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RASPY WISPS OF FOGGY ASHEN CLOUDSEXHALED FROM HIS LIPS. An eternity of stress weighed off upon his shoulders as he lit the umpteenth cigarette, gassing the house with the inherent odor of a smoker. The coughs that wrung out echoed like scraping asphalt, dry and haggard as the little girl who propped herself on the kitchen stool made the flapping sounds of flipping pages in a grocery sale packet.
She was no older than the age of nine, eyes crinkled, squinting and scanning the numbers she had grown up to nitpick for the perfect price of things.
Carefully, the young child slid herself off of the tool, ever so slightly her height until she had reached the fridge and filled a clear glass cup with water. "Here." The brunette offered, standing on her toes to place it onto the kotatsu table where her elder brother sat.
However the mistake she had made that night was staring into the bloodshot eyes of a man who was by blood, her sibling.
"Get lost, kid." With that, he had swiped the glass cup off out of his sight as it tipped over the table, the rim of the cup hit the top of the child's head and the rest of the water spilled onto her clothes with the cup luckily hitting the ground and splitting into three pieces that she'd carefully pick up and dispose of.
However that wasn't her only mistake that night.
Offering her elder brother a cup of water in the first place was also a mistake. He knew what going through a pack of cigarettes a day would do to him, at least in that aspect he was no fool— for he thought his body was resilient as he also dabbled in illegal drugs.
Anari had grown accustomed to letting her big brother make his own decisions as she did hers. They were but two strangers living under the same roof with an invisible wall separating any contact of acquaintancy.
Rubbing the soon to be formed bruise on her head, she made her way quietly to her room, living like a dead rat as she had promised.
Anari, although nine, found herself with no anger to be let out, none to her brother .. and none to herself for allowing it to happen. Young, but nonetheless burned out of any hatred she may hold, gone ever since she realized, what was the point?
She was a singular being in a large world with no specific talent .. so if she were to get angry .. what difference would it make? They classify anger as a negative emotion, yet negative does not mean that it's necessarily bad, and in the long run, positive doesn't mean good.
Who was she, to get mad at herself in a future already decided for her, a past already ironed solid, and a present set in stone? And if she were to have some type of anger .. what was she to do with it except transfer the bottomless well onto a white sheet of print paper followed by the spectacles of lead.
