“This is a security announcement,” a metallic voice said confidentially over the loudspeaker. “Please do not leave baggage unattended. Unattended baggage will be collected, and may be destroyed.”
Heard that so many times it is blurring in my brain.
Unattended baggage may be destroyed.
Well, I am an unattended baggage, at least my mother always called me a snooty baggage, and now that she’s not here to say so anymore, I am unattended, adrift, abandoned, left behind.
I still don’t believe she just left me with him. Just picked up, took the train up to Guston, leaving me with him by myself , which really means leaving me by myself, since ever since Momma left, Daddy’s been… gone. Down at the Hydebound, drinking and watching the Raiders with his friends. He doesn’t want to come home and look at me.
Well, the feeling’s mutual.
I won’t go home, not when he’s banging around piling up dirty dishes in the sink and thinking it’s my responsibility to clean up after his slobbing. Not when I find him staring at me, staring at me dead on with some kind of evil marked all on his face. It’s safer here, in the station, staring down the old ladies and hitting up the sugar daddies for a bit of cash for some gum. And as long as I can avoid the station wardens, I’m in good shape. It’s no place Daddy will find me.
Daddy says she’ll come crawling back, but I don’t think so. I don’t want her to, anyhow, not unless she’s coming back to get me. If I stay here, I’ll see her before she gets out of the station, down to the bus stop, back to the house. If I can just talk to her, I’ll say, Momma, here I am… now we can both go, and never let her step foot in his path again.
Someone eventually comes for even baggage left unattended, don’t they?
this picture is the basis for this week’s story… more to come, see Ficktion.ning for more.
