Gray Skies by Brian Spangler Page B

his father’s side, and smelled the potato juice immediately.
    “He’s just a boy… my boy,” his father blubbered. His words were shamelessly broken up by the effects of the potato juice. “Take the satchel. Take the damn thing!” Declan’s father thrust the satchel from his arms, and it slapped onto the floor. A sharp sound echoed across the building. Breathing again, and with the pin-lights gone, Declan fixed his weary eyes on the guard who’d held him by his throat. More senior than the others, the guard’s square jaw held a pair of lips prisoner, while he formed a cruel smile. The elder guard sneered back at Declan’s father for having thrown the satchel to the floor. With his gloved hand, he pointed down.
    “Pick it up.” A younger guard, eager to please, began to kneel, but was then stopped by the elder guard. “Not you,” he chided. “One of them. Now, like I said, pick it up!”
    “Not our satchel—” Declan’s father began, but then hiccupped, and gripped his mouth, as if to hide a laugh. The elder guard’s lips pressed firmly, thinning until their color disappeared.
    “I can take you both to the detention floor, no need for cause. I can do it because I want to.”
    “Not our bag. Doesn’t exist, far as we’re concerned,” his father belched, his words falling on breath that reeked of potato juice. Declan wanted his father to shut up, to quit trying to prove whatever it was that he was after. Holding his hands up between the elder guard and his father, Declan stepped forward, and knelt to pick up his mother’s satchel. He brushed any dusty remains from the back of the leather bag, and placed it in the hands of the elder guard. The man’s square jaw gave up another sneer.
    “You’re smarter than your old man,” he said, and then leaned forward to sniff at the air. “And more sober, too. You know, I could take your father in, but I won’t, if you get him inside. And that means get him inside, now!” Declan only nodded. When his father began to speak, Declan pressed his hand against his chest, and warned him with a shake of his head.
    The guards studied the satchel, turning it over to inspect the heavy, dimpled buckles. When they were satisfied with what they’d come for, they turned, and walked away without saying another word. Declan’s father was already opening the door to their dwelling by the time the guards had left them. When Declan stepped inside, the smell of potato juice hit him, turning his stomach. Empty containers riddled the floor.
    His father stopped in the middle of the room, looking around, as if he was expecting to see someone. Declan half-expected to see his mother and sister at the center table, or in the nook getting food, but their dwelling today was empty and quiet; an undisturbed space that once was home to their family. Declan’s lip quivered when he saw the picture of his sister on the table. The framed drawing sat on its side amidst empty potato juice bags; some of the offensive liquid ran along the table’s edge, a steady trickle falling to the floor.
    Declan recognized the drawing immediately, and then remembered what day was coming. It was his sister’s birthday. Standing and looking around their empty dwelling, his father seemed to be waiting for his wife and daughter to appear. Declan thought for a moment that maybe his father did see them. Maybe he imagined that they were there, and he was listening to them as they talked about things that only mothers and daughters talk about. Declan wished then, that he could do the same. But they were dead, and the only thing that he heard was the sound of potato juice dripping to the floor. The emptiness of their dwelling was just a reminder of who they once were. A sudden hollowness settled inside him; he missed his family.
    Firsts were hard: first birthdays without them, first anniversaries without them, and first school days without his sister. Of all things celebrated with family that first year after a