SYTYCW - DRFAUSTUS' entries

II - Struggle

AN: My second piece for the contest! The prompt was 'struggle' and the song Apologise by One Republic.

Warnings for psychological abuse, physical abuse, self harm and suicide.

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"Not everyone likes us, Marlon. Y'better git used to that."

Marl is sat on the floor, a grubby rag held to his bloodied lip. A form, crumpled and dotted with specks of blood, is in his free hand. He looks up at his father through his mismatched eyes. He wants to ask his father whose fault that is, but his mouth stays shut, still leaking blood. His eyes turn down to the form in his hand. Bold black letters stand out amidst the red-brown stains.

"Yeah, I know, but - "

He hunches over and clamps his mouth shut when his father clenches his fist again.

"So y'started a fight and got kicked outta school," Jed says, pacing back and forth, his boots stomping on the filthy linoleum.

Marl looks down at the form again, smoothing out the creases against the tattered knee of his jeans. "I ain't kicked out; I'm jus' suspended."

With a snort, Jed kicks at the floor - the mud caked on his boot smears over it in an arc. He ducks, grabs his son by the chin. Marl grits his teeth as his father's nails dig into his skin.

"And made me look like a fuckin' idiot t'boot," he growls, then lets Marl go to give him a shove. "Yer gonna fuckin' git it later, boy."

He steps back, lets Marl shakily stand. Marl rubs over the thick scars, some still scabs, snaking across his lower arm. His grubby nails dig at the scabs, pulling them back to draw flesh blood. Jed sneers and gives him another shove. The kitchen counter slams into Marl's back as he staggers a little. His hand rises to his lip again, and he shudders at the thought of getting kicked around some more.

"Yer a joke. Cuttin' like some sissy-ass freak."

Marl shrugs and slopes out the front door. The entire trailer park is painted orange by the setting sun. The sky warps at the horizon, the pollution-thick air coating the sun and clouds in a thick film. Cicadas chirp, and the air weighs upon him like a heavy coat. The singing of insects becomes monotonous as he slumps on the steps as always. He pulls out clumps of the withered, brown grass and throws them across the tiny patch of land Jed calls their front lawn. The crumpled ball of his report follows, bouncing over the dry grass.

A few broken notes hum through the air between the cicadas, and Marl perks. He drags himself up and makes his way over, until the notes strain into a song, accompanied by a husky, cracking voice. They pull Marl closer, and he peers around the corner of another trailer to see another man sat on the grass, strumming a guitar. The man pauses and puts it down, glancing over to Marl, who glares at him.

"Come to say hi?"

"Oh. It's you, Russ. I'll be off," Marl grumbles.

Chuckling, Russell stands and heads over.

"No you ain't, Marlon. Yer daddy been slappin' you around again?" he asks.

Marl pauses, leaning against the wall. He self consciously reaches for his face, wincing when his fingers brush his swollen lip. Russell watches and wipes sweat from his forehead, slick against his fingers. His front two teeth poke over his chapped bottom lip.

"Hm. He has, ain't he?"

Growling, Marl rubs his jaw and drops his hand to the machete at his belt. "Fuck off."

"Ahaww, Marly, don't be rude," Russell says.

He laughs softly, sits, and reaches for his guitar again, lazily playing. The thing is battered, missing a string, the wood chipped and cracked and chapped after years of being left in the bright sunshine which plagues the park. His eyes linger on Marl, who turns to stomp off, kicking a stick along as he goes. Russell's crooning voice follows him along the beaten path, follows him back to Jed.

He pauses when he reaches the door, his fingers curling around the handle, and then turns. The rusted chain link fence is eaten though in places, wrenched back by adventurous children who want to venture through the woods. They are filled with broken stumps, logs filled with crawling beetles and dead trees scratching at the burning sky with skeletal fingers. Leaves litter the ground, crunching underfoot. At least insects and fungi seem to thrive there, as do a few cawing crows. Marl chooses to vault over the fence, rust staining his hands the same lurid orange as the sky.

He walks a way, not bothering to check the snares he set that morning. A rabbit hangs limp in one, bug eyed and stiff in death. The wire coils and constricts the dead animal's neck - Marl feels the same way, his father and family throttling his throat. He finds a spot under the bare branches of a dying birch and draws his machete.

The words his father spat on the way back from school echo in his mind. Worthless, pathetic, stupid. Marl doesn't matter. He's just some scumbag trailer trash. Hunting is barely providing for his family, how the hell will they cope if he doesn't get a decent education? Not that he will. He's stupid. The teachers say so, his father says so. He says so too, when he thinks the kids can't hear. Just like how he punches walls and yells and curses when he thinks they aren't around, aren't peering around the corner at their big brother.

Some evenings, he and his father will sit on the porch and smoke together. There are no words, just silence hanging between them. It's better that way, and sometimes Marl will even offer a tentative smile; a truce between them, if only for a few hours. It's almost a sorry.

"Yer fuckin' useless..." he mumbles as he slices a branch with his machete.

The pieces fall into the bed of leaves, the rings staring up at him as he moves onto an antler. The machete only succeeds in scoring a few scratchmarks into the surface, and Marl reaches up to poke it through a bough of the tree he is sat under. It looks witchy, ritualistic. Primal in some way. He wants to daub something on the tree in his own blood, just to freak out the next person who comes along, but the Christian sensibilities his father has drummed and punched into him hold him back.

And then there's Russell. The feelings which spring up at his crooked singing voice and even more crooked grin confuse him. He shakes those feelings off when Russell sneers or his father glares - Marl has enough problems without some mixed up feelings about the asshole who lives nearby cropping up.

"Shut up."

Nobody hears him snarl, save an old crow perched in the top of the tree. It squawks in reply, then leaves with a ruffle of feathers and flap of wings. Nobody hears the half-cracked, agonised whimper as his blade digs into the flesh of his forearm and traces a bloody trail up the centre of it. Nobody hears him slump onto the forest floor, cradled by leaves and twigs.