Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Man, beer, sleeping, brown

Often she'd find herself here.
Crouched under the corrugated iron that leant against the wall behind house.
He always came home smelling of beer after work on Fridays.
He'd get angry and would break stuff. Sometimes he'd push her mum around and she'd cry. Lily hated it when her Mum cried.
Her 'episodes' as her mum had called them were happening more often too. They seemed to coincide with his Friday night outbursts.
After the last one, they had to call the ambulance. She'd woken up from her sleeping, thought she heard the man say something about 'Pepsi' and that her fits seemed to be related to anxiety.
Tonight though was bad, she'd blacked out completely and when she'd woken, in her place, under the safety of the brown, rusty corrugated iron, her lip had been bleeding.
Her mum wasn't yelling anymore but she could hear him pacing up and down the hallway.
She stood on her tip-toes and peered through the window.
Her mum sat huddled in the corner of the room under the safety of the brown, rustic curtains, Lily could see her shoulders moving. She knew she was crying.
Lily climbed back under the iron and for a moment, she and her mum were in the same place.

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