Prompt: A visit from a strange cousin
Word Count: ~550
Written Today
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He arrives on the third of May.
What, who?
A strange knocking on door, a certain rhythm, a tune – sounding as if someone were thumping away on your front door with a spoon. In fact he is doing just that, a long spoon made of wood firmly in his grasp and raised for another round when you finally drag yourself across the apartment to respond to the noise. The sun isn’t up yet. He hadn’t called or written, of course.
He never does, this cousin of yours. When you were twelve he showed up for the first time on the front porch of your house, with a small blue suitcase and a toothy grin. He said something to your mother you couldn’t quite hear. You watched her grow pale and nod. “This is your cousin,” she told you, hustling the boy into the house. After that there were no more questions about his origins. Your mother said “It’s none of your concern” when you tried to ask. He simply laughed at you.
He stayed for three months. You would spent long, lazy summer afternoons playing in the shade among the trees, venturing far into the forest that surrounded your house, playing the most fantastic games. He could make the leaves on the forest floor spin around in awesome spirals, or chase after you, taking on all kinds of menacing forms as you ran screaming. You would burst out into the sun, your yard, tumbling in the grass.
He broke almost all of your favorite toys, eventually. There was no point in yelling at him for it; he never bothered to apologize and you always grew bored enough alone to forgive him anyway.
And now he is here again, standing in the hallway of your apartment building a good hour before dawn. This time it is his hair, otherwise neatly cropped and quite unremarkable, that is bright blue. If you didn’t know better you could swear there was glitter it it.
“Andy!” he exclaims, and tackle-hugs you before you can respond. You fumble for words. He invites himself inside in the meantime.
Who is he, really? Where did he come from? You never really did find out. How exactly are you related? You’ve never seen so much as a picture of any of your relatives, when you pause to think.
Why exactly do you believe him? Is it the way he conjures shortcuts in the metro after a night out, musty passages beneath the earth that you could have sworn never existed until he exclaimed, “look here!”? Is that enough? He never really speaks with any kind of consistency. There is no root, no pattern to his actions or words.
Perhaps you are inclined to believe in anything. Perhaps when you were seventeen you saw your mother simply glimmer out of existence. Did that really happen? You never spoke of it to anyone, never translated mind-images to words. There are things you do not speak of. You do not introduce this cousin of yours to your neighbors, colleagues, friends. He is nameless.
The space between sound and silence. An echo. The pile of laundry in the bathroom, a pasta stain on the kitchen floor, the vague scent of cigarette smoke and earth that lingers long after a departure, sudden and unannounced as always.
Word Count: ~550
Written Today
---
He arrives on the third of May.
What, who?
A strange knocking on door, a certain rhythm, a tune – sounding as if someone were thumping away on your front door with a spoon. In fact he is doing just that, a long spoon made of wood firmly in his grasp and raised for another round when you finally drag yourself across the apartment to respond to the noise. The sun isn’t up yet. He hadn’t called or written, of course.
He never does, this cousin of yours. When you were twelve he showed up for the first time on the front porch of your house, with a small blue suitcase and a toothy grin. He said something to your mother you couldn’t quite hear. You watched her grow pale and nod. “This is your cousin,” she told you, hustling the boy into the house. After that there were no more questions about his origins. Your mother said “It’s none of your concern” when you tried to ask. He simply laughed at you.
He stayed for three months. You would spent long, lazy summer afternoons playing in the shade among the trees, venturing far into the forest that surrounded your house, playing the most fantastic games. He could make the leaves on the forest floor spin around in awesome spirals, or chase after you, taking on all kinds of menacing forms as you ran screaming. You would burst out into the sun, your yard, tumbling in the grass.
He broke almost all of your favorite toys, eventually. There was no point in yelling at him for it; he never bothered to apologize and you always grew bored enough alone to forgive him anyway.
And now he is here again, standing in the hallway of your apartment building a good hour before dawn. This time it is his hair, otherwise neatly cropped and quite unremarkable, that is bright blue. If you didn’t know better you could swear there was glitter it it.
“Andy!” he exclaims, and tackle-hugs you before you can respond. You fumble for words. He invites himself inside in the meantime.
Who is he, really? Where did he come from? You never really did find out. How exactly are you related? You’ve never seen so much as a picture of any of your relatives, when you pause to think.
Why exactly do you believe him? Is it the way he conjures shortcuts in the metro after a night out, musty passages beneath the earth that you could have sworn never existed until he exclaimed, “look here!”? Is that enough? He never really speaks with any kind of consistency. There is no root, no pattern to his actions or words.
Perhaps you are inclined to believe in anything. Perhaps when you were seventeen you saw your mother simply glimmer out of existence. Did that really happen? You never spoke of it to anyone, never translated mind-images to words. There are things you do not speak of. You do not introduce this cousin of yours to your neighbors, colleagues, friends. He is nameless.
The space between sound and silence. An echo. The pile of laundry in the bathroom, a pasta stain on the kitchen floor, the vague scent of cigarette smoke and earth that lingers long after a departure, sudden and unannounced as always.
