The Tales of Vast

Chapter 7: Reminder: They're Gone For Good October 13th, 2022

            It was the morning after Rory was brought into the hospital, and Spixter hadn't stopped thinking about it. He even took the liberty of going to visit Rory's house that night, to see if he'd been released; He hadn't. He did see Rei Solace, Rory's father, through the screen door. He was sitting at a desk, typing away at a computer, head tilted sideways as he was speaking to someone on the phone. Spixter assumed it was Rory on the opposite end of the receiver.

           It was sprinkling that morning, so nothing could stop him if Spixter decided against watering Rory's plants. But, knowing that Rory might be back from the hospital, made him think otherwise. Spixter dressed carefully in one of the few outfits he owned.

          He was adorned in a comfortable black hoodie that was once his father's, a pair of tight, acid-washed skinny jeans, and he tied his hair back in a messy braid. He wore the only pair of shoes he owned, which were musty gray, (having once been white when he bought them a year ago), with thinned shoelaces, the same color as moss.

            He didn't own much at all, other than three relatively dirty sets of clothes, an empty house that his parents finished paying off before they abandoned him, and some broken furnishings that had been entrusted with the house. He hadn't had much money at all, and since no one in town trusted him, Spixter had no job or way of making enough money.

             All the food he stole from Mr. Anderson's, Rory's, and the supermarket's garden, he sold back to the kind lady at the supermarket. She often paid him between 5-30 dollars each day for it, even though he normally only brought a carrot, a small handful of tomatoes, and some mint at a time. Part of him thought she only paid him so much because she pitied him for being poor. The other part of him decided not to care, as he was very grateful, she was kind enough to give him so much money in return.

            Maybe that was part of why he was so kind to her and Mr. Solace; They gave him money when they sensed he was low on it, and they were the only people in town who ignored the terrible gossip that had been spread about, in theories of Spixter's past. Sometimes, he wondered if he heard any of that gossip.

            All the money he had been given, he'd use to buy lunch and dinner. He never ate breakfast, as he'd trained himself to forget it in order not to starve as much. Sometimes, he got lucky, and the barkeep would give him the leftovers of the day for dinner, and Spixter was very grateful for that- Except for the fact that Casey was the one who had spread most of that nasty gossip.

             Casey had an awful lot to say, even though he himself was still treated as an outcast, as he had been the last person to move into Mulsberry Peak. Spixter used to beat up people like him for that.

           Spixter folded his blanket by his mattress on the floor that used to be on a bed frame, but it broke sometime last year. His house wasn't dirty, even though his parents left him with it over six years ago. At least, he thinks they did. It's all so fuzzy. 

              The electricity and water worked, even though he never paid the bills for it. It meant someone else must have been paying for it for him. He hated to think that it was Mayor Garrison's doing, and he liked to tell himself that his parents still cared enough about him to help him from afar. He liked to tell himself that maybe someone in town still knew existed, even though all the memories of his existence were replaced by lies. 

             Spixter turned to the couch and coffee table in the center of the room, which had been left exactly as his parents left it before their abrupt disappearance. There was still his father's old cigar and his mother's makeup brush on the counter, that they must have left behind in their panic to leave. Spixter hadn't moved it at all, as the item's presence sort of made him feel as though they still lived with him; Like any moment, his mother would race into the living room wearing her skimpy, skin-tight red dress, hair done nice, to retrieve her makeup brush, before heading out the door for work. In a sense, their story never actually ended. They still existed, at least, they did in this house.