Cali and I lie in the back seat of Daddy’s car. We’re back here a lot. Sometimes we lie in here waiting for the sun to rise because it’s easier to heat the car than all the air outside, Daddy says. I like it outside. People give us free things, even free money. But Daddy weeps. The muffled sobs into Mummy’s cardigan and the lack of sleep are stealing his colour. So, Daddy looks grey. The car smells ripe as Mummy would say. It stings, but I like ripe fruits so maybe it's something I could get used to. The paper cups and bags from my birthday surprise trip to McDonald’s are still on the floor. I miss her. I look at Cali and wonder, when will we go to the Away.
The sun creeps up slowly, mirroring me. I try to peer over the door so I can see through the windshield and witness my favourite part of the day, careful not to make it known that I’m awake. There it is. The fiery sphere rising behind the concrete jungle we used to call home. Shining and lighting up the darkness. Staking her claim to the land she gives life and doing so ever so gracefully. She belongs. She brings colour to the sky and immerses it in blue with streaks of wispy cotton candy-like clouds. I’m hungry. My stomach rumbles, but I haven’t finished appreciating this sunrise yet, so I ignore it. There’s something special about this one. Maybe today will be the day. I feel the sun warm the glass windshield and I pray that she gives Daddy back his colour that the darkness has stolen. But even the light that gives colours can still be blinding so I’m forced to look away.
I hear Daddy shift so I fake yawn in response, “Good morning Daddy”.
“Morning Sweetheart. How’d you sleep?”
I didn’t. “Okay I guess, Cali kept kicking me so it was hard to sleep”. I poke my head between the two front seats and look up at him. I stare at him, trying to gauge whether or not this would be a good time to try my luck. “Daddy?”
“Yes Kitten,” he replies. He’s relatively resigned as if to placate me by finally saying yes to the one thing I’ve been religiously asking for, every day ever since mom went to the Away. I get too excited to entertain the painstakingly detailed question Cali whispers into my ears. Sometimes I feel she wants these questions to consume me. Always questioning, always doubting. Always the cynic.
We’re going to the Away. Cali, Daddy and I. I’m not sure how long it will take to get there but how far would you go to feel whole again. I’d double it. I can’t hide it, my complete and utter elation. I start shaking and jumping with excitement and hit my head off the roof. Ouch. I look at daddy and he appears unfazed. I wonder why but soon conclude that I’m fine. Cali tries to say something but I tell her to shut up. Daddy turns to me looking perplexed and I assure him that I wasn’t talking to him but his face doesn’t relax. I ignore it. We are going to the Away!
My stomach rumbles again. Ugh. I don’t bother calling daddy and I take a piece of gum from the pigeon hole upfront. That’s a funny term. As I do so he stares off into the distance. Orange. I put the piece in my mouth and as I chew my salivary glands are overstimulated and I accidentally drool. I laugh it off. I taste the orange sun bursting in my mouth, these fireworks of flavour that quickly lose their defining attributes are the invention of the century. After breakfast, it occurred to me that daddy hadn’t actually started the car. Had he forgotten how?
“Um… Daddy?”
“Yes Kiddo”
“I think you forgot to start the car”
“Oh. Silly me. Let’s get a move on” The car starts reluctantly so it seems. Cali thinks that’s a sign. We move the car from the side of the road and make our way onto the highway, a rough start but a start nonetheless. We pick up speed and soon enough I don’t feel the bumpy road beneath my seat.
We sit in silence. Then all of a sudden daddy starts with “I spy with my little eye something beginning with the letter T”.
I quickly scan my surroundings and try to name all of the objects in my line of vision. Even the ones that don’t begin with the letter T. “Road! Car! Trees! Tires! Train!”
He interrupts “tracks”. Oh, train tracks. I basically said that so it should be my turn but I guess not.
He starts again. “I spy with my little eye something beginning with the letter C”. I personally don’t like the letter ones and prefer the colour version of this game because I’ve never been good at spelling.
“Sky, car, clay… Um… don’t tell me Daddy” I warn.
“Clouds. The word was clouds.” He sometimes sucks the fun and colour out of the simple things but I know he means well. It's finally my turn.
“I spy with my little eye, something that’s grey”.
He guesses immediately, “The clouds”. The answer was him but I let him have it. The clouds are thick and grey and the sky is darkening. I don’t want to play anymore.
We drive and we drive and we drive. And I think about her. Her long blonde silky hair tangled in her finger as she covered her eyes. Hide and seek was one of our rituals. I was the best at that game. Mum used to run around looking for me for what felt like hours. The trick is to hide in plain sight. Mum would search behind the doors and curtains and down in the basement. I could have sworn she was afraid of that place but she still went down there. She thought I was lost. Tensions rose as the minutes of my absence in her mind grew longer. She'd run around frantically searching between plates and other impossible places until daddy came along. He comforted her. Like Cali comforts me. She cries hysterically until enveloped by dad's warm embrace. He cradles her and I watch as her tears dry. He walks her to the living room where she sits and stares at the tv static. Expressionless. I'm weary but I sit beside her, hoping to see what she sees.
I don’t.
We stop at the petrol station and I am brought back to reality. The familiar smell of petrol awakens my hunger. My stomach twists and turns seemingly clawing at its own walls. It hurts. I wait for dad to get out of the car then I take another piece of gum. He fills up the tank and I wait patiently and quietly but Cali doesn’t want to do the same.
“You know he hates you right, all you do is breathe his air and eat his food. He doesn’t need you.”
“If he hated me so much, he wouldn’t play games with me and not you”. I cross my arms and roll my eyes at her.
“He feels sorry for you and cuts all those games short because he’s busy thinking about all the better things he could be doing if you weren’t here.”
“Well…” I mumble inaudibly trying to think of a comeback. “I guess you’re right,” I submit. Dad comes back into the car.
“You guess who’s right?”
“Nothing,” I replied.
I slid down my seat like melted ice cream and lay on the dirty car floor. Dad drives off without paying as per usual. The rhythm of my heart doesn’t even change anymore and that worries me. Am I so used to this darkness that I don’t even notice there isn’t any light? I was taught that lying and stealing were wrong. But now daddy and I do it with such ease. Candy bars, gum, petrol. Cali says that makes me evil. That I’m not worth anything because I never contribute. I just take.
Cali lays on top of me, making it hard to breathe but in an almost comforting way. My eyes start to water. And I am captivated by the light beaming in through the window. The sun is already setting. So close yet so far. I admire how free the specs of dust look in the light. Floating. Flying. Free. Cali makes me heavy and I just want to be taken to the Away.
I look up at daddy from the crevasse created by the back of the passenger's seat and the back seat. I stare at him trying to decode his facial expressions, they've changed so much since Mummy went to the Away. It’s so draining that I fall asleep.
We go over a huge bump and I wake with a start. It’s pitch black outside and the only light source is the flickering bulb upfront that gives daddy’s face a yellow tint. I pick the crusty boogers from my eyes and in the process somehow forget that Cali is there. This feeling is short-lived but when she reappears she’s a little lighter and doesn’t have anything to say. I turn my attention to Daddy and don’t say anything because my old, sour saliva has plastered my mouth shut. He looks pained. What pains him, I do not know, but he starts to quiver and tremble like one does when they’re exceedingly angry or hurt. He begins to shake his head from side to side and mutter “no, no, no, no!” under his breath. He shouts the last “no”, startling me. Then the shaking stops and a tear runs down his prickly face and falls on his dirty grey cardigan. He re-positions and tightens his grip on the steering wheel then looks up as if nothing had happened and he is completely… fine. This evokes a sense of sympathy in me and my eyes well up. I hug myself and try to nod-off but something won’t let me.
I feel the car pick up speed then it rams into a high wall with black metal pickets along with it. The pickets have crosses on top of them. I’m in shock so all I feel is immense sadness and fear. Cali has disappeared and even though she didn’t say goodbye, I fear she isn’t coming back. I’m beginning to fall into a sleep so deep I worry I will never wake. So I cry. The tears come hard and fast because I know that when my eyes shut, I’ll never see mummy again. I’ll never get to go to the Away.
Raven (she/her) is a seventeen-year-old, bisexual Nigerian writer based in Dublin, Ireland. She is currently a student at Trinity College Dublin. She is a dancer. Her favourite medium is prose. “Journey with Cali” is a fiction short story about a small family going on a road-trip.