed a book, that was all. He pulled on Mother's leg but she didn't go anywhere. He let go and walked over to his book pile himself.
He had to do everything around here, didn't he?
"…work…" said Father quietly as Touichirou picked up the blue book. He looked down. He didn't think that was one of the words in this book. He knew most of them and where they were…he touched the words on the cover. 'Our Solar System'….three of them, right? That was what that number was and he was pretty sure that those were the words…but Father would read them to him and maybe even count with him, too…
Where was he going!?
"And where do you think you're going?" asked Mother as Father went to the genkan and put his shoes on. He even pushed the stroller out of the way…which wasn't fair! Touichirou wanted to go!tt
"I…have to go to work. The baby…the baby is…I have to talk to a priest to see what the baby is or-or a scientist…but whatever he is he won't stop being it just because I leave the house for a few hours. I still have to provide for this family and you…paint something or shop or clean something. One of the things you do during the day. Goodbye." Said Father as he left. Touichirou screamed and threw the book, he threw it with his colors and it hit the door but Father didn't care. He just left…and that wasn't fair!
Nothing was fair.
"That man! I swear to God!" said Mother as she threw her hands in the air. Touichirou did the same and screamed. Mother was right, it wasn't fair at all!
"And you, you need to be quiet. I strongly suspect that you can understand me, Touichirou, and I need you to be quiet and…and watch TV, or something, I don't know. I need to think." Said Mother as she walked over, turned on the television, and then went upstairs. Touichirou didn't think that was unfair at all, since he at least had TV…and that show he liked was on with the song!
He laid down on the floor and sighed. Mother and Father may have been unfair but at least television was there.