He hears her crying from the bathroom; she often cries in there, but that’s not what bathrooms are for. He cries under the thick duvet on his bed, pushing his face deep into the mattress to muffle the sobs and whines. So, maybe you can cry anywhere?
Rituals start slow: awkwardly and without ceremony. But before you know it, they become routine, and all parties involved instinctively take up their place in the function and act it out with perfect coordination.
This specific ritual takes place on Thursdays, though he won’t learn why until much later in life. It goes something like this: wake up, eat breakfast, go to school, come back, watch as Mom grows increasingly anxious and retreats to the balcony to smoke more often than usual, Dad is late, Mom shakes while making supper, Dad finally comes home but smells funny, he is sent to watch TV in the other room, Mom and Dad argue quietly but start yelling eventually, things break in the kitchen, Mom yells out in pain and goes to the bathroom to cry, Dad leaves.
At this point, he always faces a dilemma. Should he try to check on Mom to see how she is doing? Or slink away to bed and hope to find things better off in the morning? He has tried both options numerous times, but neither has ever yielded a satisfactory outcome. Maybe there is a third option he isn’t aware of?
All good things (and bad) come to an end, as they say. And as time goes on, the ritual becomes less frequent, as Dad is seen at home less often, until that one day when he leaves and never comes back. Of course, other men come in and replace him, bringing with them their own ceremonies and rites, but by that time, his attention is being drawn to more pressing matters.
Mainly, he finds out what Dad smelled like on those terrible Thursdays, and he starts to understand the world a bit better. Mom, of course, berates him when she can, saying this and that about how he is too young and how he will damage his liver, but he can easily shrug her off.
Anyway, she can’t really hold a conversation for long, and if he holds out for a while, she will creep back to the bathroom, and he can make his escape. And in that way, a new ritual is born—albeit unintentionally.
Life grows harder then, and food is scarce. He’s undernourished, and doesn’t care—it’s not his stomach that he’s looking to feed. If he can steal a few cigarettes from Mom’s purse and hustle a few kids out of their money, he will be well on his way to a pleasant evening, and tomorrow’s troubles can be left for tomorrow.
However, one day, when he rises from his bed, which has long ceased to support the man’s body he finds himself inhabiting, he discovers that the bathroom door is still closed and locked. No sounds are heard from within, and Mom is nowhere to be seen. The doorknob stands little chance against him, for he is strong now, like Dad, and commands thunder through his fists.
He finds her in the bathtub; the skin on her face is the color of crushed grapes, and thick bile leaks from her nose and mouth. Her fingernails are bleeding, and red streaks are torn across the smoke-stained porcelain. Her torso and pelvis are sunk in, but her limbs are extended erratically, like tattered masts on a ship, frantically gripping for a favorable wind.
Shortly after, he finally finds out what makes Thursdays so special. And with that unwanted knowledge, he starts a new ritual—this one he likes least of all because there seems to be no end to it. He dislikes things that have such finality to them, and he does everything he can to break the inhumanity of this routine.
He discovers other pleasures in life and pursues them each day, with zeal, praying at their altar with veneration—or at least until Sunday afternoon. Monday morning marks the restart point of the performance: the baptismal service. He’ll be made new again, at least for a few days.
About this time, he learns about the carnal desires of men—and women—and before he knows it, he is presented with a white plastic stick that features two faint lines marked across a small LCD screen. The woman expects him to part with a significant portion of his Thursday each week, and he quickly comes to resent the cost of life.
Over time, he grows bitter and tired and old, his back and his head hurt, and the pit in his stomach grows broader and deeper. And finally, he learns the last thing that Dad has to teach him. One day, when the woman is yelling at him about the condition of the boy’s clothes, he pleads with her to stop her shrieking; her words are tormenting him. Some quiet visceral force stirs in him, an unconscious drive, and he decides to transfer some of the pain he feels onto her.
This catches her by surprise; it’s the first time he has done anything of the sort, and she does not know how to react. Her survival instincts engage, and she flees to a place with a locked door and a tight, enclosed space.
The irony of it all is lost on him until he turns around and sees the boy staring at him with a blank expression—terror pools in the black of his big, unblinking eyes—he doesn’t dare say a word.
Time freezes in uncertainty; a new routine is being born, and each passing second shapes its formation. The sands slip through the cracks of the past, where they’ll be lost and unalterable.
He considers telling the boy about what brought him to this point in his life, about his Dad, and his Mom, and how things were not so different for him when he was the boy’s age. He contemplates the opportunity he has to break the cycle, in that very moment, to kneel down and grab those tiny, frail shoulders and plead to the boy to grow up with the power to change.
He hears her sobbing from the bathroom and realizes he needs to piss. Annoyed, he grabs his coat off a kitchen chair as he makes his way out.
“Go in the other room and play your video games,” he says, and leaves.