flash fiction: attention
toros looks ahead where catin and darna are walking, maybe 50 feet, and he says to his cousins don’t leave me — darna only half turns her head while catin doesn’t bother, nobody bothers — toros feels his ankle throbbing and he wants to stop for a little to just give it a rest but then he’d fall further behind, like a couple times he left behind his old dog ginny back at the farm, she can’t keep up with anything — he says darna and then he says shit, they’re on a sidewalk walking over a river on a bridge, he looks over and he spits hoping the girls see him, highly unlikely, they never look at him even when they are looking at him — the others too, his mom, dad, arnes, sage, all his family members and related family members appear together to do little more than wince at him —
when they finally find a place to rest
at an ice cream shop, darna is giving him faces like crossing her eyes and curling out her tongue, mom and dad are waiting in line tugging at each other and laughing, they haven’t even asked him what kind of ice cream he wants and toros is pretty sure that they asked the rest, maybe they just know or they’ll get him vanilla not caring either way if they remember at all — he tells darna to stop making faces which she hardly listens to because she rolls her eyes until they’re white and then she bursts out laughing — he thinks he should punch her again this time in the stomach or kick her in the knees but then mom and dad would say he ruined the day again — he’s sitting and he swings both of his legs as if he were doing the kicking now and darna looks like i just dare you to do it —
toros receives one scoop of vanilla ice cream from his dad,
he tells his dad, i wanted cherry, and his dad says he didn’t know — toros says, you asked everyone else but you didn’t ask me, and dad shrugs — while everyone starts eating he glares at the melting vanilla scoop, a drop of ice cream edges its way down the scoop, and when everyone else finishes he starts eating the liquifying ice cream while the others glare at him — it tastes fine, cherry or not, so he takes his time while the others start to leave the store — now they’re milling around on the sidewalk in front of the store while he sits alone at the table eating his tasty vanilla, his dad glances at him and frowns —
fine toros gives up
and he heads toward the garbage can and pushes at the little trap door that opens to the overflow of sticky plastic ice cream cups, he turns to look for his dad, his look catches his dad’s attention, and then his mother’s attention, and then he throws the half-eaten ice cream into the garbage — no he doesn’t give up, he gives them what they’re asking for, an act of waste, of their hard-earned money, that what they give to him he can throw away, and he’ll make sure they’re watching him do it — he walks out the door to a blast of heat and humidity, catin and darna have wrapped their arms around each other’s waists, daring each other to step into the traffic, his mom’s stomping toward him, she’s paying attention, she paid attention, she has paid to him some attention, maybe she’ll slap him, maybe she’ll shake her finger into his face, at least something —
Image by bess.hamiti@gmail.com from Pixabay
