Without Chance

Shouts came in from the big, antique bedroom, and echoing across the house, they’ve awoken a little girl, Molly, who tiptoed to her parents’ bedroom, peering in through the crack in the open door, to spy in on her drunken excuse of a father, hand extended towards a bottle with a broken neck, who acted so forgetfully towards her as if she wasn’t even his child.

The man, Thomas, who was always depressed for as long as she could remember, now stood atop the bed, from which a smell of piss and shit rose, his wife Magda standing uneasily behind him, her hands on his shoulders, trying to persuade him to calm down, to no avail: ‘Thomas, look…look, don’t go out in the middle of the night. You’re agitated too much.’

A thorn up photograph of Magda’s brother flies over her head, as Thomas rumpled it in his hand as he slept in an uneasy, nightmarish reflections of his past, of a time when he did the biggest mistakes of his life. Waiting for the wife, — who had that annoying habit of talking entirely way too much and yet not telling him anything he didn’t already know -, to finish, he glared at her as if from a distance, then threw a pillow down on her head, so that she was squashed back into the bed sheets, like a bag of meat, or a sack of rice, heavily, suddenly and with a bump.

‘Fuck yeah, I’m going!’, he stormed at her. ‘I’m not happy now, I’m not happy with you, with her, with this life. I need my drink to stay sane Magda!’

Molly has once thought that he is just tired after work and that is why he sleeps so much. But it happened more and more frequently that it would be one of his colleagues who would bring him home, as he was lifeless after a night of drinking, and cursing the world.

Gradually, with a sort of haze at first, it occurred to her, as she grew older and watched him more, that it’s the bottle, the misty brownish liquid, that made him either rage for hours, or lay numb and quiet as if he was already dead, that it serves a far more sinister purpose than the apparent calming down of thirst. It happened earlier in the autumn, when he was slaving away at a construction site and she came from school earlier than usual, that Molly chanced to find some empty bottles that her father didn’t even bother to throw out before leaving in the morning, as he usually did, pretending to be a normal man for a few hours of the day.

‘Why don’t you help him, mom?’ Molly asked innocently of her mother months before: A swollen face turned towards her: ‘I do what I can, Molly, don’t you try something and make it worse!’ But it’s already bad enough, so how can I make it even worse? Molly thought, as she poured a fresh effervescent grape juice, in taste very similar to real vine, into Tom’s bottles. Of course she could make it worse. After drinking that afternoon, Tom did not fall numb spilling his bottle over his face, as he often did. Instead, he felt refreshed and apt, something he did not desire on purpose:

‘Puff, this ain’t my alcohol! Who got that shit in here?’, he exclaimed, chocking on the drink. And Molly, foolishly, ran in wondering: ‘What, is it no good. Its supposed to be good, what is it too sour?’ ‘You did this?!, he shouted, as if talking to an equal. ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Molly! I can’t have these look-alikes! Doesn’t make me calm… Now, where have you hidden the real shit?’ Molly stepped backwards. ‘Not good!’ A flask’s thrown across the room, luckily ending up at the open balcony, but skidding downwards, and ending on someone’s head, according to the shouts from down below. He took Molly by the collar, opening another bottle and pouring it down her throat for a second.

You can imagine after that episode she would listen to her mother like never before, avoiding all interaction with the father whenever possible. And so as he purposely walked towards her from that dark bedroom with all blinds of grey color shut tight, she got quite a fright with regards to his intentions.

Picking up the wife’s wallet from the bedside table, and then completely ignoring her, stepping over her by accident, perhaps, still dressed in nothing but his slippers, he swung the door ajar. His kid fell backwards trying to get away from the door, but didn’t manage that soon enough, and was now guiltily watching Thomas’s movements towards her.

‘What?’, he said in his raspier voice. ‘You’re going too? You’re too young to drink, no?’ And then, without explanation, maybe to justify his own excursion, he grabbed Molly under an armpit as if she was a decorative figurine, and not a living being. Strolling towards the exit from the building, he was suddenly overrun by her mother, who stood before Thomas, blocking his passage into the cold, heartless night.

Without stopping, Thomas swept Magda aside, in order not to get confronted and doubted in his intentions again, oblivious to the consequences of his actions, with a dull, benevolent force which cracked the glass filling of the door, her head, and neck going right through it, but he didn’t know that, for he didn’t look back, as he made it towards his car, pulling the door knob, until an alarm came on, because he didn’t have the keys.

Molly’s shaken herself loose, and as the alarm of the little black Peugeot went off in all directions. The girl blushed in embarrassment, for throughout the ghastly shadows encompassing that street, slowly, the extinguished lights, which were invisible until now, emerged from high windows. Molly knew that it was only a matter of seconds before people come pouring onto the street, to see what’s happening. The problem with this inevitability was that her father did not mean to apologise, or concede anything to anyone, perceiving such actions as a form of personal loss.

‘Can we just get back inside? It’s cold here!’, Molly protests, at least prompting him to stop forcing the lock with his foot. ‘You’ll get warm soon.’, a short, matter-of-fact reply came to hear ears. Fussing with exhaustion, Thomas was giving his daughter side-line glances, expecting some sort of help from her. She did not move an inch, even as she was clearly scared out of her wits. No more did the girl view her father as a strong force, rather, he was a sad, incompetent human being who needed help.

He knocked out a street lamp, and the window glass of the family car, so that when he turned the alarm of from inside, the street fell into complete darkness. As he then starts the car by disentangling some wires, making off with Molly, whom he sat on the frontal passenger seat despite her age, to keep her close by, under control. They stopped at a bad place. A bar filled with smoke, red neon lights, and, what Molly believed to be — strippers, in the middle of an impoverished back alley, somewhere where no person would come unless they already knew the location, or got lost.

‘Wait here, don’t move. I’ll be back in a minute.’ He wasn’t. It was longer than that. He didn’t even ask what she wants, nor told her what she would get. Seldom talking, only issuing commands, never listening to others, her father was, molded in a thick crowd near the counter, never thinking ahead of his immediate needs. On the other hand, Molly, if she could ever hope for a better life, had to turn him around to a more compassionate person. And in here of all places, among like-minded people, was her best chance at trying:

Everywhere she looked there were grumpy men with thick eyebrows arguing between each other, drinking in volumes, sitting at tables covered in dents. If it proved impossible to talk to father about the damage he was doing, perhaps strangers would be more helpful.

When the drunkards noticed her approaching, they squashed their eyebrows together, and stared at her with piercing, triumphant eyes, before launching a salvo of incorrect assumptions: ‘You’re lost, girl? Wanna us to take you home? No? Ha, ha, ha.’ Molly cleared her throat. ‘A drink?’, they continue. ‘Come here, sit!’ Molly swallowed: ‘No. I have questions.’, she said, prompting them to go rigid suddenly: ‘In a place as this… anything can happen…’ Realising that she has to pose her question first, Molly busted out loudly: ‘The drinking. How do I go about stopping it?’ ‘You drink?’ The leader asked, clearly surprised. ‘I guess…’ ‘Used to be the Kunzu root in my days used for that’, a very old, toothless man, overhearing them said. ‘Back in the old days. Not ‘round here anymore, ‘haps it was a lie all along, too.’ ‘What is that old man, witch craft your’ preaching, ha?’ The fat drunkards turn to him, as Molly leaves.

Just at his very moment Thomas turned back from the counter and noticed the girl’s conversation with some strangers. This was problematic. It frightened him: As long as both women stayed at home, he would get some money for the child, and he would always be warm. If they left, he might just as well shoot himself right away. With a full pint in one hand, and a glass in the other, he made it towards the men at that drinking table, described a girl with a curly hair and got laughed at: ‘Boys, listen’, the biggest one was saying, ‘I guess he thinks we scared away his lamb, heh…?’

Thomas put the beer carefully on the table, holding the ice cream upside-down in his other hand, grabbed the bearded man by the collar, dragging him on his toes, so that he floated in the air, then going for his neck. ‘Hey man, what the fuck?!’, the bearded cowboy in his creamy hat objected. ‘Where did you send her?’ Thomas, busted, breaking a leg of one chair, while the drunk pointed to the old man.

The grandpa covered his head with his hands, expecting a swing, but Thomas simply smashed a mug to make a point of it, then knocked on the table with his fist, and waited mockingly, sort of patiently until the grandpa looked up. ‘Tell me where you’ve sent the girl to. I trust you’re now wise enough in your old age to know how to avoid violence.’ He bent down. ‘Cooperate.’ ‘She wanted to pick up some roots…for you. It’s no surprise to me why. You seem to be punching first asking questions later. Well, I suspect she would go where they can grow.’

There’s only one region of wide gardens that she may know about… if her mother told her. Magda’s brother, Radovan, had just such a garden. It would be kind to state that him and Thomas weren’t on the best of terms. One an accomplished farmer, the other just as lazy and uninspired as in their college days together. They haven’t seen each other since Tom got married. Almost two decades ago, to the man’s own sister, so that he could prove Radovan that he can accomplish something in life. But after all this time he didn’t, and they were running back to Radovan now, putting at peril Tom’s certainties of warmth, and food that he relied on because of them…

Approaching the counter again, picking up packs, upon packs of cigarettes as the guests here were clearly glad to be left alone and looked away, Thomas looks directly at the employee, intimidating him into not raising any questions about what was he doing.

The employee took a few quick breaths, as if trying to say something, but being unable to. And even though some banknotes landed in his palm, when the man counted them, it was only enough, if one did not count the overpriced ice-cream, which, of course he did count. Instinctively, he reached for the telephone. But looking at the dancers, of whom the police may ask many questions, he capitulated, concluding the crime isn’t worth the risk.

Entering the car again and driving off at high speed, not relieved, but agonised even more than when he came here, intending on bashing the shit out of that condescending man from his past. Meanwhile, the girl pondered about just where to find her plant, and whether it would really help. Walking forward in cold and total darkness, which made her listen and turn at every sound of the wind that echoed for long seconds after it passed, and she scared by the sudden bright colours of grey metal, and yellow eyes of a stray cat that appeared directly in front of her out of nowhere.

The longer she walked, the more the cold night pressed on her chest, the more tearful her eyes became, and she found herself just lost, unable to go back to where she came from, but, unless she solves this, also had nothing really to come back to.

So as she sat on the hard concrete, in the middle of the road, she felt the stray cat to run into her arms, and then spring up suddenly, sensing an approaching mini-buss, jumping onto its roof in time, while the girl tried to roll off to the side, avoiding the buss narrowly, as it went from side-to-side on its small wheels, curses coming from inside, splashing mud all over her face.

Stopping just inches behind the girl, a group of young, some probably still under-age, tattooed, shaven men with cigarettes in their hands and mouths, jumped out to investigate: ‘The fuck happened…, dude, watcha out, yo!’ ‘Ey, Greg’, says someone other, ‘it’s a girl! I suspect she would willingly provide us company on the road-trip. Come, still feel kind of lonely inside… we’ve also got booze to share…’

Passing by on a red light, Thomas got strange looks from other drivers when it came to his broken window, until it tired him making grimaces at them. At one stop he finally decided to solve the problem by wrapping a tissue around his hand, and splintering the rest of the glass off, piece by piece, as drops of blood infested the napkin. While doing this, the distance between him and other cars has been getting wider and wider as he progressed, a mad man behind the wheel.

The small, pale face of Radovan was before him again, unsure about exactly what he wants to do, he poached an old-fashioned, long paper map to find the best way onto the backwater countryside, where Radovan himself was now awake, waiting for a call from his family after a nightmare, in which Thomas did a foolish thing out of passion, like when he bought a yacht before he even had a house, sinking the whole thing eventually.

Sitting in between a group of four men and two women, it was surprisingly hot inside the buss. Molly found it hard to breathe here, due to the smoke that dried out every bit of fresh air by the second. Opposite her girls with short, ridiculously green and orange hair made silent grimaces at the men, as she felt something going down her back…

A rocky, unmaintained bridge shook them and penetrated their tire, leading towards the idyllic countryside of high yellow grass, clean skies and smell of livestock that had Molly looking out the window with awe, and people sitting around her looking with awe at her. Then a car pushing itself next to them on the narrow bridge sent them spiralling down into a ditch by the lake, and Molly found herself lying under one of the boys. Somewhat suspecting that this part was not accidental. Above them, on the bridge, Thomas now took the battery out of his phone, held his map between his teeth, as he rushed through a dusty walkway not even intended for cars, but only pedestrians. Kids who were running to and fro from field to field chasing ducks, squeaked and scrambled getting out of the way.

Stopping just inches before a humble wooden cottage from which a skinny man with pale complexion and glasses emerged. Thomas pushed him back into the cottage and closing the door behind him. He wouldn’t hear a girl with a familiar voice running around nearby.

‘Hey! It’s quite a surprise to see you, brother-in-law, what’s the…’, Radovan began innocently. ‘Molly’s missing. She was supposed to head here somewhere. She ran away from me.’ ‘And you plan to blame me for not taking responsibility for your actions? You are no better than when we were young, you still think everyone else is responsible for your ills. It’ll be best if you just leave. I don’t know where your daughter is. But you better find her soon!’ ‘You’ve scared my family away, man, on purpose! I could have had a luxurious life if I could just push ahead with having a yacht and lending it to rich people. You planted a bug into Magda’s head that that was a foolish idea, and then I sank my boat after that.’ ‘Yes. So I was right.’, Radovan pushed back, smiling condescendingly. ‘Do return to me what I lost. You know why I married your sister, right?’ Tom’s eyes were by now as narrow as a cat’s eyes when exposed to bright sunlight. ‘Let me guess’, Radovan’s voice remained calm, ‘you knew that you would get taken care for by having a family and getting money for it too…’ ‘There was love at some point I’m sure…for the child at least…’, Thomas’s voice has gained a melancholic vibe.

A telephone rang in the back of the small cottage. There was a ray of light directed towards the centre of the bedroom in which Thomas now stood, revealing quite a collection of stuffed animals, a hunting rifle, and a collection of edible plants stuffed in quite a disarray among the walls. Thomas had seated himself on the comfortable white sofa which was the only useful object in the room. He could see himself living there, on the farm, alone. Inaudible mumbling came in from the other room, with Radovan on the phone, and Thomas paid them no mind, until they’ve abruptly stopped, and the farmer came back into the room, looking quite shaken:

‘It was the police. They said Magda’s been found dead.’ ‘What? Why?’, Tom got up from the sofa. ‘Murder.’ ‘Have you told them where I am?’, Thomas wanted to know. ‘They’re just going to interview me as a family relation. I suppose it is an added benefit that you’re here too.’ Yes. That is good. I could have all that he has, if I act in time. The police would not know what he really looked like, right? He picked a match from his pocket. ‘Could I’, Thomas mused aloud, ‘just maybe, could I make the best of it, by… getting… this?’ He stretched out his arms in a circle, symbolically encompassing the cottage and the farm.

Radovan did not move, he did not speak. There was some noise and excitement outside. The burning match in Tom’s hand licked his fingers. ‘Killing another person won’t make you less suspicious, crazy bastard!, Radovan charged at him, but Thomas swung the march, and as they clashed together, their clothing igniting everything around them ablaze too.

There came hysterical noises from the outside, people shouting as the fire spread. Thomas got up, in panic, running into the hands of a police officer who perused him. The other man on the floor ran motionless, skin burned beyond recognition.