The Sea-Wave (2 page)

I
had the Chatter for almost a year. It sounds like a disease; I guess it was. It was a computer. It clamped onto my armrest like a feeding tray. I pressed letters on a screen and the Chatter said them out loud in a loud voice. The voice was called Circuit Sam, a deep male voice with zero expression. Which is just how I imagined my voice sounding.

My parents loved the Chatter because it made their lives easier. It made my life a bit easier, but . . .

In a bookstore, if I pressed the bathroom icon, there were icons that saved time, Circuit Sam would shout “Bathroom,” and everyone would turn their heads then turn them back and pick up the book they'd just put down. Sometimes the button would stick, and Sam would just keep saying something over and over until I felt like dying.

I stopped using the Chatter. I got sick. I felt like a sick machine. My parents wanted me to keep using it, but I'd only mash the keyboard or type profanity. So they took it away. They never really got rid of it, just packed it away, like a wedding dress, hopeful.

I write notes now. It's slower, but I like it better. When you read a note in your mind, you read it — you think of it as being in a human voice, the voice of whoever wrote it. I hope that when my parents read my notes they hear the voice of a sad, bright kid who's at least trying.

They might just hear Circuit Sam.

I
like being alone but not really. Every day I wake up and think: What if Mom's dead, what if she just dropped dead? If she doesn't get me up by 7:35, I'm sure she's dead. I lie there under a thought bubble of her on the floor with a broken jam jar and a broken head. A closet shutting means she's collapsing. Then she comes in the door, and it's okay to hate her again.

I'm a loner. It's just easy. It protects me. It's safe in my room. I read books, I'm a bookmark. You don't get loved but you don't get hurt either by people you love, which hurts more than anything. It's easier to hate people the way they hate millionaires, they'll never be one. I'm alive, I have a skeleton, but I'll just never be a real kid or feel like a real human being.

When people see me they feel sad. They might smile sadly. I shake up their moral centres. I wreck their shopping day. There are people who do that even to me.

I
hate
being one of those people. I can't just hide all day though I sometimes want to. I sometimes do. I'm trading happy for not being the wrecking ball and the house it's wrecking. I can do that for people, at least.

It's not much.

It's something.

I
didn't
see
who stole me, not for hours. Not till we were out of the city.

I pictured — in the bubble above my head was a pudgy guy with glasses and acne, floating in sweat, who filled the whole bubble.

The guy who walked in front of me when my chair stopped moving and climbed down the riverbank and knelt down . . .

He was just a frail old man. A stick man, who pricked the bubble.

The old man knelt down and looked at the water, at his
reflection
in the water, I'm guessing. Like Narcissus only old and puzzled. He didn't drink at all, just stared.

When he got up, I closed my eyes. I'm not sure why. I didn't open them until he was back behind me, and we were moving again.

I think if he was going to murder me or hurt me . . .

He'd've done it a long time ago.

Right?

M
y memorandum book was a gift from my cousin the writer. At first I thought it was cheap because I'd've rather had a real book. But then I thought it probably would've been one of
her
books, so I was lucky. I threw the memorandum book in my desk drawer. But one time when I was just so angry I couldn't read I took it back out and started writing in it. Writing is hard for me, it takes a long time, but I'm getting better. It helps with my anger. My sadness.

My cousin said all kinds of family drama winds up in her books, and since no one reads them, no one finds out. She still gets invited to the BBQs, and gets handshakes from the people she said were bullshitters. Writing is a kind of minor revenge, like stealing the left slipper of someone who stabbed you in the neck, which I guess to her makes it worthwhile. Personally . . .

I haven't decided yet.

O
ur daughter vanished.

The woman looked pretty normal. She had long hair even though she was over forty. She had a brittle voice that made you listen carefully in case you dropped it.

She was a beautiful, healthy girl. And she vanished.

The whole time she spoke to us she didn't blink. The trick to not crying might be to dry out your eyes.

She was a prostitute. She got into hard drugs
.

I have to admit that sort of made her less angelic in my book. I was picturing Little Dorrit or something. I'm pretty judgmental.

We found her in the Parliamentary Gardens. In a rose bush. Bleeding. They were actually white roses.

Even my teacher swallowed hard. I stared at her like, Where do you find these people? She stared at a square on the floor.

My daughter is an angel. She speaks to me. She hovers above me, and guides me. She forgives me. She loves me.

Without really realizing it, I think the whole class looked up at the ceiling. All I could see was the curved mirror they put in after the shootings. In her warped back reflection the woman's shoulders were a bit like folded-back wings.

I looked at my teacher again. She started clapping.

I guess it was over.

I
have no friends. It just isn't possible. It would take a pretty weird kid to touch me and murder their social life forever. Life is tough. It might be even tougher without friends. So what.

Every Saturday, my mom or dad takes me to the park. We sit by the water and feed the birds. One time half my class walked by, going wherever kids go. They looked at me, and not one of them smiled or said hi. But then one girl, the new girl, looked back and laughed. Then they all looked back and laughed. I squeezed my bread bag until the crumbs were just dust. I felt like the dust rattling in the bag.

I closed my eyes hard. Then my mom said: “Jealous. They are all just jealous.” That's her word, that's always the word for children who are broken. I'm not sure she even understands it. Because when you're not pretty or popular, and there isn't even a chance of having talent, what could they be jealous of, Mom? You never really think.

There's a tree in the park that's the one thing I like. It's just a perfect small tree that's by itself. I like to sit under it in my chair and read. Or sometimes my dad lifts me and sits me on the grass. I want to be buried under that tree. Only I've never told anyone.

I
have a giant uncle who's a refrigerator or bigger. If he was really a house someone from the city would hammer a note into his forehead saying he was scheduled for demolition and please keep out. His tongue is either swollen or it sounds like he's eating it. He can still walk but only so fast that if you don't stop him he'll walk into walls. He's like a remote control man and someone is having fun with the controls. I can't really understand him but what he's saying sounds like “I wish I was dead.”

My giant uncle reminds me of me. At Christmas people say hi but then they wheel me into a corner and ignore me. After maybe an hour they deposit my giant uncle in another corner, in an armchair, and we just sit there staring at each other. Once in a while my auntie will come into the room to yell “No juice!” or “Not the green pill!” Her treatment of him is shit, though it's not like anyone says anything. Not even when she says: “I'd love to play this hand, but I have to change his
stupid
diaper,” and flings herself out of the kitchen. And he is so not beyond being able to hear and understand her, but he is definitely beyond crying anymore. Me too.