Vignette: The adventures of Peter

It was just before he left home.



        He trudged through the thick, musty carpet and looked around warily. The room was his least favorite since it had monotone colors and no windows. It seemed as if he could not breathe deeply or make a sound.

        Stopping behind a tall, thin chair that was padded for the user’s comfort, he shifted from one foot to another. “Hi Dad,” Peter weakly muttered, “Mom said to come down for dinner.” He was glad to see his father fully dressed. Sometimes Dad would watch TV in only his boxers and come down to dinner like so.

         The lanky figure slumped even deeper into the chair, staring at the screen of the television, the only colorful thing in the room. “Abby, tell Sunny I’m not hungry.” Abby was his sister’s name, but he always called him Abby. He also called Mom, Sunny, but her name was Martha. All her emails were sent by “Martha.” Dad also called Abby Peter, but he talked to her often enough for it to not bother her.

         The man stirred, and gazed blankly at Peter, “I’m a sad man, Abby.”

         “Yes, Dad.” Peter backed out of the room and hurried downstairs to the kitchen.





        Cactus, the cat, had a bushy tail. At four, Peter always wanted to pull it and rub it on his face. The cat would dash off before he could grab him. One day, while the cat slipped between a cracked open door, he suddenly had the urge to slam it shut. After that, the cat was missing its tail and had avoided Peter ever since.





         Peter did not like vegetables. He hated their green juices when they were slightly mushed and the oily feeling in his mouth. That’s why when a man at the gate asked if he wanted free pizza for the rest of his life, Peter agreed to leave with him immediately. He was eight.





         It was his mother’s wish to have another daughter. Abby, three years older, hated dresses and slippers, so she romped around in boy jeans and T-shirts. Peter was a boy, but was seemingly missing in his baby pictures. His mother actually grew out his hair and dressed him in lace and pink and took many pictures until he was a year old. Later, she was embarrassed about her dream and passed off all of Peter’s pictures as Abby’s.





         The day Peter ran away from home was very sunny. Daffodils, tulips, and cosmos flowers tossed sweet fragrances as they gently swirled in the breeze. The flowers waved to him good bye as he climbed into the man’s car. As they drove away, he waved back to them.





        In kindergarten, his teacher asked every child what their dream was. They would stand one by one to announce their dream. When it was his turn, he explained that he wanted to grow to fit inside a ketchup bottle. He didn’t understand that he would grow “bigger” and was fascinated by the ketchup bottles’ shape.





         Abby leaned against the chilly windowsill of her second floor room. The frosty pane reflected a thin face with pale freckles and strands of light, straight hair. It stared back at her, their eyes showing the same thoughtful solemness of another pair from someone she used to know so well. “Peter?” she whispered, and somewhere far away, she thought she could hear a child’s laugh swirl into the misty night.





        Peter always ate his french fries at home. He would put them in a frying pan with eggs and scramble them together. Then he would pour ranch on top and eat them. They were his favorite snacks.





        At school, his friends would admire his airplane folding talents. They would do loops and turns and straight lines. One day, he threw a paper airplane which curved towards the door and hit the entering figure in the head. It turned out to be the principal, and he ended up doing detention. It was also the end of his airplane creations.



         

         A man walked through the back, unhindered, as he found his sister-in-law, sitting at the dining room table. “You have to stop doing this,” he scolded, “Peter won’t come back even if you shed a thousand tears.”

         The mother slowly looked up with blurry eyes and rubbed her fingertips on the wooden table. “I cried for the past two years of my life looking for Peter,” she whispered, looking eye to eye, “and I already know that anything I do will never bring him back.”

         He gave a long, exasperated sigh. “How is my brother?”

         “Better, but he still asks for Abby. Abby! For God’s sake, why won’t the man just, just toughen up at least once in his life...” She gripped the table, and her shoulders grew taut at her frustration.

         There was a silence, and then, “The man was always so sad and frightened of living. He stayed locked inside our house, never thinking to mow the lawn or finding a new job. That boy was born to live in a cage. Not even for Peter did he-”

“You’re right. He was never quite right. I won’t mind if you leave him, you know. You deserve better. Living like this was never meant for you. You should also lock your back door. Peter won’t come before a thief does.”

She didn't answer, but looked straight ahead, past the wall, out of the outskirts of town, and through the universe itself. Her back straightened, and she gave a resolute nod, almost as if she was nodding to an invisible person next to her.

         Standing up, she said, “Would you like some coffee?”

         



        Both Abby and Peter had wild imaginations. Abby one day made a pair of cardboard wings for Peter. She told him that he could fly out of the attic window if he wanted to. Excited, Peter ran for the stairs to try this awesome new trick. Then Abby, feeling a bit hesitant about so freely giving the little boy a magical power, ran after him and told him he could only use them once. The five year old pondered this and decided to save them for a special day, so he hid them under his bed.



        They are still there.