Lars did not like late night TV, when each phrase seemed to be a hint at a vulgar joke or theme. At six sharp, he firmly pressed the "off" button on his remote, leaving it to rest in its designated position on the chestnut side table.
He settles into his nightly routine as the blue hues of a finalized winter sunset fill the vintage space. Lars gazes across the street, for more wholesome entertainment.
Rosie, who has short auburn hair that she wears in tight curls, always smiled when she saw him. Her delicate features were dwarfed by the thick frames of her glasses, one rhinestone shining in each corner. Combined with her small stature, she had the appearance of a young boy, or a grandma.
She was safe, Lars liked that. He watches from his chair, as she busies herself in the brightly lit kitchen adjacent, as she does every night. The way her lips move, he knows she is singing. Her image is glowing in his thirsty mind, making the distance of the street feel insignifigant.
He begins to drift off, the smells of her kitchen travel through the ground to waft up through his vents. With a sleepy smile, Lars imagined she was making meatloaf. The meal that excited him most, when he was a lad, and things were more simple...
"Lars?" a noose wraps around his neck, caught in the act. "What do you think you are doing, lazy boy?" Momma's voice is judge and jury in awakening. He stands on the scaffold, and hopes to make his case as the rough sand of sleep stings his eyes.
"You know who loved to sleep all day?" of course he knows, how could he not. "Mmmmhmm" she grunts, her eyes bulge out as she nods vigorously. "That's right Lars, your good for nothing, sexual deviant, drunken loser of a father!" she spits, right on the floors she polishes each afternoon.
As sudden as the anger had risen up in her, the flood of sadness comes on even swifter to wash it away like a tsunami. Her amber eyes fill with tears that overflow through her lashes in an instant. He barely catches her, as she sinks dramatically to the ground.
The noose is loosened, set aside for the moment. Momma's small body shakes as she sobs. Disarmed for the time, she is warm and smells like lilac in his arms.
"Don't grow up to be like your daddy Lars, promise me." her voice is fragile, yet her reputation proceeds her. He cradles the beautiful bomb with the cadence of a diffusing whisper, which tangles into her neatly kept hair, to quiet the torrential downpour of her mind.
"I promise Momma, I won't." he says to the empty sitting room, still decorated just the way his mother had left it, so many years ago. Blinking away the fog of a brief nap, he squints through the frosting window, as whimsical flurries begin to fall down just to dance off in the wind.
Across the street Rosie turns towards a doorway, is someone there with her? Her shoulders shake for an instant, and she turns back towards the stove with a smile on her face. It wasn't the same kind of smile she offered Lars. He watched in wonder, as she bloomed in a new way.
She laughs again, and he can almost feel it pass the cold length of winter air between them, to echo like music around him. He wants to make her laugh, to feel the warmth of her creamy skin... Desire creeped up his windpipe like hot lava, throwing him from the pinstriped armchair.
He barely makes it to the bathroom before he is heaving his dinner up, and then there is nothing left. Still, his body convulses as his stomach contracts again and again painfully. Squeezing his throat in violent spasms, his mind knows he must purge the poison that seeps into his bloodstream.
Splashing the cold water from the bathroom faucet against his face, he gasps as he feels her watch him in disdain. Nasty boy, with nasty thoughts. He wants to dry off with the embroidered hand towel, dutifully washed and replaced each week with the matching rugs and bathtub skirt.
Yet he knows better, even cold in her grave for over a decade, mother's disapproval lived on in the bones of his home. His haven which would always belong to her, whispers in creaks of floorboards on still nights. "Lars..." the swishing of a large sponge, the nudge against a door.
"We don't need closed doors at night in a Godly home" momma said.
He analyzed his appearance in the ivory framed mirror, a family heirloom generations old. The disappointment in it is as timeless as the artifact he utilizes to scrutinize himself; his watery eyes show the weakness of a wild seed that never sprouted.
No connection to its tree, no love in the earth that envelops it. Stifled forever in a failure that felt inherent, except... he promised her. A weak man attributes his failures to others.
"What do you want out of me Maise? I've done right by you, by all accounts I've done my duty." his voice drips viscous in the spirts he enjoyed after work, "There ain't a man alive who rushes home to be yelled at!" still, he does not escalate his tone.
His big brown eyes look at her in earnest, as if there is some combination of words that will make momma happy. "I brought you flowers, sweetheart." his head sinks before she replies. He knows.
Before he walked out of their lives, dad would sneak him out once in a while. To a horse race, a cock fight, a baseball game. All the places that mom had decided one day were "not fit for honest folks." whatever her determinations were.
It hurt to remember, to be so aware. Daddy wasn't all the things she said he was, but he was enough of them to leave his son behind, never looking back.
Momma's tired sigh is the creak of the stairs beneath his feet, as he eases his way back towards his muse. Rosie is no longer in her kitchen, yet her presence can be felt in the dim glow of an over the stove light left on. It felt as if it were a kindness for him.
Rosie never made him feel shut out, her eyes never did the thing he had become so accustomed to. That look over for merits, each detail noted, and filed away in disdain. She probably didn't keep catalogues of the traits she despised in her fellows, she was too busy reserving a smile for each of them. Albeit, different kinds of smiles.
The broom that stood propped by the rotary phone fell on its side in reminder, "Messes will not right themselves, Lars" his feet carry him to lift it back up. To sway in the atmosphere of the world he merely visited in his waking hours. Each motion provided in itinerary, advanced acceptance. This is the house that allows you to fail. It demands it.
This is my submission for The Ink Well's 90th fiction prompt- Spirit.
Listen, I can hear you already my sweet friends "Grindan, what in the ham sandwich?! This is so sad, poor Lars..." YES. I know this is not a traditional story, with a happy ending, or a satisfying arc. You'll notice I don't write those all the time, and I'd like to explain myself.
Life is built out of a lot of things that we choose not to look at, but that does not make these details any less important. It does not mean they aren't there. MOST people are trapped in some way, Lars is an exaggeration of these circumstances.
There will be almost 2k more words of this story, which will not provide a "happy" ending either. When I complete it, I believe it will be the first piece of work I submit to various publications. It's raw, and it's ugly, and it's real. I chose to share part of it here on Hive, because I feel that being here has encouraged me to take on harder aspects of writing.
