The following tale of family tensions, violence and a dark realisation won the Writers Festival of Belgium 2024 short story competition.
The smell of dry earth and dirt on my hands, hard to wash off. Nails breaking, a hint of salt and iron on my tongue. I click it, like a galloping horse.
Insects, worms, drinking from Dad's canteen attached to his work bag. That water tastes like dust and heat. I trace a caravan of ants with my finger. Mom is never with us when we go to the countryside. Dad takes me on his scooter; I sit behind him, clinging to his belly. His shirt fills with wind and flaps against my face.
It's usually Sunday, and Mom isn’t around. At the mall, weekends don’t exist. My favourite moment: snack time, chips and Coke. I bring a small rake and a shovel in my backpack. I dig, looking for pieces of pottery, stones. I draw maps, and Dad is always at the centre, pruning the fruit trees to prepare them for harvest. The sun overhead, eyes squinting from the light when it's already noon. I like to watch him. He looks back, What are you staring at? He doesn’t like it when I stare. So I go back to digging.
I have this flaw: I notice a lot. I look and I’m all eyes. And then I like to mess around with my hands, I grab dirt and put it in my mouth; it tastes a bit bitter and salty.
When we're at home, I see so much of Mom when she comes back from work. She looks at me, grabs me by the arms, and then wipes the dirt off my face. It doesn’t really hurt, but a little bit. Then she snaps and goes looking for my dad, who’s in front of the TV with a beer in hand. She waves her arms in the air, pacing back and forth. He keeps staring at the screen. I’m not sure if my dad understands her language, who knows what she’s saying to him. At some point, he gets up and slaps her so hard she falls to the ground. I guess she said something he didn’t like.
My father was a quick blow in my life. I used to hope he would hit my mother, right through her chest, and I’d see the blood. Like in the movies. Because no one really dies, right? My mother always makes him angry, she gets agitated, waves her arms, pacing back and forth. But instead, the blow stopped in the metallic blue of the car door, turned into a nail, stuck there, on my first day of elementary school.
Mom comes to pick me up after all the other kids had already gone. She says, "Enough!" placing her flat hand over her fist and moving it downward, as if wiping something away. I sit properly in the front seat. I still have my backpack on, and she hurriedly fastens my seatbelt.
We don’t go home; we drive to the countryside. My mother never comes to the countryside. I have to wait in the car, and she gets out. I watch her through the window, gesturing, shaking. There’s always so much light here, a bigger light, the whole sky in the countryside is bigger, it hurts your eyes. My father is holding something. He stretches out his arm. I feel the vibration through the door. The blow stops. A pressure in my ear, like when a door slams from the wind. The nail.
Maybe I should start digging, nails breaking, finding worms. Maybe if I dig deep enough, I can hide.
Dad yells words I can’t hear. I see it in the way he opens his mouth, the way he grinds his teeth.I want to draw him at the centre of the map. Hang him on the nail in the car door. With his hat dripping sweat.
My mother is still now. He’s pointing the gun at her, like in the movies. We’ve played with it with Dad, he even let me hold it. It’s the only game he wants to play with me. His arm is fully extended towards her, aiming at her chest. Mom isn’t moving anymore. We know Dad has a gun, that it’s on the living room table next to the beer, or in the bedroom nightstand. He brings it with him in his work bag along with the little white packets. Deep down, Dad doesn’t even like the countryside, but it’s a good place for work.
We need to get out of this Hell, Mom told me before getting out of the car. She made the horns pointing downward, in sign language. Hell is down below, underground. My mother, who can't stand the countryside, the dirt, is washing my clothes. Stay here. How did we end up coming to him?
I’ve figured out what Dad wants. What they both want. They want me to dig the deep hole where we’ll sleep, because they can’t do it themselves. Because night is coming, and you need to rest. Just as I unbuckle my seatbelt, open the car door, I understand. I see Mom from behind.
Even now, as I step on the dry earth, the sun is setting. It doesn’t matter; I have to squint. I like the purple that fills the sky, and the red. The sun is like a stain that’s too bright, and if I stare at it, I get ants in my eyes.
Dad looks at me, moves his arm toward me. He’s still pointing the gun; it’s just like in the movies, we’re all pretending. I take a few steps forward. Got it, I sign to him, touching my temple with my fist, index finger pointing up. Got it. Now I’m going to start digging, like I always do when I come to the countryside. Maybe Mom can start digging with me. Then we’ll go to sleep. But Dad never learned sign language. I always stare at him, and he doesn’t like it when I do. What are you staring at?
The backpack falls. Ants in my eyes, in my mouth, a blanket of legs. Underground, I'm thirsty.
