Pursuit Of The Cygnus Thief

Chapter 8 - The Crush Of Fate

“The Crush Of Fate” By Roseyone

Chapter Eight

       A good number of cigarette butts were scattered on the north side of the boulder that lay closest to my property line. I picked up the one that still smoldered. The familiar odor was Marlboro,  easily the most popular brand of cigarette amongst the men of Assumption. It gave me no comfort to confirm what I had already assumed, a man had watched us. Listened. Seen me with Freddy. Seen me, that way. Intruded. The wind had blown in his favor, the darkness had hidden him from us as surely as the moon, full and bright had been our spotlight. Had he followed Freddy? Or merely stumbled upon us? Or had we disturbed him? Who had wandered the desert at night and watched my house while my father was away? He’d stolen Freddy’s car. One of his cousins surely, one of Freddy’s cousins now sharply outfitted with knowledge to sink me and get Freddy shot by my father.

…big difference between destiny and fate Amelia. Everyone knows it but they will swear the two are the same if you ask. Look, if you board a train and get to where you’re headed, then you’ve reached your destination. But suppose you get on that same train and you die when it derails or something? In that case, you’re a traffic fatality. See the difference? So, don’t meet with fate Amelia, reach your destiny.

      My father repeated those words often but until that morning, I’d never truly understood his meaning. What a dim fate it was, to be born in Assumption and worse, to end or become a social fatality within in limits without ever gaining more of the world. Fate was happening to me, destiny was rushing away. I shuddered, threw down the butt, bolted past the shed through the garden and into the house.

      By the time I had showered Matilda was just rolling out of bed, her face was as pastey and bedraggled as Freddy’s had been earlier. She slumped in her doorway of the bathroom we shared. She stared through bleary eyes while I brushed my teeth over the sink. Matilda’s only outlet from her bedroom was through the bathroom we shared then onward through my bedroom. If I ever happened to lock her bathroom door, Matilda would be trapped until I returned.

       The floorplan was an innovation hatched and executed by my father long ago. The elimination of Matilda’s direct access to the hallway assured my father’s continued widower status. He’d thrown a party after the sheetrock that had replaced her door was erected. He'd shown everyone his handiwork and let them draw the obvious implications for themselves. In that moment, with Matilda looking on, I realized that my father had stayed fate’s hand on that singular count. It was a clever idea, it prevented any social pressure on my father but it had come at the price of my privacy and Matilda’s ongoing frustration. Matilda had to live in our house and see my father, her defeat, her desire, her employer and his kid who served as gatekeeper, every single day.

       Against a build-up of worry, I rinsed my out mouth and greeted Matilda as I had been raised: with a smile that usually hid contempt but worked quite well to conceal anxiety. She grumbled at me and openly yawned. I wasn’t surprised when Matilda forgot my birthday, she normally fluctuated between sour and malignant, the combination of ‘piss pellets’ and brandy from the night before had stripped her façade to the bare bone.

“Get out.” She said before I could clutch a towel to dry my hands. I quickly obeyed, I recalled that Freddy’s sleeping bag was still outside behind the old shed. I thought I would have time to run out back and hide it but when I started down the staircase, the doorbell rang.

       Mrs. Abel smiled and mistook my slacked jawed fear, my silence for teenage gratitude and awe. I had assumed she’d come to confront me about Freddy, that the car thief had already called her up, that the circle of gossip had connected, that I was trapped and dead within it.