Playground

by Aron Beauregard

He knew asserting his physical dominance and threatening them into compliance would be the only timely method.

Instead of being put to death, or left to rot in a cell, Operation Paperclip was born.

The children looked like a platoon of grizzled veterans fresh out of battle.

There was still an empty void aching inside him for something he wanted. He might not have known what that passion was, but he certainly knew what it wasn’t.

His father’s vicarious living and voyeuristic tendencies had drained him. He was tired of being a project instead of just being a son.

“You don’t know what sorry is.”

CJ considered that he might’ve spent too much time focusing on the things that perturbed him about his family. Looking back, they were much better than he’d given them credit for.

Tom sobbed uncontrollably as he reached for her hand, but he couldn’t find the words to distract her. There was no way for him to compartmentalize his feelings any longer. Grief that no parent should have to digest expanded inside him. Drool poured from his mouth as an unignorable sequence of hysterical sobs rattled off his lips.

Something had to give. The aches in his face. The guilt in his gut.

They were possessed by pain.

He wanted attention, but not that way. He wanted to be held, but not that way. He wanted to be loved, but not that way. Geraldine had turned him into the saddest kind of damaged goods. The kind that’s too fucked-up to realize it. When horror isn’t quite horror anymore, it’s just normal. And when awful isn’t quite awful anymore, it’s just life.

It was the greatest gift he’d ever been given. It was a feeling that was warm and wholesome. It was a touch that he knew he'd never taste again.

The beauty of the day had about dried up. The darkness was priming itself to set in.