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My dad never told me that I had an Uncle Tom, now I know why...
*I have a story to tell you.* Picture this. It’s 2004 and you’re rocking half a tub of cheap gel in your greasy-hair. You’re twelve and It’s coming up to Christmas. You’ve put a PSP on your list for Santa, otherwise known as your overweight and middle-aged father with a bankbook and a face of pure misery. You’re already planning what games you’re going to buy with the bundle of notes your grandparents will doubtlessly give you. It’s snowing and your mum won’t stop playing W*hite Christmas*. You’re dad looks depressed but you don’t know why. Money shit probably, except it isn't, not really. He pulls you into the kitchen one day with a heavy weight rounding out his shoulders. That was December 2004 in the Kent residence, in a small crappy little suburb on the wrong side of Suffolk.
“Listen bud, I’m going to need you to sit down.” Dad points to a kitchen chair. I sit down, worried that my PSP is going to be a Gameboy. My dad fidgets with his belt, his beer belly muffin-topping over his too tight jeans. “I’ve just had a letter in the post. Uncle Tom is coming over for Christmas.”
“Uncle Tom? I don’t have an Uncle Tom.” I said, my brows knitting together. Dad let out an angry sigh and looked out of the window. People always look away when they’re about to lie.
“Yes you do, of course you do. My brother, *Tom*, he’s coming to join us for Christmas.” He replied, his voice fracturing with apprehension. “I need you to be well-behaved. You have a habit of being, how can I put it nicely - *well you’re mum isn’t here* \- a cheeky little bastard. Don’t be like that this Christmas. Do what you’re told, speak when spoken to. I know these things may seem impossible to your little hormone ridden brain, but if you’re good, I’ll buy you every damn PSP game out there, plus I’ll take you to Butlins.”
“Take away Butlins and add a new pair of Nikes and you have a deal.” I bargained, sensing that my father’s desperation presented a lucrative business opportunity. He gave me a look that I had only seen mirrored when he was at the car dealership buying himself a new BMW, and he held out his hand in defeat. I was a good salesman. “Good doing business with you.”
“Cheeky git.” My dad muttered as I sulked off to my room. My head was full of questions. My dad had a lot of brothers, so it didn’t seem crazy to me that I might have forgotten one. There was Uncle Jancy, Uncle Vince, Uncle Jeremy-Bob, Uncle Nate, Uncle Harold and Uncle Simon. There was Uncle Nile too, but he died when he was five. Dad never really spoke about him. Granny was a really busy girl. But uncle Tom? I’d never heard of him. Black sheep of the family perhaps. I was twelve and to be quite honest, I didn’t give a shit. Another uncle, another day.
Maybe he was in jail and he’d just gotten out. The idea of that thrilled me. I wondered if he’d look like dad, all balding and fat. That thrilled me less. On the run up to Christmas Mum and Dad started arguing more. There was an atmosphere in the house, thick and heavy, like something big was about to go down. Mum was cleaning like a crazy woman. The hoover was on non-stop and the whole place reeked of bleach. Dad had started taking long phone calls in his office all day. I just played my games as it went on around me.
“Simon… Simon… I know… I fucking know.” Dad was shouting. His jowls would be shaking and his cheeks reddening. Thanks to the paper-thin walls in our house and the fact that his office was next to my room, I could hear absolutely everything he ever said. “I know he went to Jancy’s last year… I know it’s my turn… but I have a kid. You don’t have a kid… you take him. He’ll like that. He liked you best. For whatever fucking reason. Pricks like pricks I guess.”
I paused my game and leant back against my wall with my eyebrows squinted. The whole thing was confusing to me. They were making Uncle Tom sound like an errand that ought to be equally split between them.
“Simon. Simon. You’re not listening. I don’t care that Beth’s uptight sasquatch of a mother is coming to yours to devour your dry-ass turkey with her two different sized forks. You promised me that for Jake's sake I’d never get left with… with… it.” Dad roared. “Worst fucking uncle of the year Simon. Vince pawned the kid’s playstation for a baggie of weed last year so it really takes some doing Simon, really well done. *What a fucking achievement*.”
I heard the sound of Dad slamming down the phone and I jerked from the sound of it. It. Uncle Tom was an it. I was intrigued, almost intrigued enough to put down my controller and interrogate my dad. I wondered what obscenity Tom had committed to be considered less human than my Uncle Vince who had once robbed a guide dog from a blind man.
Christmas came. Dad was green, which clashed rather horribly with his Santa t-shirt. He started drinking rather early and he was half-cut by the time I opened my first present. Festive cheer was… not in the Kent residence. Mother had basically moved into the kitchen and anytime I so much as jostled a cushion she was at my back putting it back into place. I swear the woman had eyes in every single room of the house.
“When’s Uncle Tom getting here, big man?” I asked my dad who was staring morosely out of a window. A Wonderful Life was playing in the background, but no one was watching it. I’d have preferred Die Hard, but oh well.
“You call me a big man again and I’ll give you a big slap.” He said. He had not lost his usual character. That was a good sign. Uncle Tom was really taking his time. I could hear mum pulling the turkey out of the oven and the faint clatter of silverware in the dining room. I was filled with a sense of foreboding, perhaps I had caught my father’s unease. It was spreading, like a venereal disease.
Then it came, the lightest of chaps on the door. Knock. Knock… Knock. Every nerve in my father’s body jostled and strained. He drew to his feet and walked as if he was the first lieutenant popping his head above the trench. I peered out behind him and saw the door open. A man entered. He was taller than my father and still had his hair, long thick tresses of greasy smooth black hair. He was wearing sunglasses, odd time of year for it, I thought. He was wearing a suit and a red tie tight was pulled under his adam’s apple.
“Hello Tom.” Dad dipped his head, his fat cheeks quivering. “Welcome to my home… I hope… I hope your trip here was… well.”
“It was. Thank you for having me.” He asked. His voice was short and condescending. The only similarity I could find between him and my dad was the small little cleft chin. The two of them entered the living room, my dad following at Tom’s heels. He seemed to look at me, Uncle Tom, it was hard to tell for the sunglasses. His head tilted awkwardly to the side.
“Your progeny?” He said studiously. “Yes… I can see the Kent blood in him. Short, fat, spoiled. Lots of presents under that tree boy. Have you ever known what it’s like to starve… *to want?* I expect not. Speaking of wants, I should like chicken for my dinner. I had turkey last Christmas at Jancy’s.”
“Yes… Yes… course… yes.” Dad stuttered out, he moved as if in a trance toward the kitchen where I heard my mother slam down a tray in frustrated agony.
I was alone with Uncle Tom. I felt dread and fear coil at my insides. He was wrong. I had never seen my dad so subservient before. He had an air about him, like a yellow warning sign, stay away, and when you looked at him longer it turned red and said, stop. He moved to sit by me. He crossed his legs awkwardly. He was cold, so cold, and I could feel it radiate from him, like I’d sat down in front of a freezer.
“I am the youngest brother. They will not talk about me. I am only half their blood.” He said to me, I could feel his stare from under his glasses. I wanted to scream at him to take them off. “That made me half a man to them when we were young, maybe not even that in truth. It is a good thing you do not have any siblings, there are few things as cruel as big brothers.”
Mum and dad re-entered and looked searchingly for me. They seemed relieved to see me alive and well.
“Nessa, my dear, how beautiful you are these days.” Tom stood to his feet. “It has been many years since I saw you, the last must have been at your wedding ceremony… it was a beautiful venue. I remember it well.”
Mum and dad didn’t have a wedding, there were no pictures, *nothing, in fact dad said they’d eloped. He’d lied to me?*
“If you would please take off that hideous hairpin. You have beautiful… sumptuous curls… I shall not be without them tonight.” Tom said. My mum flinched, her head jerked once, then twice and her tongue jostled around in her mouth. “Tricky one you are. I do recall. You will bend, you all do.”
Mum shakily undone her hair and let it fall about her shoulders. Dad clenched a fist, but when Tom turned to look at him he feigned a sickening smile.
“D-d-diner is ready… Tom.” Mum said.
We all went through the dining room. It was a quiet procession, it felt like when we walked into my grandfather’s funeral, except there was no one watching us but Tom, tall Tom in his dark-shaded sunglasses. He sat next to me. I thought about getting a jumper to keep the warmth in me, so cold he was, but my dad looked at me warningly as I stood to stand.
“Going somewhere?” Tom asked, his voice was low and cunning. It unnerved me, dread and disgust coiled at my gut. He was wrong… so wrong. I felt my muscles betray me, as if they were no longer my own. “No that won’t do. Sit.”
I slammed down onto the chair and my mum nearly dropped her glass in pure terror. Tom was calm and steady as my father’s face reddened and puffed up. The chicken had been laid out on the table. It wasn’t nearly as grand as the turkey would have been, and it had been cut up into little bits for it to cook quicker, but it looked alright enough. Tom filled his plate with meat, neglecting all the trimmings. He thrusted forkfulls into his mouth at a sickening rate, juices and fat pouring out of the corners of his mouth.
“I was wondering if we might play a little game…” He said, with his mouthful. He chugged a glass of wine and hit his hands against the table.
“I don’t like your games Tom.” Dad said slowly. “What about boggle?”
“You never did like my games, but you shall play. Fuck boggle.” Tom toyed with the edges of his sunglasses, as if threatening to pull them down. Dad was quiet and still. Was he Cyclops, would giant nuclear rays of destruction emerge if he took those glasses off? The thought was a pleasant reprieve from the tense mood of the room. “Dear brother, we’ll start with you. Piss into your wine glass.”
Mum looked to her knees as my eyes widened. Dad gulped. I heard the zipper of his trousers go down and the soft little splash sounds as the worryingly dark urine filled his glass. He downed it in one as Tom laughed viciously. I was shaking and ripping the skin from my nails. Was my dad so terrified of Tom he’d do anything? *Or was Tom… influencing him?* I thought back to when he told me to sit, how my muscles had clenched up and how I’d slammed down into the chair.
“Next. Sweet, sweet Nessa. I want you to tell my brother how well it felt as I fucked you on that buffet table at your wedding! Actually… he knows already… for he was there after all. Scratch that. The house is messy, you know how I dislike mess. You were always such a messy girl. Go sit in the bin outside. Bathe in all that junk. If there’s maggots there, eat them, let that be your christmas dinner, it’s probably a lot better than all this slop.”
Tom threw his silverware down to the table with a thud, a large strand of chicken hanging out his yellow-tinged mouth. My mum fought him for a moment, but she yielded. Every muscle in her had tensed and then released with one cold stare from beneath Tom’s tinted shades. She walked slowly out of the room. Every so often she would stop and try to turn back, but he compelled her to keep going… toward the bin. Dad was like a ruby now, but he held his fury back. I wonder how many swear words had gathered up in that cesspit of a brain of his?
Fear coiled in my gut. He turned to look at me and my father was crying now, the tears were falling thick, and my mum was outside sitting in the bin searching through the contents for little maggots to eat.
“Dig a hole.” He said. He had a smile on his face.
“No… No!” My dad stood at the table. He pointed his fat finger at Tom. Spit and saliva came flying from his mouth. He had seized up like a pig before it’s slaughter.
“Dig a hole boy, dig it deep.” Tom said again. Father had moved across the table now, just as his fist came soaring down, Tom took down his sunglasses and my dad froze stiff, like he had been turned to stone.
I felt my legs move. I was shaking and quivering. I begged my body not to move but it did. I was in the yard and my hands were pulling at the frosted dirt. I clawed and clawed and the hole grew and grew. I could hear my mum crying from the bin, I could see my father, paralyzed to his spot, through the window. Tom was at the back door now watching. Tom started to hum
“*Little Nile… dug a hole… deeper than he thought to go… and when the hole was big enough… He lay right down in the dirt, and when he thought that he might go, his brother Tom said, oh no you don’t.*” Tom walked around me as I dug and sang his awful song. I felt my eyes push out of their sockets. Stop, I was begging myself, stop. When the hole was deep enough I lay down, the cold dirt was my mattress. *This is how I die*, I thought, *this is it. I love you mum. I love you… dad.*
“Why are you doing this?” I asked him. It took me every bit of fortitude to say, for all my instincts were telling me to pull the dirt down on top of myself and die.
“I was just a boy once, like you. A boy who wanted love and found none. I had a different father. My mother hated me, my brothers hated me more. They pretended I did not exist. Set the table with no space for me. Laid out presents but wrapped none for me.” He said. “They gave me nothing… nothing. I thought I was nothing too, but I’m not, little boy, I’m so much more.”
I felt my muscles return to me but the fear did not subside. He hummed as he walked off. *That awful song.*
“*Little Nile… dug a hole… deeper than he thought to go… and when his brother told him so… he tucked himself in with the dirt and the snow… his milky skin turned blue and cold… by next year he was nothing but bones*.” He sang as he walked away. Eventually I could only hear the soft patter of his hums. He walked passed the bins, tipped his sunglasses and said, a small phrase, that I remember as clearly as if it had happened just yesterday.
“Merry christmas.”
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*I have a story to tell you.* Picture this. It’s 2004 and you’re rocking half a tub of cheap gel in your greasy-hair. You’re twelve and It’s coming up to Christmas. You’ve put a PSP on your list for Santa, otherwise known as your overweight and middle-aged father with a bankbook and a face of pure misery. You’re already planning what games you’re going to buy with the bundle of notes your grandparents will doubtlessly give you. It’s snowing and your mum won’t stop playing W*hite Christmas*. You’re dad looks depressed but you don’t know why. Money shit probably, except it isn't, not really. He pulls you into the kitchen one day with a heavy weight rounding out his shoulders. That was December 2004 in the Kent residence, in a small crappy little suburb on the wrong side of Suffolk.
“Listen bud, I’m going to need you to sit down.” Dad points to a kitchen chair. I sit down, worried that my PSP is going to be a Gameboy. My dad fidgets with his belt, his beer belly muffin-topping over his too tight jeans. “I’ve just had a letter in the post. Uncle Tom is coming over for Christmas.”
“Uncle Tom? I don’t have an Uncle Tom.” I said, my brows knitting together. Dad let out an angry sigh and looked out of the window. People always look away when they’re about to lie.
“Yes you do, of course you do. My brother, *Tom*, he’s coming to join us for Christmas.” He replied, his voice fracturing with apprehension. “I need you to be well-behaved. You have a habit of being, how can I put it nicely - *well you’re mum isn’t here* \- a cheeky little bastard. Don’t be like that this Christmas. Do what you’re told, speak when spoken to. I know these things may seem impossible to your little hormone ridden brain, but if you’re good, I’ll buy you every damn PSP game out there, plus I’ll take you to Butlins.”
“Take away Butlins and add a new pair of Nikes and you have a deal.” I bargained, sensing that my father’s desperation presented a lucrative business opportunity. He gave me a look that I had only seen mirrored when he was at the car dealership buying himself a new BMW, and he held out his hand in defeat. I was a good salesman. “Good doing business with you.”
“Cheeky git.” My dad muttered as I sulked off to my room. My head was full of questions. My dad had a lot of brothers, so it didn’t seem crazy to me that I might have forgotten one. There was Uncle Jancy, Uncle Vince, Uncle Jeremy-Bob, Uncle Nate, Uncle Harold and Uncle Simon. There was Uncle Nile too, but he died when he was five. Dad never really spoke about him. Granny was a really busy girl. But uncle Tom? I’d never heard of him. Black sheep of the family perhaps. I was twelve and to be quite honest, I didn’t give a shit. Another uncle, another day.
Maybe he was in jail and he’d just gotten out. The idea of that thrilled me. I wondered if he’d look like dad, all balding and fat. That thrilled me less. On the run up to Christmas Mum and Dad started arguing more. There was an atmosphere in the house, thick and heavy, like something big was about to go down. Mum was cleaning like a crazy woman. The hoover was on non-stop and the whole place reeked of bleach. Dad had started taking long phone calls in his office all day. I just played my games as it went on around me.
“Simon… Simon… I know… I fucking know.” Dad was shouting. His jowls would be shaking and his cheeks reddening. Thanks to the paper-thin walls in our house and the fact that his office was next to my room, I could hear absolutely everything he ever said. “I know he went to Jancy’s last year… I know it’s my turn… but I have a kid. You don’t have a kid… you take him. He’ll like that. He liked you best. For whatever fucking reason. Pricks like pricks I guess.”
I paused my game and leant back against my wall with my eyebrows squinted. The whole thing was confusing to me. They were making Uncle Tom sound like an errand that ought to be equally split between them.
“Simon. Simon. You’re not listening. I don’t care that Beth’s uptight sasquatch of a mother is coming to yours to devour your dry-ass turkey with her two different sized forks. You promised me that for Jake's sake I’d never get left with… with… it.” Dad roared. “Worst fucking uncle of the year Simon. Vince pawned the kid’s playstation for a baggie of weed last year so it really takes some doing Simon, really well done. *What a fucking achievement*.”
I heard the sound of Dad slamming down the phone and I jerked from the sound of it. It. Uncle Tom was an it. I was intrigued, almost intrigued enough to put down my controller and interrogate my dad. I wondered what obscenity Tom had committed to be considered less human than my Uncle Vince who had once robbed a guide dog from a blind man.
Christmas came. Dad was green, which clashed rather horribly with his Santa t-shirt. He started drinking rather early and he was half-cut by the time I opened my first present. Festive cheer was… not in the Kent residence. Mother had basically moved into the kitchen and anytime I so much as jostled a cushion she was at my back putting it back into place. I swear the woman had eyes in every single room of the house.
“When’s Uncle Tom getting here, big man?” I asked my dad who was staring morosely out of a window. A Wonderful Life was playing in the background, but no one was watching it. I’d have preferred Die Hard, but oh well.
“You call me a big man again and I’ll give you a big slap.” He said. He had not lost his usual character. That was a good sign. Uncle Tom was really taking his time. I could hear mum pulling the turkey out of the oven and the faint clatter of silverware in the dining room. I was filled with a sense of foreboding, perhaps I had caught my father’s unease. It was spreading, like a venereal disease.
Then it came, the lightest of chaps on the door. Knock. Knock… Knock. Every nerve in my father’s body jostled and strained. He drew to his feet and walked as if he was the first lieutenant popping his head above the trench. I peered out behind him and saw the door open. A man entered. He was taller than my father and still had his hair, long thick tresses of greasy smooth black hair. He was wearing sunglasses, odd time of year for it, I thought. He was wearing a suit and a red tie tight was pulled under his adam’s apple.
“Hello Tom.” Dad dipped his head, his fat cheeks quivering. “Welcome to my home… I hope… I hope your trip here was… well.”
“It was. Thank you for having me.” He asked. His voice was short and condescending. The only similarity I could find between him and my dad was the small little cleft chin. The two of them entered the living room, my dad following at Tom’s heels. He seemed to look at me, Uncle Tom, it was hard to tell for the sunglasses. His head tilted awkwardly to the side.
“Your progeny?” He said studiously. “Yes… I can see the Kent blood in him. Short, fat, spoiled. Lots of presents under that tree boy. Have you ever known what it’s like to starve… *to want?* I expect not. Speaking of wants, I should like chicken for my dinner. I had turkey last Christmas at Jancy’s.”
“Yes… Yes… course… yes.” Dad stuttered out, he moved as if in a trance toward the kitchen where I heard my mother slam down a tray in frustrated agony.
I was alone with Uncle Tom. I felt dread and fear coil at my insides. He was wrong. I had never seen my dad so subservient before. He had an air about him, like a yellow warning sign, stay away, and when you looked at him longer it turned red and said, stop. He moved to sit by me. He crossed his legs awkwardly. He was cold, so cold, and I could feel it radiate from him, like I’d sat down in front of a freezer.
“I am the youngest brother. They will not talk about me. I am only half their blood.” He said to me, I could feel his stare from under his glasses. I wanted to scream at him to take them off. “That made me half a man to them when we were young, maybe not even that in truth. It is a good thing you do not have any siblings, there are few things as cruel as big brothers.”
Mum and dad re-entered and looked searchingly for me. They seemed relieved to see me alive and well.
“Nessa, my dear, how beautiful you are these days.” Tom stood to his feet. “It has been many years since I saw you, the last must have been at your wedding ceremony… it was a beautiful venue. I remember it well.”
Mum and dad didn’t have a wedding, there were no pictures, *nothing, in fact dad said they’d eloped. He’d lied to me?*
“If you would please take off that hideous hairpin. You have beautiful… sumptuous curls… I shall not be without them tonight.” Tom said. My mum flinched, her head jerked once, then twice and her tongue jostled around in her mouth. “Tricky one you are. I do recall. You will bend, you all do.”
Mum shakily undone her hair and let it fall about her shoulders. Dad clenched a fist, but when Tom turned to look at him he feigned a sickening smile.
“D-d-diner is ready… Tom.” Mum said.
We all went through the dining room. It was a quiet procession, it felt like when we walked into my grandfather’s funeral, except there was no one watching us but Tom, tall Tom in his dark-shaded sunglasses. He sat next to me. I thought about getting a jumper to keep the warmth in me, so cold he was, but my dad looked at me warningly as I stood to stand.
“Going somewhere?” Tom asked, his voice was low and cunning. It unnerved me, dread and disgust coiled at my gut. He was wrong… so wrong. I felt my muscles betray me, as if they were no longer my own. “No that won’t do. Sit.”
I slammed down onto the chair and my mum nearly dropped her glass in pure terror. Tom was calm and steady as my father’s face reddened and puffed up. The chicken had been laid out on the table. It wasn’t nearly as grand as the turkey would have been, and it had been cut up into little bits for it to cook quicker, but it looked alright enough. Tom filled his plate with meat, neglecting all the trimmings. He thrusted forkfulls into his mouth at a sickening rate, juices and fat pouring out of the corners of his mouth.
“I was wondering if we might play a little game…” He said, with his mouthful. He chugged a glass of wine and hit his hands against the table.
“I don’t like your games Tom.” Dad said slowly. “What about boggle?”
“You never did like my games, but you shall play. Fuck boggle.” Tom toyed with the edges of his sunglasses, as if threatening to pull them down. Dad was quiet and still. Was he Cyclops, would giant nuclear rays of destruction emerge if he took those glasses off? The thought was a pleasant reprieve from the tense mood of the room. “Dear brother, we’ll start with you. Piss into your wine glass.”
Mum looked to her knees as my eyes widened. Dad gulped. I heard the zipper of his trousers go down and the soft little splash sounds as the worryingly dark urine filled his glass. He downed it in one as Tom laughed viciously. I was shaking and ripping the skin from my nails. Was my dad so terrified of Tom he’d do anything? *Or was Tom… influencing him?* I thought back to when he told me to sit, how my muscles had clenched up and how I’d slammed down into the chair.
“Next. Sweet, sweet Nessa. I want you to tell my brother how well it felt as I fucked you on that buffet table at your wedding! Actually… he knows already… for he was there after all. Scratch that. The house is messy, you know how I dislike mess. You were always such a messy girl. Go sit in the bin outside. Bathe in all that junk. If there’s maggots there, eat them, let that be your christmas dinner, it’s probably a lot better than all this slop.”
Tom threw his silverware down to the table with a thud, a large strand of chicken hanging out his yellow-tinged mouth. My mum fought him for a moment, but she yielded. Every muscle in her had tensed and then released with one cold stare from beneath Tom’s tinted shades. She walked slowly out of the room. Every so often she would stop and try to turn back, but he compelled her to keep going… toward the bin. Dad was like a ruby now, but he held his fury back. I wonder how many swear words had gathered up in that cesspit of a brain of his?
Fear coiled in my gut. He turned to look at me and my father was crying now, the tears were falling thick, and my mum was outside sitting in the bin searching through the contents for little maggots to eat.
“Dig a hole.” He said. He had a smile on his face.
“No… No!” My dad stood at the table. He pointed his fat finger at Tom. Spit and saliva came flying from his mouth. He had seized up like a pig before it’s slaughter.
“Dig a hole boy, dig it deep.” Tom said again. Father had moved across the table now, just as his fist came soaring down, Tom took down his sunglasses and my dad froze stiff, like he had been turned to stone.
I felt my legs move. I was shaking and quivering. I begged my body not to move but it did. I was in the yard and my hands were pulling at the frosted dirt. I clawed and clawed and the hole grew and grew. I could hear my mum crying from the bin, I could see my father, paralyzed to his spot, through the window. Tom was at the back door now watching. Tom started to hum
“*Little Nile… dug a hole… deeper than he thought to go… and when the hole was big enough… He lay right down in the dirt, and when he thought that he might go, his brother Tom said, oh no you don’t.*” Tom walked around me as I dug and sang his awful song. I felt my eyes push out of their sockets. Stop, I was begging myself, stop. When the hole was deep enough I lay down, the cold dirt was my mattress. *This is how I die*, I thought, *this is it. I love you mum. I love you… dad.*
“Why are you doing this?” I asked him. It took me every bit of fortitude to say, for all my instincts were telling me to pull the dirt down on top of myself and die.
“I was just a boy once, like you. A boy who wanted love and found none. I had a different father. My mother hated me, my brothers hated me more. They pretended I did not exist. Set the table with no space for me. Laid out presents but wrapped none for me.” He said. “They gave me nothing… nothing. I thought I was nothing too, but I’m not, little boy, I’m so much more.”
I felt my muscles return to me but the fear did not subside. He hummed as he walked off. *That awful song.*
“*Little Nile… dug a hole… deeper than he thought to go… and when his brother told him so… he tucked himself in with the dirt and the snow… his milky skin turned blue and cold… by next year he was nothing but bones*.” He sang as he walked away. Eventually I could only hear the soft patter of his hums. He walked passed the bins, tipped his sunglasses and said, a small phrase, that I remember as clearly as if it had happened just yesterday.
“Merry christmas.”
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