All This, a Bag of Chips, and a Box of HoHo’s

“Heeellllooooooooo!!”

The sound bounced off all four walls of the room in a hurry, splitting into smaller pieces and bouncing off one another, landing in tangled heaps on the tacky green carpet. The room felt so hollow and empty, that she was sure the temperature had dropped. No more living room couch with the gross brown stain on the center pillow. The movers had taken that away three days ago. Her tiny bare toes ran along the tragic carpet, dipping into the outline where the couch had imbedded an imprint into the ground. It was not very deep, about four months worth of pressure? January, February, March, April…yah, that sounded about right.

Her eyes registered the jagged hole in the wall to her right, the cracked drywall an unsuspecting victim of her father’s fist, as he mistook the lamp’s shadow projected onto the wall for her mother’s face. She wondered why he didn’t just use the empty bottle. A dilapidated armoire had resided in front of the blemish, like lies swept under a welcome mat. Military life was not for the weak hearted, nor the soft skinned. Her mother’s daily application of blemish-covering make-up was a testament to that fact.

She heard a car door slam shut outside the apartment. Her heart began to pound a bit faster, her skin becoming prickly and tiny beads of sweat materializing on the back of her neck. The noise was so familiar to her and her body had apparently decided on this specific reaction. A slight fluttering against her leg startled her, realizing it was her own shaking hand. The arm rose as she studied the details of her ten year old hand. Dirt had embedded itself under her short nails, remnants of the fort she built in the backyard with palm tree leaves, trash bags, and wooden shingles she found in the garage under an old workbench. Suddenly, the thought struck her.

The fort!

Her eyes widened in panic and she turned on her heels, heading towards the backdoor. Ignoring her mother’s rule, she placed her palms on the mesh of the screen door and pushed with all her might, feeling the mesh give way, creating a crater-like indentation that would for sure have bought her a week without dessert.