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❘❙❚ ISSUE #19 ░░░░ VOL. 4
❛ STEVE FORT ❜┆🌹
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His first five years of life were in a cabin on the side of the road. Just mom and him. He would gather the eggs the chickens laid in a box and fill the water bucket for the cows. There was an orchard full of vegetables and fruits that Mom would ask him to pick when they were ripe. Steve would stay home alone while his mother set out on a two-day trip to sell her produce in the nearest town, he remembered asking her to take care of her flowers. She watered them every day and made sure they got the right amount of Light. Once a heavy storm almost blew the sunflowers away, Steve had to manage to make a little house out of wood, logs, twigs and sheet metal so they wouldn't blow away; Mom's flowers were a treasure. It had been a joyous and difficult first few years, sometimes the crops were bad and they had nothing to sell or the villagers began to want manufactured goods or, as Mom had told him because she couldn't pronounce manufactured: "machine goods". The rain came through the holes in the roof and the ants ate the tomatoes, but his stomach was always full.
One day, a uniformed man knocked on his door, it was an army man! Steve looked at his perfectly shined shoes, with a shine that could see his golden hair. He greets him with a cool nod and walks through as if this was his lifelong home. He was furious, who was that man? Mom gave him a sign, one of those to go out and play and not bother her, but curiosity killed him. In the end he had to obey, he was a good boy... That's what the old ladies told him and it had to be true.
"Who is he?" she asked him when the man was gone and she was too far away to hear him. He tugged at his mom's skirt to get her attention. She had a huge smile on her face, like when she worked in the flowers.
"It's your father, he wants to marry me" she said clearing the round table, she arranged the vase and removed the wilted sunflowers. "We'll move to a nicer house, you'll see how big it is" She looked happy, excited. "What's the matter my son, aren't you happy?"
Steve was a boy who couldn't hide his emotions, his cheeks would turn red when he lied and his lip trembled when he was scolded; on that occasion he smiled so Mom wouldn't be sad. There were a lot of questions going around in his head, a father appearing out of nowhere sounded like ghost stories. Mom had never talked about him and it never occurred to her to ask either, she accepted reality as if it were nothing. Within hours she was living in a huge house, bigger than she could have ever imagined, she was told her room was the last one on the right, perfectly accommodating for a child her age. Dad wasn't home much and hadn't undergone much of a change, still helping Mom as much as he could. He was taught to read and write. He was an outstanding student and was named top of the class. His father complimented him like a general to his subordinate: it was a military thing where they could bond. Steve loved the military, mom told him that his grandfather was one and when he found out that father also insisted all his life that he let him run. He didn't want to sit around when there were men fighting on the battlefield for what was right, and he certainly hated the business of the state steel mills.
