Part 1
Row Your Boat
"Row, row, row your boat..."
Shiku's voice was tiny, the merest thread of sound that slipped from her barely moving lips as she rocked. She tried to pull her knees tighter to her chest but winced at the sharp, lancing pain that caused inside her chest. Instead she leaned back against the wall and stared at the thin line of light that came under the door of her prison.
Shadows passed across that sliver of yellow as her mom and dad went back and forth. Their voices intruded into her cocoon in strident patterns of anger and fear. They were fighting again, something not unusual in the child's life. Shiku never really understood what they were fighting about, but it must have been important because her mother would always start crying and then her dad would get even madder and slap her mom. She guessed it was a good thing she was usually in the closet when that happened. It scared her enough when she couldn't see them. She could only shiver when she tried to imagine what it would be like to watch those altercations.
Shiku leaned against the wall and tugged vainly at the sagging, ragged diaper that her mother insisted she wear. She was old enough to go like a big girl, but when she'd tried to tell her mother this it had resulted in a shrill, harangue on 'diapers are less expensive and you outgrow panties anyway'. Confusion was a normal part of Shiku's life, what she didn't understand she either tucked away to forget about it, or worried over in her mind until it made some kind of sense.
"...gently down the-- schreem."
Most things never made sense. She didn't know why she got put in the closet when her daddy came home, or why, when he came and let her out to put her to bed, he would spank her. Spankings were for when she'd done something bad, she knew that much, but when she was in the closet... what could she do that was bad? Last night he'd spanked her not only on her rear but on the backs of her legs and the small of her back before throwing her to the pallet where she slept in the living room.
She didn't know what she'd done to deserve it. She'd eaten what they gave her, she'd stayed quiet all day, she hadn't even talked out loud. All the usual offenses were crossed off the list, but he'd still done it. His skinny body didn't look strong, not like the muscle guys that came on the trid late at night, but his hand was narrow and hard, his fingers cruel when they pinched her skin or slapped her against the head to get her attention. She knew that much.
He'd do it again tonight. He might even make it hurt more, like he did the other day when he'd come home early. He was never there during the early night, when the news was on the trid and mama was making attempts at cleaning. But he'd come home that day, and caught her outside of the closet, crouched in front of the trid as she stared at the constantly moving, always happy little people. She must have been bad, because he'd snatched her right up off of the floor in what she thought was going to be a hug but wasn't.
"Merry, merry, merry, merry..."
He'd held her up so he could look her up and down, his slanted brown eyes studied her grimy face and the dirt encrusted folds of her neck. She'd seen the change in him as the rage won over in his usually blank eyes.
"Whose brat are you?" He'd shaken her, his hands biting into the skin under her arms. "Who is your father, girl?"
She'd bit her lips in silence as he shook her harder, the pain was minimal compared to what would happen if she actually spoke to him. She knew that much.
"Mari! Who did you fuck to get this little mutant?" He had yelled and carried her with him into the kitchenette where her mother stood at the sink, her arms covered in suds and her face a mirror of the fear Shiku felt.
"There's only you," she protested his accusation. "There was always only you."
"Lie!" He held the skin and bones child at arms' length and studied the hard angles of her small body. She watched him in silence, huge eyes blank and dumb as she wondered what she'd done bad this time. "Look at her! She doesn't even look Japanese. She has your ugly eyes and hair, she doesn't talk. She just sits in front of the trid and doesn't play. This is not my child."
"Don't be an idiot, Lee. I've only been with you, ever. She's your kid. Just because your stupid genes went straight to her don't blame me."
His thumbs had dug into her ribs as his grip had tightened on her frail body. She wiggled, trying vainly to make the pain less and that had been bad. He'd glared down at her and muttered in Japanese, something she didn't understand which probably meant that it was a 'hell word'.
"This little freak is not my kid," he'd insisted, hefting Shiku higher in his arms. "Look, she's still in diapers at five, for chrissakes! My kid wouldn't be."
She thought about explaining that she went like a big girl but he didn't give her a chance. With a grimace he'd tossed her aside, disgust plain on his face when she didn't make any sound when she landed on her side against the cabinets.
The pain was bad, as bad as when she'd burned herself on the noodle water that one time. It was different though; it was sharp, and pointed, like she was being stuck with a fork inside of her chest. She'd laid very still, tears leaking from her eyes in silence. Crying only made him hurt her more, so she hid her face in her shoulder and laid utterly still, hardly daring to breathe as the bickering went on over her head.
An eternity later he'd kicked her in the thigh and told her to go get 'in the cage'. Shiku hadn't been able to stand, she'd crawled from the kitchen into the hallway where the closet was and slowly, painfully gotten inside. Where she belonged.
Her chest still hurt, and she was having trouble breathing but she didn't cry out. She simply lay in the dark weeping silently. Wondering what she'd done that was so bad.
"Life is but a dream."
She knew that much.
Part 2
Itsy Bitsy Spider
"The itsy bitsy spider..."
The comforting darkness around Shiku pressed close like a favorite blanket. The dark was the one place where she felt really good. She couldn't see herself, or anyone else, she just was. It was nice to not have to look at either her parents or her own reflection in a piece of glass, mirror, or the trid screen. She could pretend that none of it existed. It was just her, in a serene black sea of warmth.
Only... it wasn't so warm in here now. The light had gone out in the kitchen a while earlier, she had no idea how long ago that was. It had been more than the time it took for the news to finish. They'd forgotten about her being in the closet, she knew this. They'd fought for a long time before the light went out, then the sounds had changed in quality to another she was familiar with.
Sometimes, not a lot, but sometimes her parents would lay on top of each other and make scary noises. It was another confusing thing in a world of strange stuff. They'd wiggle around and make 'hurt sounds' and other noises that sounded like the animals on the nature shows. Grunts, hisses, and pants would fill her ears until she thought she'd scream. Then they'd get done, roll away from each other and everything would be back to normal.
All in all, she didn't like it when they made the scary noises. Sometimes her mama would cry for hours after her dad had fallen asleep. It made Shiku sad to know that not all of the tears in the world came from her. Nobody should have to feel the way she did when she cried.
Tonight her mama cried. Shiku could hear it even in the closet. She wanted to go to her mother and try to help with whatever hurt. Every movement brought a wave of pain as she pulled herself up against the door, her breath came in short little bursts. She just couldn't seem to make her chest open up for enough air. She thought a few 'hell words' as her fingers feebly tugged on the doorknob.
Her daddy hadn't locked the door earlier, when he'd put her inside. He thought it was funny that she stayed in 'the cage' when he didn't lock the door. He'd even laughed about it tonight, she'd heard him before they made the 'hurt sounds'. It made Shiku angry when he laughed at her, angrier than when he hurt her. The mad would blossom inside of her belly and grow there until she thought the heat of it would make her eyes burn up.
"Went up the water spout..."
Just remembering her earlier anger gave her the strength to turn the large doorknob. She fell out of the closet, her narrow bones hitting the floor with a loud *thump*. For a few moments the apartment went gray, and Shiku couldn't see anything but the pulsing agony of her ribcage. It was an entity that rose up behind her eyelids and turned everything into swirling gray and red, a beast with a hunger as deep as the deepest ocean.
When she cracked her eyes open she became aware that her mother's crying had died off into sniffles and that there was movement in the living room where they slept. Shiku lifted her head from the hard linoleum floor and focused painfully on the outlined forms of her parents against the flickering blue and white light from the tridscreen.
She could see the lump in the floor level bed that was her father, asleep on his side. His snores were soft and easily audible in the near silence of the apartment. Her mother was crouched beyond him, hovering over his still form in the bed.
Shiku pushed herself up from her tumble, getting her elbows beneath her first in a gradual easing of her body into an upright position. As she rose to her bare feet, the nagging pain in her ribs eased to a throbbing ache instead of the repetitive stabbing it had been. Now she could see her mother better and she could tell that her dad had his mouth open against the flat pillow he used.
Her mother, absorbed in whatever thoughts filled her mind, didn't notice Shiku's presence in the hallway. She leaned over her husband, expression serene and cold, and brought her hand down to his neck which was left uncovered by the threadbare blanket. Shiku squinted, unable to see what her mother held so tightly in her fist.
Mari cut his throat.
Shiku's eyes widened, no sound escaped her lips as her father thrashed in the blanket. His hands flew to his neck, where he clutched in a vain attempt to hold in his life's blood. The wet blood streamed from his severed throat, splashing onto everything nearby as his heart continued pumping at full strength. Still Mari did not look up: she watched him die. When at last his death struggles faded, then ceased, Mari switched her grip on the small knife she held and brought the point to the inside of her own arm. She used the faint blue of her artery as her guide to where she should cut. A fierce grimace contorted her usually average features into a sick parody of glee and regret as she pierced her own skin and dragged the blade down the inside of her arm.
Blood welled, pulsed, and spilled out of her body in surprisingly large amounts for such a small woman. Shiku stared on in fascination, riveted to the tableau before her. Moving with a swiftness that bespoke her determination, Mari again cut her own flesh. She slashed the soft, vulnerable skin on the inside of her thigh. A small, animal sound of terror found its way from under the rock in Shiku's chest and shattered the eerie quiet.
"Down came the rain... and washed the spider out."
Mari looked up, her eyes wide and startled as she saw her small daughter standing in the hallway, an audience of one to her bloody acts.
"You... mutant freak..."
Shiku stood, paralyzed, as her mother tried to stand from the pallet and failed. The knife's blade no longer appeared shiny and silver, but was dark with blood, black with murder. The beast that was her mama crawled across the still carcass of her father and came towards her. The blue flicker of the trid turned her face into the visage of every monster a toddler can conjure from the pit of her darkest nightmares; zombie, vampire, mummy, giant spider.
The spider image wouldn't fade from Shiku's mind as her mother's long arms and legs propelled her across the floor towards the girl. The eyes that stared at her with such hatred and pain were those of a spidery legged demon summoned from Hell. They burned, burned with sick malice, with fiery agony that scalded Shiku's skin in waves that caused her to shiver uncontrollably.
Ineffectual words of protest became even more ineffectual as they fell from her lips in grunts and pants, forming a litany of terror driven noises. They enraged her mother, and the woman began to scream at Shiku.
"Fucking freak! Goddamned brat-- stupid, moron kid. I hate you! I hate him! I hate you!" What started as a piercingly loud mantra of vileness faded quickly into gibbering and whimpering.
Shiku shoved her grubby hands against her mouth, as if punishing her lips would stave off her own pathetic cries. She stumbled back one full step and the monster's blood coated hand grasped feebly at the spot where her foot had been mere moments before. The monster pursued slowly, inevitably. It wanted to kill her, it wanted to make her hurt, feel her blood on its hands.
"Out came the sun and dried up all the rain..."
She fell back another step as the monster collapsed forward in a last lunge. A shriek escaped full fledged from her throat as the monster's fingers curled into the hem of her small t-shirt. Blood immediately seeped through the fabric and smeared against the skin of her thigh. Her small voice reached unholy volume as the sticky heat of the blood seared her.
"Get away! Go! Lemme go!" Desperation fueled Shiku with uncommon strength as she kicked out at the monster with a scrawny leg. The beast took the blow across the shoulder and fell ungracefully into a shuddering heap.
Blood spread from the monster's body in an ever widening pool as it slowly stopped twitching and laid very still. Shiku stared down at what was once her mother. Her mind worried over the details of what had just happened. The tide of blood reached the distant shore where the carpet began. The threadbare shag thirstily drank the crimson liquid, sucking it with an almost audible sound into its polyester depths. The stain grew rapidly along the sprawled body that was its fount.
The scream started in her stomach before growing... spasming... bloating into a creature that ripped itself from her mouth with such force and pain that her throat bled for the next week.
"And the itsy bitsy spider crawled up the spout again."
Rhyme or Reason 2