The morning Adeline asked to play hide and seek, her father
cracked a smile.
When the foremost of sun’s beams
etched out a path in the sky, subsequently penetrating the off-white cloth
curtains of the room of the child, Adeline awoke. Her face painted a contorted grin of a labored collection of
sun kissed memories, not yet manifested, as the worn droplets of light sprinkled
over the curved cheeks and forehead, dribbling like the spit of a predator with
hind legs in states of tension and leading nails in a battle for
territory. As one foot descended
from bed to ground, Adeline, still moist from the sweat of sleep, gabbled
silently with thrill. For today
she would skin the hind of childhood, as both predator and prey ascended from
juvenile mockery, and the games commenced.
So, young Adeline, still in her
nightgown, began her quest across the lonely home. She skipped out of her room, fluttering like the dust that exposed
itself to light, and knocked on her parent’s chipped door. Adeline babbled, “Papa, wake up, wake
up. It is five five! Five five! Five five!” Her
father, already having awoken and dressed, stood still on the other side of the
door. He pressed his pelvis firmly
into the stained wood and smiled.
The motive for such actions arose
from the halls of history. In the
paternal family’s undocumented records, a series of events became
traditional. Every immediate family,
from the time of the crossing of The Pond, bred one, peculiar child. This child, once attaining the certain
5/5, would participate in a single round of hide and seek with their sexually
opposed guardian. The certain 5/5
is unique for individual members.
However, predominately, the age stands too high to search for monsters
under the bed, appropriate to fear them, and too small to obtain the
understanding that those very monsters lurk within the very owner of the
age. Having had his daughter
finally reach the mark, the father was excited. For today he would skin the hind of childhood, as both
predator and prey ascended from juvenile mockery, and the games commenced.
Hide and seek dominated the
recreational realm of the childhood his body once experienced. Darkness and claustrophobia strangled
the trachea – he appreciated the tormented grip. For the father’s own progenitors, had lingered in kindness
far too long. As a celibate, the
younger skin of his own craved a fall.
The game, ready or not. The plummet of the lungs and stomach at
the sound of “come” shook his corporeal being to the core. Comical, is it not, that the
reverberation of the collection of waves resembling the same word caught as a
child, excite him to this day?
“Run,” the voices would yelp.
“Ascend one knee after another, as sweat condenses on the forehead, and
vestal lips sputter in the wind.”
No pureblooded amalgamation of live atoms could hide in the game for
long – limbs, without fail, crave the demand of application. Appendages, games – thirst.
The
father partook in a game of his own nature. The maternal clan decreed, “Children play games.” He whispered through the worn opening,
“I play back.”
“What
did you say, Papa?” whispered Adeline.
Her father avoided response, removed his enlarged pelvic region from the
chipped barricade, and opened the door.
He picked up his daughter, and kissed her on the neck. Subsequently, he murmured into his
daughter’s hearing hole, “Go hide.”
Adeline
returned to the floor with the aid of her father’s tightly gripped hands, and
ran off. Her hair bobbled as she
ascended one knee after another, as sweat condescended on her forehead, and
vestal lips sputtered in the wind.
She knew exactly where to hide.
She had analyzed this moment in her mind for weeks.
As
his daughter excitedly raced off into hiding, the father lay on his bed. His body remained over the cream
colored covers, but his right arm slid under the numb body of his wife. She was cold. A tarnished type of frost coated the female member – a
description best fit as impure. An
exact time has not been pinpointed, but at some instance, she had smudged
herself, unknowingly. She knew not
the cause for the smudge, and in response, withdrew herself from
interaction. Her husband became
cold. A hard and warm type of ice
coated the male member. He
stiffened with disgust, nonetheless, the remembrance of the previous night made
him smile. He recollected the sullying
of the eyelashes of his wife and the consequent plucking of the very hairs from
her seeing holes’ scalps. Only the
lashes on all five ends remained.
Once his wife fell into slumber, the man licked her lids and pasted the
fibers of keratin onto her forehead.
Eventually, the man retracted his arm out from underneath the wife, and
began his quest across the lonely home.
He
exited the threshold.
Once
out in the hall, a small object of matter caught the father’s greasy eye. An outlined flower of reddened,
translucent petals laid dormant on the knotted wood plank. The father wandered closer, descended
to his knees, and halted. The
object was no such flower. The
nails of a child had been arranged in the shape of a natural figment of nature. The nails had slightly yellowed,
rusting into a more opaque form, while blood splattered their surface and
stained their shape. Each nail had
a minuscule hole.
At
the site of such atrocity, the father panicked. He called out for his daughter’s name and began on a direct
route to the child’s room. Pure,
he thought. Pure. He reached the threshold, and cleared
the barricade.
In
front of her bed lay young Adeline.
Her body was wrapped in off-white curtains. The father calmed.
The man undid the bondage.
He smiled. It was
time. Once unwrapped, the father
lifted his daughter’s limp arm.
The hand had been mutilated.
Each of the five fingers had experienced molestation – nail was missing
and a thin scrape, starting from the center of what would have been the area
dedicated to the nail, extended outward.
The skin of the scrape appeared chewed. Blood clotted in the cavern and oozed out from the
crevice-like cave of the missing protective piece. The pinky was altogether absent.
The
father cradled the hand of his daughter, using more than just his own
gripper. For him, appendages liked
to be applied. He thereafter,
continued with the unraveling of the child.
Immediately,
his lungs and stomach plummeted as his body shook to the core. Plastered all over his shaved daughter
were miniscule hairs. The same
plastering he had used on his wife, drenched his daughter. The man grabbed his groin with
shock. Each hair, no longer than
half a centi-meter, hugged his daughter.
They enveloped every fold and crease. Penetrated all openings, and laid on all five limbs.
The
father shook. His hands began
shaking. His teeth began
chattering. The enamel in his
whites lashed against one another, developing foam, as the tongue intertwined
with the jaw, and the fingers abused the uvula. His feet began feeling uncontrollably hot. He pushed them into his daughter’s
stomach. He began feeling the half
centi-meter hairs dance in-between his toes. He began biting his lip. He began biting his lip so hard. He began biting his lip so hard it bled. He began biting his lip so hard it
bled. He began biting his lip so
hard it bled. He began biting his
lip so hard it bled.
He
began to touch his groin. He
unbuckled his pants.
Discharge. He was
bleeding. But the blood was pink. He grabbed his member an
d laid down next to his daughter. He desperately belted, “ You were the one. The one. My daughter, you were the one. The pure.
Purity. I had found
purity. Hide and seek. You hid, and I sought. I found your purity. I would discover your
purity. Invent it. You were pure. Pure. Pure.
Pure. Pure. Pure. I would break that.
I would devour it. For you
were my predator and I was your prey.
We were hide and seek.”
As
her husband lay next to the child covered in the off-white cloth, the wife
grinned. She stood tall and erect
in the threshold, draped in her nudity and the eyelashes of her own. She breathed in the scent of the room,
so powerfully, her stomach contracted.
Through the paled and contracted skin of her own, a finger depicted its
indentation in the area of her stomach.
The
morning Adeline asked to play hide and seek, her father cracked a smile.
- J. A. Kind
