Three Months Passing

“I’m just glad you’re safe, Jonah.”

Sitting at his dead parents’ kitchen table, Jonah struggles to feel glad as well. The house is freezing, cold in a way that is exclusive to early mornings. His sister can’t afford to pay bills, so there’s no heating. Jonah never noticed because he’s been missing for the past three months.

He’s off-kilter. His stomach twists as if it’s starving, but he doesn’t feel hungry at all. He’s slumped in his chair, like the teenage boy he is. His sister, Marie, sets the table. She keeps puttering between the kitchen and living room, fluffing up pillows and polishing cups in silence. It hurts a little to see her act like their mother.

She’s trying, she’s really trying. Even still, goosebumps blanket Jonah’s arms, the little yellow light above the table is flickering, their parents are dead, and he’s been missing for three months.

“I think I’m gonna go for a walk,” he says.

Marie’s not used to parenting him, so she only makes a face and says, “Be back in ten.”

He kisses her cheek on the way out the door.

Going from the cold of the house to the damp autumn air does nothing to soothe his nerves. How odd, as it usually does. He’s somehow aware of every time his eyes blink, when his lungs restrict and release, the subconscious movement of one foot stepping in front of the—

“Who’s doing that?” Jonah asks.

Who’s doing what?

This isn’t supposed to happen.

“Hey!”

Who is he speaking to? There is no one outside.

Is he speaking to me?

“Hey!” He whirls around in a circle. It’s as if he’s looking for someone that isn’t actually there.

“I can hear you, fucker. Talk back to me. Say something!”

What the hell do you want me to say?

His chin quivers, but only slightly.

“I thought I’d gotten rid of you,” says Jonah, “But I felt you there, in the kitchen, with Marie.”

Is this why you ran away from home? To get away from me? I was worried, you know. I couldn’t see you.

He looks to the sky as if I’m there, but I am not. I’m nowhere and everywhere. His lips twist as he shoves his hands in his pockets an continues walking.

“What the hell are you, anyway? Are you God or something?”

Ha!

No, not God. Just a writer.

As he walks further along in his dingy, suburban neighbourhood, more people pop up. A small group of children kick a soccer ball back and forth across the street — a hazardous activity, though no one bothers to drive down their bumpy one-way street.

“A writer?” asks Jonah. “I don’t know what that means!”

Jonah’s face twists even further. One of the children calls out to him, “Hey, mister! Who are you talking to?” But he doesn’t bother with a verbal reply. He waves them off and walks faster.

What part isn’t understandable, anyways? I’m obviously not God. I’m a writer. Your writer. “I knew it,” he says to me. “I knew something was weird with you. You control everything, right?”

Wrong. I can make suggestions and you can listen to them, though I can’t think of a time when you actually did. I didn’t plan for you to run away. As I was writing, you just ran from me. However, I can make the trees rustle with the wind, I can make your stomach twist in dissatisfaction, and I can make three months pass in a blink of an eye by simply writing down, ‘three months pass’.

Jonah begins to think about his parents, a semi-truck ramming into the side of their car, and being the only survivor. He’s been looking for someone to blame for a while now. First, it was the drunk driver. Then, it was his father for not watching the road. But now…

“My parents are dead,” he mutters, “And you wrote that down. You made that happen.”

Marie put a Hershey’s bar in his jacket pocket, he suddenly remembers. His favourite. He’d better eat it before—

“Stop that! Stop! I know what you’re doing!”

Please sit down, Jonah.

Despite walking in a random direction, he quickly realizes what he’s been walking towards this whole time: his old elementary school, completely deserted on this Saturday morning. Picnic tables litter the playground next to it. His head throbs with new revelations. He probably should have eaten at home.

Jonah sits down.

“You’re a piece of shit,” he tells me, but no, I’m not. You can’t have a story without struggles and loss and despair, Jonah. That’s just how the world is written.

“But you’re the writer!” he cries. “You could bring them back if you wanted to. This is your world. It didn’t have to happen in the first place!”

This isn’t about me at all. This is about you!

“Fuck off!”

You were arguing with your parents in the car when that truck hit you. Everyone was yelling! Your dad turned around to say something and the light had just begun to turn yellow.

“Stop it!” Jonah clutches his head, pulling at his hair. It hurts. “Stop it! Stop, stop—”

The truck driver ran a red, but your father was always attentive. If he had only been looking at the road…

“I said fuck off!” he snarls. “You act like you fucking know everything. You forced me to be alone. I am all alone! And you’re just sitting there, acting like an entertaining life is better than a happy one. I bet your life is fucking miserable. That’s why you’re so set on making mine worse.”

The trees rustle with the blowing wind. Fallen leaves on the cement twirl around in spirals. The exposed sun beats down on Jonah’s head while his five-year-old sneakers let the chill settle into his feet.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Asks Jonah, voice cracking. “Say something! I- I fucking hate you! I—”

Three months pass.

Jonah had gone home in a stupor, angry at the sudden silent treatment. He had breakfast with his sister. He moved his parents’ things into boxes. He signed up for night school to make up for the classes he missed when he ran away.

So when he’s sitting in his bed, eating a Hershey bar, he’s surprised to see me.

“Oh,” says Jonah. “You’re back.”

I made you alone for a reason.

Jonah lets out an enormous sigh, his head bumping against the headboard. “Oh yeah? How’s that?”

The same reason that I am alone, currently. I lost my mother last year.

I created you because I wanted someone — albeit fictional — to suffer, and be comforted, and to heal. This was to remind myself that I will suffer, and be comforted, and heal. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?

The boy sends a dry look to the ceiling.

“Well,” he sighs again. “Grab yourself a goddamn chocolate bar and eat it, man. I’m not your therapist.”

Ha!

Jonah gives a weak chuckle, lazily tilting his head towards the open hallway. His parents’ bedroom door is open just a little bit, as it has been for six months. The room is still filled with boxes. Neither Jonah nor Marie had the courage to go beyond boxing up belongings, so their parents’ room remains as storage.

Marie is playing some obscure indie music in the kitchen, belting out the equally obscure lyrics. It’s snowing outside and it’s beautiful. For the first time ever, the throbbing grief in Jonah’s chest subsides, even just temporarily.

“I guess I understand what you’re trying to say…” He trails off, looking at the ceiling once again. “So,” says Jonah, “Have you written down any struggles coming in my future?”

Of course I have. There wouldn’t be a story without one.

“And will I still have the option to run away if I want to?” he asks dryly. You have an infinite amount of options, including one where you overcome everything. And I’ll make sure you reach it. x