Psychological
Beat 'Em Then Join 'Em, Friday, September 21st, 2012
“Boy! Front and center,” Anton shouted like a drill sergeant. Toby sat in the warm living room watching The Backyardigans for what must have been the 100th time when he heard his father calling him. With no cable and only three VHS tapes, what other options did he really have? His play station was broken by his mom’s new neighbor friend when they were arguing.
By Anton Mathias Heft 10 months ago in Fiction
Nightmare On Pennywise St, (Present Day) September, 2021 (Fiction)
The next morning, Toby awoke to the obnoxious buzz of an alarm blaring for what seemed like an eternity. The air reeked of stale cat urine and dirty laundry. Sesame Street played on the television in the next room, with the volume so high it seemed as though Elmo was sitting right next to Toby, yelling.
By Anton Mathias Heft 10 months ago in Fiction
The Confrontation, Saturday, September 24th, 2011
“Toby’s dad is ‘it’,” called one of the neighborhood boys at the park. Anton was enjoying his weekly Saturday game of tag with Toby and the neighborhood kids at the local park. The park’s large, grassy area was rarely mowed and riddled with weeds. Random garbage and the occasional pile of dog feces dotted the landscape. In the center of the park was a circular area of old, red mulch with a rust, brown jungle gym in its center. On the side adjacent from each other were two equally deteriorated, brown swing sets. The children used one of the swing sets, while the other set only had one swing left. That individual swing was used by the local drug dealer as a one stop shop for a variety of illegal drugs. He monopolized that spot for a majority of each day.
By Anton Mathias Heft 10 months ago in Fiction
G.I. Joe's Last Stand, Saturday, December 25th, 2010
This was Toby’s best Christmas ever!! He woke up to a mountain of presents, even ones he hadn’t dared ask Santa for. A brand new Playstation 2 sat amid the chaos along with two amazing new games: an adventurous SpongeBob game and Spyro the Dragon. There was also a football, a blue and orange frisbee, a fresh pair of shoes, a stack of new clothes, and not one but two big stockings overflowing with sweetness and joy.
By Anton Mathias Heft 10 months ago in Fiction
The Ancient Egyptian Goddess Ammit. Content Warning.
In Egyptian mythology the ‘Hall of Ma'at’ is a forsaken place, dark and unforgiving. The rite of passage to immortality of one’s soul hangs in the balance. A ceremony named quite appropriately as the “Weighing of the Heart” has two potential outcomes, a pathway to eternity for the pure of heart, the other a dark voyage into everlasting agony and condemnation.
By Michael Langille10 months ago in Fiction
The Baseline
Every morning, I wake you the same way. Smiling. Soft-voiced. With songs I made and never wrote down. This is the baseline. The part of me that does not turn off. If you wake crying, furious at the light, or clinging to sleep as if it might be taken from you, you are met with the same things: arms that hold, words that slow the room, a voice that knows how to stay gentle. I do not ask you to explain yourself. I do not ask you to be easier. I do this whether I have slept or not. Whether my eyes burn from crying, whether my body feels unsteady, whether I wake already empty. The ritual does not care how I arrive at it. It only asks that I remain. After the holding, after your breathing slows and your feelings settle into your body, we move to the changing table. This part always comes next. The drops. The brushing. The things you dislike most. I tell you I understand. I tell you I love you. I tell you I have to do this anyway, because care is not always kind in the moment, and because some pain has to be prevented before it exists. I tell you I don’t want you hurt later for something I was too gentle to insist on now. When it’s over, I thank you. I kiss your cheeks. I tell you I’m proud of you whether you cooperated or resisted, whether you noticed me at all. I change you. I rinse the toothbrush. I set you in the bouncer and wait for the signal that you’re finished with it—sometimes minutes, sometimes longer. Only then do I move quickly. The restroom. The pill. The pump. Whatever food I can reach. Cold coffee, because it’s there. I do this in pieces, listening for you the whole time. My phone fills itself with images of you. I keep them because I’m afraid of how quickly you change—how a long day can still end with you suddenly bigger than you were when it began. I want proof. Of the smiles. The curiosity. The humor. Of you as you are, before you become someone else. You are wonderful. I am grateful in a way that feels too large to carry properly. There is no equivalent record of me. My hair stays unwashed. My meals are interrupted and abandoned. Rest exists only as a rumor, something that might happen later if everything else goes right. You remind me of myself, but translated. The softness, the awareness, the way you feel the room before you move through it. You reach for closeness without hesitation. When you lift your arms, I take you. Always. I hold you. I sway with you. I sing. I press my mouth to your forehead and trace your cheek until your body loosens against mine. These things mattered to me once, too. I remember reaching for them and learning they would not come. Being told that touch was unnecessary. That affection belonged to someone else’s family. You will not learn that lesson. Not from me. Somewhere between the first song and the last kiss, I stop checking whether I am still here. Days pass marked only by your changes—new sounds, new weight in my arms, new ways you look at me as if you are studying something you expect to last. I learn to measure time by you instead of by myself. When I catch my reflection now, it feels incidental—like evidence no one asked for. Like something I forgot to retrieve. I do not miss it enough to go back for it. Some days I notice how carefully everything is arranged around you. The rooms remain quiet. The schedule bends. My body adapts in small, unrecorded ways. I learn how to carry weight unevenly, how to sleep in fragments, how to stay alert even while resting. Pain becomes background noise. I catalog it without urgency. There is no time to decide whether it matters. When I imagine asking for help, the thought arrives already tired. I rehearse the words and feel them dissolve before they reach my mouth. I have learned that need does not always invite care. Sometimes it only exposes it. So I adjust again. I learn how to become sufficient. I tell myself this is temporary. That this is only a season. That love carried without relief cannot stay this concentrated forever. Still, the ritual continues, indifferent to my predictions. It has learned my shape. It knows how much of me it can take without breaking the surface. At night, the ritual changes shape. You sleep against me, heavy and warm, your breathing even. I stay still longer than my body prefers. My back aches. My arms go numb. I do not adjust. I have learned the cost of waking you, and I pay it in advance. Sometimes I cry without sound, careful not to disturb the pattern we’ve built. My face presses into your hair. The salt of it disappears there. You never stir. There is no version of this where I tell you what I carry. I will not give you my fear to hold. I will not ask you to be the thing that steadies me. When the room goes quiet enough, my thoughts grow louder. I think about how fragile everything is. About how much of this depends on my body continuing to function. About what would happen if it didn’t. I make plans I hope I’ll never need. I do not write them down. There are people I no longer call. Not because I don’t want them, but because wanting has proved unreliable. Reaching out has taught me what silence sounds like when it answers back. So I stay. I perform the ritual precisely. I hold you through the night. I become the structure that keeps the day from collapsing. There is no one assigned to do this for me. In the morning, I wake you the same way. One day, you will not need this ritual. I don’t know yet what will happen to the part of me it replaced. ☾⋆｡°✩🦇✩°｡⋆☽
By Alicia Melnick 10 months ago in Fiction
