Snippet Sunday #18

Hey! Snippet Sunday’s back too. Here’s a bit of The Brothers Mala, which I’m really enjoying right now. It’s longer than I thought it’d be, but what isn’t these days…

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Aurelius sat up, then swung bare hairy legs around to the old worn rug. He had big broad feet with big square toes, thick hands that rasped through the blonde stubble on his face, and a thick neck red from sunburn.

He pushed his blanket aside and stood, leaving the faded couch behind. His feet slapped on the tile, echoing down the tiny hall to the bathroom. There were drawings hung on the wall there, where they wouldn’t fade, Dad’s drawings of a better time. Aurelius never looked at them on purpose, but every so often he’d turn his head wrong and see Mom smiling, Mom with the comfortable soft weight she’d carried before grief made her angry and thin, and it could ruin his day in a blink.

Today he didn’t see anything on the walls. He made it to the basin, but while he peed his eye fell on the framed pencil portrait of himself and Felix, younger, gladder.