SUNSET836Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLDdUclQoFe
836Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo4iOhcTEng
“See ya, Dammy.”836Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQCVf4kXyoh
“Yeah… see you.” The boy looks up at the metal cage before him, his ride to hell. The schoolbus is filled with blank faces, meaningless features drawn upon canvases of skin. He climbs on and takes an empty double-seat.836Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuYbIwzvyyT
White noise and chatter fills the bus as it starts to move, but the boy doesn’t take part in the banter, anxious about what awaits at the end of the trip: not school, which has just finished, but home.836Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpaZNCt5ZBd
His messy but somehow sophisticated hair hangs down his forehead, obscuring just the very top of his vision as he looks out the window.836Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9BcTEAXiV6
His mother called him Adam: ‘After the good man your father used to be’, his mother told him. His friends call him Dammy. His father calls him a mistake.836Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa42oI5Y49E
The bus engine drones on.
Adam doesn’t announce his arrival to the apartment, but much to his relief his father isn’t home. His mother is lying on the sofa, asleep, and the silver streaks down her cheeks indicate that she has been crying. Empty bottles are strewn across the floor, some broken. He carefully avoids the shards of glass as he crosses the room, recoiling in disgust at the repugnant smell of strong alcohol; a scent he is all too familiar with, any appearance of his father always accompanied by the stench. As he reaches his room, he falls onto the small bed with a sigh. His bedroom is small and bleak, dank with the smell of mould. There’s only two things Adam likes about it: the fact that it is his, and the view out the window.836Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUvtKKcdKWe
Just visible through the grime clutching desperately at the glass panes, the Icarus Point. As he looks at the scenic cliff, he subconsciously scratches the back of his hand. There are scars there; he does it too much. Today is no different, and he scratches it until it bleeds, and keeps going for a few minutes more, entranced by the cliff: at once a symbol of both destruction and beauty, the rock face suddenly breaking into blue sky; unreachable, high on a pedestal, but blue sky nonetheless.836Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9aw6T43pXt
“S***.” His attention is finally drawn to the few beads of red liquid forming on his skin, and he grabs a tissue with a sigh, holding it against the back of his hand, watching the tiny droplets spread across the tissue: those small things creating huge stains.836Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHYxGep4Uhu
“Adam?” He jumps at the sound of his mother’s voice. He turns around. “Oh, Adam…” She says sullenly, noticing the thin, scarlet paper he is clutching. “Why do you do this?”836Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdIBnNAUzD7
He just shrugs in reply. He doesn’t want to tell her it’s because he can’t stand the way she gives up, the way she never does anything, the way she lets his father – lets his father do this to them. He doesn’t want to tell her it’s because he feels like his life is strung together by only the most brittle threads of ice, melting away day by day, threatening to let everything fall to the ground and shatter.836Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM4m6nj2bZ6
No, he doesn’t do that – just an almost imperceptible raise of the shoulders and a turn of the head.836Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqPGH666Jzq
His mother looks at him for a long time, unmoving, until finally she heads out. One last glance back at her son: “You should get to sleep before your father comes home.” The door closes.836Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZpwAaXy2bT
Adam’s thoughts fade along with his mother’s footsteps.836Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0V8e0Gd6mj
He can’t remember the last time she smiled.836Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUdQsmdOnDY
836Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlD3kQwjrxs
diende…
