"You’re a disgrace to this family, my boy."
"Please, daddy..."
"What did I tell you about calling me that?"
A pause, a stifled cry. "But da...father..." A hand descends. A blow is dealt. A child sprawls on the wooden floor, tears pouring from his eyes, cheek swollen, lip bleeding, terror-stricken.
"I...I’m sorry, father..."
"Too late for apologies." A rough hand grasps the young child’s neck. The child struggles. It’s subconscious. A natural reaction. The boy knows whats coming. Should have expected it. Never does. "You’ll stay in there until you learn."
The hinge squeaks. Always squeaks. He should tell da...father to oil it. He doesn’t though. Too much to think about. Everything and nothing. The Universe, his snapped shoe lace, his muddy trousers.
The grin of the light is gone. Abruptly. Without warning. The slam seeming to come forever after it. And then, as it does every single time, the yawning darkness opens its waiting mouth, eating him whole.
He sits. Back to the door, eyes to the floor. Or where the floor should be. It’s like Alice and the rabbit hole, all dark and disorientated. He moves, he falls. He stays still, he falls. Wall, door and floor greet him. Hard.
"Ouch." No one hears. No one ever hears. It must be a special kind of magic door, he thinks, locking him away from the world in a dark place and no one really knows that he’s there.
This was father’s choice of punishment. The punishment for young men. Not for little boys. Never a little boy. Always a young man. Even now. Even when he has just turned six years old.
Drumming his heels, he sighs. Thinks he can see something, something moving into focus in the dark. Something that’s moving when it shouldn’t be. Something that shouldn’t be there at all.
Gets to his feet. Pushes a loose curl of dark hair from his unseen forehead. Blue eyes flick this way. Then that. See nothing – or is it something – moving towards him.
A sound.
A sound?
There shouldn’t be a sound!
He is meant to be alone. This is meant to be his time to think. To look over the bad deed he had done today. To reflect on having the stuffing kicked out of him by the older and bigger boys and then think about it as he was punished. Punished in the dark with an unseen enemy.
If he screams, he knows that he’ll be quickly reaquainted with the solid leather of his father’s brown belt. Crack. Crack. Crack.
If he doesn’t scream, then it might get him and he would be dead long before anyone found him. Before anyone thought to look for the bad child. The naughty little one of the family.
Another sound.
That settles it.
He screams.
Its better to live with a sore bottom – never bum. Mummy says that’s what the east end boys say. Vulgar and crude. – than to die in the cupboard under the stairs.
Small fists hit solid oak. The pounding seems so quiet. He hits harder. Harder. The beat of the terrified drummer boy at battle. Hard wood meets soft flesh. Large tears fall from small eyes.
"Please!" Is his voice so quiet? "Please! I’m sorry! Let me out!"
Footsteps sound. He falls quiet.
"What are you screaming about?" Father’s voice. Cold. Unamused.
"There’s a monster!"
A pause. "Don’t be bloody ridiculous." The door remains closed. "You’ll stay in there until I let you out."
Fists hit wood. Harder. Harder. Screams grow louder. "Daddy! Daddy, please!"
Only silence answer.
Silence and the thing in the dark.
The boy sits, hugs his knees to his chest. Sticks his thumb in his mouth, face soaked with burning tears. He can taste blood. His blood from his hurting hands. He swallows a sob, hugs his legs tighter.
The sound comes again. Closer.
Father was right. This did teach a lesson. A lesson he had to learn. A lesson his scarred hands had learned already. A lesson that no matter what he did, he would never be good enough.
Rocking against the door, Wesley sniffs hard, a sob raising a new flood of tears. He just wants it all to go away. He just wants too forget it all.
He just wants to be good enough.