Caging Demons

‘Last pizza delivery,’ Ed pants to himself while he pedals hard on his delivery bike, ‘To Paul… on 6 Webster Street?’ All Ed can think is, ‘Where is Webster Street? ’ His bewilderment makes him pause and think back to last week as he remembers having done a delivery to the same area. Ed then notices the rich colours of dusk and the soft colours of pink, orange and red intertwine around him. He ponders about the beauty of such a majestic view and of how beautiful it would be to paint such a glorious sight. But instead he thinks, ‘I should finish up for the day and deliver this pizza A.S.A.P.’ He pushes hard on the pedals to hear the bike wheels coyly grind against the rustic road. The next thing Ed knew was that he was standing on the doorstep of 6 Webster Street and knocking its door.

‘Who is it?’ It was a woman’s cry, not a man’s voice. For some reason, this cry was familiar to Ed but he thought it was impossible to be who he thought it was.

‘It can’t be her.’ Ed whispers to himself. Although, the voice did sound very different, in a way that it was all cracked and rough around the edges as if a chainsaw had destroyed its original, delicate tone. 

‘Um… It’s a pizza delivery to… Paul?’ Ed calls, ‘Ordered one meat lover pizza.’

There was silence. Then a hiss of a cigarette butt burning out. Then a flabbergasted woman standing in front of Ed whose skin and frizzy hair, had the scent of an ash tray. This woman was staring right at him.

‘Ed, is that you?’ She asks huskily. The woman stretches her arms out as if waiting for a hug.

Ed, halfway in between shoving the whole pizza box in the woman’s hands and a second from walking away, catches the sight of a pixie-like figure. It was a young girl with radiating blue eyes, ‘Mummy! Who isk itk?’ Ed made a dumbfounded look while in horror.

‘So, you replaced me with her?’ Ed spits with vehemence, ‘I’m disgusted to even call you my mother.’ With by saying this, he looks into the woman’s eyes and suddenly remembers bedtime stories of dragons to be tamed, and nightriding on Pegasus that roamed the starry skies. But this memory only rouses more fury within him, ‘Why would I want to hug you now when you’re the one who walked away from us? I was happy when I never saw your face! You an’ Dad didn’t fight!’ With vengeance, Ed shoves the pizza box into his mother’s arms and turns his back from her, just like how she did three years ago.

Ed travels back to the pizza shop while gritting his teeth. He decides not to think of the encounter with the woman. He collects a few boxes of unwanted pizza for dinner but notices a sheet of newspaper someone had left over. It turned out to be an unfinished crossword with one last clue left.

It read;

Across

14. Like a padlock, it can be locked and unlocked. But it’s like a scar that can never be rendered from the heart.

And three blank boxes to fill in with an ‘E’ being the finishing letter.

Ed deliberates on this. He wasn’t familiar with crosswords as he didn’t enjoy reading much. But he thought he would give it a shot, he liked the idea that a crossword was like a piece of art. That every word correctly answered, was like a stroke of a steady paintbrush, correctly placed. These were the features to form one whole masterpiece, with every word or steady stroke to create it. Ed reread the clue over and over and thought, ‘Maybe hope?… What about cope? Tame…’ The thought of coming up with three answers was a breakthrough for him, but these words didn’t feel right to get etched into the blank spaces.  Ed thinks, ‘Maybe I can figure out this word later on.’ While he crumples the sheet of paper in his pocket and locks the pizza shop door.

When Ed arrives home, there’s only the sound of snoring, ‘Dad, I’m home,’ he calls, even though Ed already knows his dad won’t answer, ‘Got us some pizza.’ All he sees is a man surrounded in beer bottles, slouching on a chair, in front of a computer screen, asleep.  ‘Guess I’ll just leave some for you then, for tomorrow.’

As Ed digs into his pizza, he cannot but replay the conversation in his head with his mum. The disheartened look when he shoved the pizza box into her arms, and the small girl with large blue eyes. Then a pang of guilt, ‘She must be my half- sister.’

Ed shoves the rest of the pizza down his mouth, with all his perturbed emotions, he stomps in front of a painting canvas and squirts black paint all over it. He lashes at it, feeling enraged at how stupid he was. To act the same way as his mother did. Then pauses and frees himself from the paintbrush to calmly walk towards the sofa. To sleep.

***

‘Awww, aw, awwwww,’

The sound startles Ed awake. He sees the moon through the window, floating elegantly in the sky and checks his watch reading 4.38 am. He turns his head to see his dad weeping on the ground. Ed calls, ‘Dad, you okay?’

‘I miss her Ed,’ As his dad chokes between sobs, ‘but, she left us… All I can say is… I’m proud of you… Ed.’ He says after whimpering, ‘You still stayed strong even after she… And you got a job... Man, you’re only nineteen and… ‘

‘Just move on.’ Ed cuts in, ‘You don’t want to… Me…’ He stops there before he can say anymore.

‘You don’t want to what?’

‘You don’t want me and you living the rest of our life in… agony.’

‘That’s not what you were going to say… What were you going to say before?’ His dad barks. 

Ed sighs, ‘I had to deliver a pizza today. It was to her. I saw her today, and she… she…’

His dad’s face crumples up, ‘You what?’ 

All Ed could feel was a large pit in his stomach, it was a turbulent pain that he hauntingly wanted to get rid of. Finally this feeling escapes, ‘I have a half- sister.’ The words finally escape his mouth, ‘She’s probably two… or so.’  This made his father sit in silence and gaze at the moon.

It was a lonely silence until Ed’s dad spoke, ‘You know Abby was like the moon… We both made promises to each other. You know? Young lovers and all. She got a padlock and written Connor loves Abby on it. Said she’ll always be there for me, just like how the moon is for the night… Y ’know what I said when she said that?’

‘What?’

With a small chuckle Ed’s dad responds, ‘I’ll be the sun for her, just how it is every morning…Then she locked it… and that was our promise.’

Connor stands up to leave the room, but before he does, Ed calls, ‘Hey, do you want to come with me to meet them?’ Ed didn’t need a word from his dad to answer him, only a simple nod. That’s what his dad did, nod a simple yes.

Mesmerised by his father’s story, Ed walks over to his unfinished artwork, and starts painting layers of chains to cage the black demons. Ed slowly paints padlocks securely locking the chains together. A few padlocks with moons and suns encased on them, while others encased with wide, blue eyes, and eyes of himself, his mother’s and father’s. Ed did this until the whole canvas was filled with moons, chains, padlocks and eyes encircling small splashes of black.

Ed stares at his painting and suddenly reaches into his pocket while gasping. He grabs out the crossword and reads the clue again, ‘Like a padlock, it can be locked and unlocked, but it’s like a scar that can never be rendered from the heart.’ Ed grabs the smallest paintbrush he finds. Dabs it in paint and softly writes the letters—L, O, V and e in the three blank spaces and delicately traces over the already etched in ‘E.’ Rich colours of dawn and the soft colours of pink, orange and red meekly enter the room. Ed blankly stares out the window. Into the sunrise and says to himself while smiling, ‘I should get Dad. So we can go to 6 Webster Street.’